My Personal Learning Environment

When I first saw the terms VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) and PLE (Personal Learning Environment) I thought myself a novice in unfamiliar territory. PLE sounded the more relate-able, whereas VLE sounded like another futuristic sci-fi term as any term with Virtual affixed to is is wont to do.

Virtual Gardening sounds awesome (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

When it was mentioned on the Moodle that we should all be familiar with VLEs and the more modern PLE's might be more tricky I started to worry.

 However, the 'reality' of the situation soon dawned on me and as with everything so far on the course, the technology exists in our time, I've just been perceiving it differently. In fact, I was currently using a VLE at the time I was panicking about what a VLE was.

Yes, our own Moodle can be considered a VLE, As put by Weller (2007:16) 

"A VLE can be viewed as a useful collection of e-learning tools in a package that allows a common interface and sharing of data between the tools."

But then what of these newer PLE's? Well in truth, your PLE is exactly what it says it is, your Personal Learning Environment. How you interact with everything around you in order to learn. Essentially, everybody already has a PLE and our task for the week was to draw our own PLE. I drew mine using the mindmapping tool app.mindmapmaker.org and you can see my full creation here.

As you can see from the selected screenshot, it was quite a daunting task to try and make note of all the different ways and manners in which I learn and condense them down into various categories. As such, it is a never-ending task and could be adding to it forever more.

The four main branches of my PLE I chose were as follows:

1. Formal Study - an obvious one really. I used this node for instances where I actively was trying to learn something, such as studying for this course, opening a Korean textbook, or using a vocabulary learning app such as Memrise. 
2. Informal Study - this was for the not so obvious times where I learn something, such as learning a fact on filmography while reading an article about Steven Spielberg or seeing the name of a new spice while looking up a cooking recipe.
3. Personal Experience - as the old adage goes 'learn by doing'. Some things have to be experienced to be truly understood. What does a jalapeno pepper taste like? Just how riled up does my friend get during a game of soccer? What is the name of that girl over there?
4. Self Reflection - This section is kind of an anomaly, while the other nodes are fairly self explanatory this is difficult to explain. Are you really learning if the information is already inside your head? In my opinion, it is important to reflect upon what you have done, are doing and will do? Asking questions of yourself may lead to different conclusions. Moving to Korea, applying for my Masters Degree, all the big events in my life required asking myself a lot of questions and thus must be included in my learning environment.

As noted in the tutorial, at the centre is says 'MY PLE' and not simply 'Me' When I began this, I was thinking about all the different ways in which I learn, and as such was more of a peripheral figure in the context of the diagram though on closer inspection, and using some self-reflection noted in the diagram, it is clear to me that I am the centre of the PLE, though I am not sure which way the information is flowing in the chart. Am I seeking out and learning these things and choosing these methods myself? Or am I simply caught up in the middle of all this information freely available to me in today's society?


I really enjoyed making my PLE, seeing what others had made and discussing them in the tutorial. It was really interesting to see what the others had come up with.

However, while PLE's themselves may not be something new to us, the novel approach of creating a PLE utilising technology in order to study seems fascinating and something I wish I had the opportunity to explore when I was in school.

In such a learning Environment, the student is in control of what e-learning tools they will use to help them on their quest for knowledge - various websites, blogs, news feeds. podcasts etc., instead of been spoon fed information from the teacher and as such their course is not limited to what the teacher wants to tell them or even not limited to what the teacher knows, with the ability to get in touch with experts in various fields. As Drexler ( 2010:26) notes

"The ability to locate expertise beyond the classroom walls is one powerful benefit of a well-structured personal learning environment."

It also denotes a major divergence in the skill set required to learn in these environments. It is quite a shift from the passive leaning environment of the traditional classroom to having to create your own learning space and become responsible for not just what you will learn, but how. As mentioned in our tutorials, the is a certain safety to following a set pedagogy, be it textbook or VLE and it may be overwhelming for some to be plunged into the ever-expanding pool of information that is the internet. However, as Cousins (Land, R. & Bayne, S. 2005: 120) argues

"Without such exploration, the default position will be inherently conservative."

I certainly hadn't put too much thought into my PLE before this course and the various formal and informal sources of information and knowledge that I acquire my learning from. I am eager to better understand this model and see how it can be utilised in the classroom for more effective learning scenarios. However, it does seem to me that in order for a PLE to be effective, the student needs to be highly motivated themselves and coupled with a rather unknown quantity of time and energy expended in the PLE, is it really an efficient and sustainable way of studying?

Bibliography:

1.  Cousins, G., Learning from cyberspace in Land, R. and Bayne, S. (eds) Education in cyberspace. London, Routledge Falmer. 2005. p.11-129.
2.  Drexler, W. (2010) The networked student model for construction of personal learning environments: Balancing teacher control and student autonomy. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26. 3. pp. 369-385
3. Weller, M. (2007) Virtual Learning environments: Using choosing and developing your VLE. Routledge: London and New York.