PLE

PERSONAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

     Personal Learning Environments (PLE) are systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning^[1]. This includes providing support for learners to:

• set their own learning goals
• manage their learning, both content and process
• communicate with others in the process of learning

The term personal learning environment (PLE) describes the tools, communities, and services that constitute the individual educational platforms that learners use to direct their own learning and pursue educational goals. PLEs represent a shift away from the model in which students consume information through independent channels such as the library, a textbook, or an LMS, moving instead to a model where students draw connections from a growing matrix of resources that they select and organize. The use of PLEs may herald a greater emphasis on the role that metacognition plays in learning, enabling students to actively consider and reflect upon the specific tools and resources that lead to a deeper engagement with content to facilitate their learning.
Technically, the PLE represents the integration of a number of "Web 2.0" technologies like blogs, Wikis, RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook, etc.— around the independent learner. Using the term "e-learning 2.0," Stephen Downes describes the PLE as: "... one node in a web of content, connected to other nodes and content creation services used by other students. It becomes, not an institutional or corporate application, but a personal learning center, where content is reused and remixed according to the student's own needs and interests. It becomes, indeed, not a single application, but a collection of interoperating applications—an environment rather than a system"^[2].
PLE puts the individual learner at the center, connecting him or her to both information and to communities to: "... provide personal spaces, which belong to and are controlled by the user, [and also provide] a social context by offering means to connect with other personal spaces for effective knowledge sharing and collaborative knowledge creation" ^[3] Using the term "Social Learning 2.0," Anderson and Dron reinforce this emphasis on community, conceptualizing it in terms of "groups," "networks" and "collectives" (2007)^[4] and thereby achieve learning goals.
Notes

1. ^ Van Harmelen, H., "Design trajectories: four experiments in PLE implementation", Interactive Learning Environments,             1744-5191      , Volume 16, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 35 – 46
2. ^ Downes, S. "E-learning 2.0", National Research Council of Canada, October 17, 2005.
3. ^ Cahtti, A, "Personal Environments Loosely Joined", Mohamed Amine Chatti's ongoing research on Technology Enhanced Learning blog, 2 Jan 2007, inspected on 10 Oct 2010
4. ^ [http://terrya.edublogs.org/2007/04/30/on-groups-networks-and-collectives/ Anderson, T, "On Groups, Networks and Collectives", Virtual Canuck Blog, April 30, 2007, inspected on October 10, 2010

Retrieved on May 22, 2001 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Learning_Environment