I went trough the publications about PLE to find a clear explanation of the conception. I found that the discussions are going on several years long. The most valuable article to me was published by the team (RWTH Aachen University) whose studies were known for me earlier. In the article they compare the Leraning Management (LM) and Knowledge Management (KM) models and referred to the new definition of Personal Learning Environment too.
Questions and Consequences
1.Why we need to compare LMS and PLE as opposite models? Both have its well definable role in education. PLE is (will be) a good model for individual knowledge biulding mainly in informal learning. It would be an unrealistic idea to believe that all the people, our students will be able to manage their learning process alone without being guided by the teachers.
2. I think it is not impossible at all to create a learner centred, motivating course model in LMS integrating the newest web 2.0 tools. It depends only on the course design how far we are focusing on involving the participants to generate heavy collaboration, to stimulate participants to take part in creative authoring work. Technically: we can integrate blogging, social softwares, e-portfolios, all possible communication and collaboration tools into an LMS as far as we need (as we see it in PLENK2010 too). For instance by integrating an e-portfolio or any blogger we can help participants to create their own PLE. After the course some of them will continue to develop his/her PLE, and others will not - it depends on their personality.
3. We are talking again about technology without admitting it. All the tools to create an own PLE are not well known yet, and not comfortable enough (The experiences in PLENK2010 prove that clearly). We have excellent web 2.0 tools, but to use them not only the basic ICT comptences needed. The people who perfect in IT, and are fascinated by the new tools will hardly see the problems of others who faces difficulties at every small step of trying to go on with these tools.
4. The studies about the Net Generation show clearly that even the digital natives need guiding in learning albeit they are excellent in networking (they are always connected!).
We are just over on an experiment with Hungarian teachers (http://tenegen.eu/tmoodle, in English http://tenegen.eu/course ), using Moodle. The aim was: participants, tutors, instructors should work together to discover how we can get closer to the Net Generation, to discover together the pedagogical potential of the new technology. During the course most of participants created his/her own PLE inspite of the fact that we provided them with core content, video tutorials, games, glossaries, links, tests and other obsolete traditional learning objects - beside the web 2.0 tools.
As a teacher I think that the different learning models are very important, but the main issue is to see clearly who are the learners, what they want to learn, why they want to learn, and how can I satisfy they demands. After that can be taken into consideration the possible tools (and the best model behind them) which are the best to reach the goals.
On the other hand being an informal learner of the digital age, I want to build my PLE as perfect as possible integrating all tools offered by new technology and I am happy to take part in PLENK10, in the collaboration platform to learn the experiences of people from all over the world :)!
Questions and Consequences
1.Why we need to compare LMS and PLE as opposite models? Both have its well definable role in education. PLE is (will be) a good model for individual knowledge biulding mainly in informal learning. It would be an unrealistic idea to believe that all the people, our students will be able to manage their learning process alone without being guided by the teachers.
2. I think it is not impossible at all to create a learner centred, motivating course model in LMS integrating the newest web 2.0 tools. It depends only on the course design how far we are focusing on involving the participants to generate heavy collaboration, to stimulate participants to take part in creative authoring work. Technically: we can integrate blogging, social softwares, e-portfolios, all possible communication and collaboration tools into an LMS as far as we need (as we see it in PLENK2010 too). For instance by integrating an e-portfolio or any blogger we can help participants to create their own PLE. After the course some of them will continue to develop his/her PLE, and others will not - it depends on their personality.
3. We are talking again about technology without admitting it. All the tools to create an own PLE are not well known yet, and not comfortable enough (The experiences in PLENK2010 prove that clearly). We have excellent web 2.0 tools, but to use them not only the basic ICT comptences needed. The people who perfect in IT, and are fascinated by the new tools will hardly see the problems of others who faces difficulties at every small step of trying to go on with these tools.
4. The studies about the Net Generation show clearly that even the digital natives need guiding in learning albeit they are excellent in networking (they are always connected!).
We are just over on an experiment with Hungarian teachers (http://tenegen.eu/tmoodle, in English http://tenegen.eu/course ), using Moodle. The aim was: participants, tutors, instructors should work together to discover how we can get closer to the Net Generation, to discover together the pedagogical potential of the new technology. During the course most of participants created his/her own PLE inspite of the fact that we provided them with core content, video tutorials, games, glossaries, links, tests and other obsolete traditional learning objects - beside the web 2.0 tools.
As a teacher I think that the different learning models are very important, but the main issue is to see clearly who are the learners, what they want to learn, why they want to learn, and how can I satisfy they demands. After that can be taken into consideration the possible tools (and the best model behind them) which are the best to reach the goals.
On the other hand being an informal learner of the digital age, I want to build my PLE as perfect as possible integrating all tools offered by new technology and I am happy to take part in PLENK10, in the collaboration platform to learn the experiences of people from all over the world :)!
