To PLE or not to PLE : What will it be ?

[image : stewart leiwakabessy]

With an up-coming NSW LearnScope Regional Event 1 to be held at the super-efficient Saxon’s Training in Barrack Street, Sydney and with an international audience coming on board, I’ve been doing some research based on PLE’s or online personal learning environments….my take.

I’ve written a number times on this PLE topic before but this time round it’s getting a little clearer as to what might consitute a “working” model however disparate the interpretations maybe.

My take has always been that PLE’s are anything and everything that constitutes an online identity, both inside and outside of the walled gardens which try to contain interaction and connection – educational and otherwise….

Robyn’s been hard at this for weeks so I’m doing my bit as well.

It’s a growing concern and a real part of where we are headed in this way-of-the-web so well articulated by David Wilcox, Stephen Downes, George Siemens and other big names.

Educause always has some good information – check out their entries.

I’m also heartened to see that a critical debate is emerging from what would otherwise could be seen as an expert centered top-down approach to the subject. It’s obvious that everyones got a different take on the matter none more so than Josie Fraser.

This is the gem I was looking for – a Tom Haskin’s approach. Something that re-posit’s the age old plug-n-play attitudes so thickly applied to this topic. I’d like to see if Tom’s able to join us for an international panel on the subject – Regional Event 1

It reminds me of the great posts of Nick Noakes from inside SL and within the broader context of the discussion with people like Bronwyn Stuckey or the share-your-shared space “shape” of the flatlands differing to building toolkits and all-in-one solutions…….. but where does this sit with your version of what constitutes a PLE ?

EduKite has an interesting take on the matter.

So does Graham Wegner who we hope will accept our offer to fly to Sydney and keynote at our Regional Events connection event number one.

Priceless : The Cost Of Connection

[image : mobology]

As I reflect on where I’ve been this year and who I’ve come in contact with and all of the many varied online connections, I’m thankful that new pathways and new opportunities are being acknowledge and shared and built upon.

We live in a world that is in hyper-mode, with a constancy of information to manage and responsibility to bear and this leads to a seemingly endless depth of tiredness and frustration when things don’t go our way.

Deep beneath the shores of this digital tide is an underpinning wealth of experience and if we look deeply enough we realize that we are responsible for the way our learners, colleagues, friends and family live and grow and move forward and interpret our obsession with remaining connected. If only we were to spend a little more time reflecting on how important each and every one of us is in connecting others and what it means to be able to speak of pedagogy as the conduit for realising dreams and bringing the world into our work and vice versa.

Our working world gardens only benefit from a little love and care, opening gates to encourage communication and linking beds of knowledge where our only role is to sprinkle a little food here and there to bring it on.

Priceless.

Champion : Judi Gowing

[image : ace connections ]

Once in a while I get totally blown away with the dedication and enthusiasm of real champions who demonstrate a commitment to their learners.

Last month it was Dot Waterhouse from the AMES team and the month before it was Alex Miller with the Learning Technologies Team in  Coffs Harbour.

This month I’m totally stoked with the work of Judi Gowing from the Tamworth Ace Connections team who has just sent me an email;

Hi Alex and Robyn

I created a little ‘masterpiece’ for our mid-session report. On Saturday, I
turned a movie created in Movie Maker into a Flash Movie using Toufee and
uploaded it to our Wikispace – it takes a while to load but I have the
Toufee techs on to it!!!

http://aceconnections.wikispaces.com/Mid_Session_Reporting

I used Audacity to create some audio, I used the Audio from the team visit
in Tamworth, I cut and pasted and fiddled with some audio from one of our
DiscoverE Sessions (it’s a bit dodgy in places!) and put it all together. I
was pretty pleased with the result and hope you are too!!!! I would like to
put it on the Media Wiki but that step is beyond me! Instead I have added a
link to it in Toufee!!

One of my team members has created a class Wikispace and I have too and our
students (Tamworth and Singleton) have been sending messages to each
other!!!! Student outcomes rule!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is what inspires me. Someone who genuinely pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with the tools available with the result being a masterpiece which tells the beautiful story of where the learning has occured and which team members have got the most from the action learning at hand.

This is exactly what we are after……check out the Mid Project Report tab towards the bottom of the Ace Connections wiki page.

Well done Judi !

You rock !