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Recently a colleague challenged us to do a diagram or concept map of our own PLE in the Learning Design Hub. OK...but what is a PLE? It's a Personal Learning Environment, which I'm interpreting as what tools users are using to manage their own learning (thank you Google). This is an important topic, because as a keybote speaker recently pointed out, the goal of education at the university level isn't just learning a set of facts, but being able to develop a system for learning more AFTER you graduate.
I decided to diagram my system, but I realized that I don't usually conceptualize this as learning, but rather as research. So the diagram below is my Personal Research Environment or the tools I use to gather input or research different topics.
About the Diagram
As a mental stretching exercise, I decided to do a process-oreiented or task driven system. I decided to classify my learning/research into three type - Random Browsing or things I learn while cruising around my environment (e.g. the Web, TV or people watching), Experiments and Focused Learning - which normally leads to a formal process such as a paper, Web site or Powerpoint Presentation.
As you can see I use different tools for the different stages. I use "push" communication tools like e-Mail, RSS and television for the browsing, but combine search with "pull" communication tools when I am actively researching a focused topic. Experimentation is sort of a catch all - this is there I play around with different tools and see what happens. This is an important strategy for technologists and creative professionals. However, it's nice when some of those experiments are documented and published so other people can learn from them.
One Tool or Many?
Traditionally, a PLE is supposed to be a unified tool which integrates other tools together, but oddly enough I'm not sure this is what I would want. I'm happy to tweak with cutting and paste or export tools to get everything to play together.
Having said that though, I do know that I want to be able to STORE everything in one location. So far that has been primarily Penn State PASS and other server space. Anything up on a service such as Flickr usually has a local backup somewhere. Isn't paranoia great?
Why "Research"?
I'm using the term "research" because I think it captures an important aspect of lifelong learning - namely that in most cases what you need to learn often has no instructor. Unlike school where almost all "required" learning is guided by an instructor or mentor, the percentage of mentorship will drop rapidly after school, especially as you need to learn more specialized topics.
At some point, you will have to be able to learn new information on your own. If you are the "designated" expert in your department, you may need to read updated information before it ever comes out in seminar form. Or...you may even need to design a seminar on the topic. And sometimes when the topic is really new, you get to be the person who experiments. Fun but scary.
I'm not saying that formal instruction completely disappears, but it definitely becomes more fuzzy over time. While you could generally trust what you were told in 100 level class as "established" fact, by the time you get to a 400 level class, you likely enter the realm of "interpretation" - either because the data is too new or it's not available at all and the scholars are speculating on what they already know. At this point, you have to learn to filter what is being said and form your own conclusion (hence the importance of multiple sources).
I still attend seminars, but they are no longer the primary way I learn. Often I can find a helpful tutorial online, but this is one-way. Colleagues are also helpful, but alas their time is not as open as my instructors (3 hours a week is still more than what a colleague usually has). In the end, it's up to me to filter my input and turn it into something helpful for me.
So what about our undergrads? I think most educators feel that this is the stage that educated adults must reach. The interesting question is how short we can make this process. The Internet is exposing students to more alternate points of view, but it looks like we still have to teach information literacy. Clearly the instructor still has a lot on his or her plate.
I think we all know that ANGEL had a minor meltdown during finals week. Although it was an unfortunate situation, I have to say I was impressed with the relative openness of how it was handled.
The ANGEL Help team was very diligent about e-mailing whatever updates they could (I'm pretty saw one at midnight). Soon afterwards, I saw that Kevin Morooney wrote a detailed blog entry about the ANGEL crisis and what steps would be taken with a sincere apology.
The idea of transparency is very important to our organization, but I'm not sure you can be truly transparent unless you can share your failures as well as your successes. Even though it was not pleasant for anyone to explain that ANGEL had crashed...again, I think the speed and detail was important to users. It told them that ITS was aware of the serious impact on the PSU community, and that they were committed to solving the problem.
The alternate would have been to say nothing or be vague, but then the faculty and students would legitimately wonder - "Don't they know how bad this is? Don't they care?" It is true that when you deliver bad news, you probably will hear complaints from users and that your reputation may be slightly besmirched, but I think we have to trust that users will be forgiving.
We all know computers die, but it's even worse when computers die and you get the runaround. I'm not saying we have to give ALL the ugly details out, but if something unexpectedly bad happens, I think it's better to inform the public when you can so help people can make backup plans.
I know a lot of faculty complain about ANGEL, but I think they do trust the ANGEL staff at the end of the day to do their best. I know I do.
Based on the last post on the Facebook Friends network diagram, someone asked if I had played with Spirograph.
The answer is yes of course - but now I'm grown up. So I stitch Jean Hilton designs instead.
It's amazing how a good visualization will suck me in though.
My current e-mail has semi-decent junk filtering, but alas sometimes it's TOO good. So now I have a new chore...checking the junk box once a week for real messages.
Today when I was checking it, I found at least two messages I needed reply to quickly and about 5-10 messages I did want to read. Ah the irony - a tool which is supposed to make my life easier is making it quirkier.
On the other hand, at least I'm only exposed to the really obnoxious spam only once a week, so there are benefits.
BTW, I urge everyone to check their Junk Mail at least once per week. I really think you may have been missing some very important e-mail sent by me...
Our senior director John Harwood pointed out that three top schools have had to expel multiple students for cheating on their final exams. He called this spring "the season of cheating".
The scandals at the Duke University Fuqua School of Business and the U.S. Air Force Academy are straightforward cases of sharing exam answers, but the case at the Indiana University Dental School involved students breaking into secure areas to view image files for the exam (it's interesting to see what students come up with...).
- Duke Business School (Baltimore Sun/McClatchy-Tribune)
- Air Force Academy (USA Today/AP)
- Indiana University School of Dentistry (WIBC Radio/AP)
Of course, I always know when the end of the semester is coming - this is when more Penn State faculty visit the Penn State Turnitin site and Penn State Cyberplagiarism site.
The good news is that instructors apparently send students to the Penn State Statement on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty in January and September. Hopefully the beginning of the semester is the "season to snip cheating in the bud."
As a dedicated introvert, I sometime find a lot of Web 2.0 tools overwhelming (i.e. a low signal to noise ratio). I have to confess I’ve yet to bond with del.icio.us, Twitter or Flickr.
For one thing, I’ve gotten bored in del.icio.us watching one new person a day bookmark the same Unicode resource over and over. Similarly, the Flickr corgi tag is no better the image search on Google! I have reverted to Google which seems to work just as well.
The other problem is that effective free tagging requires you to pre-plan your tags with someone else. Thus introverts are required to communicate, taking the fun out of the entire enterprise. And I have privacy issues, I just do.
BUT...I can say I’ve found some Web 2.0 services even I like (Yee-ha!).
- RSS News Readers - I can scan headlines from multiple blogs/wikis/news sites and read the ones I feel are important. More importantly, I can preview a blogs/wikis/news site pretty quickly and decide if I want to subscribe in the future. I really wish all news sites supported RSS or ATOM.
- Wikipedia - Because you can quickly search for obscure topics. Sometimes I do want to know what the states of Mexico are. The resulting text is also more coherent because it’s been edited down to one page by the “social forces of Wikipedia.” And sometimes...I’ve been known to correct a typos or error, and all without having to go through an editorial board.
- You Tube - This is surprising to me, but the interface seems to be both introvert and extrovert friendly. The search tends to be as effective as Google when I want specific videos, yet browsing for popular videos brings up some very entertaining choices. Apparently other people out there have as strange a sense of humor as I do and have enough time on their hands to make a video.
- Pandora.com - It’s a personalized music channel...just for me which selects songs based on songs I already like. You can pick what on your own channel. It’s so personalized, I don’t have to think anyone else is out there (how soothing). The only problem is that you have to rate every song every five minutes which can get distracting. But, I bet someone out there is wanting to share their music channels...
- Blogs - One of the mysteries of the universe is that some introverts enjoy writing, especially if they don’t have to answer too many questions at once. Maybe it’s because writing allows you more time to really edit and ponder your message (I take at least 15 minutes per public blog post). Anyway, I enjoy having a platform where I can post my thoughts for the world (on narrow topics). Also, blogs honor the spirit of Web 1.0 of “If you like my site...bookmark it. Otherwise, thank you for visiting and have a pleasant day.”
I would say yes and no.
Right now, it is possible for a casual user to go to certain blog sites or "friending" sites (i.e. My Space/Facebook) and create and edit a robust site. This is a good development for allowing more people access to their Web space.
But...for the Web professional I think the need to use and understand HTML markup will remain and Dreamweaver is still one of the better tools for quickly setting up and previewing a page, but not creating "garbage code" that makes Standards professionals (including me) get the twitch.
Ironically, I find I'm addicted to markup. I want to see it. I want to control it. Dreamweaver lets me do this. I actually compose HTML content for other tools within Dreamweaver then cut and paste the raw HTML into other tools like ANGEL.
So...although most blog entries will be within Movable Type, don't be surprised if a longer entry goes through Dreamweaver first!
