STRATEGICALLY DESIGNED PERSONAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS (PLE):

A NATURAL RECIPE FOR ENGAGED LEARNING

Nada Dabbagh, PhDGeorge Mason University

• Personal Learning Environments (PLEs)

– tools, communities, and services that constitute the individual educational platforms learners use to direct their own learning and pursue educational goals

• EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) (2009)

PLEs are built

bottom up by

the student

THE ACTIVE LEARNERHTTP://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=CZ5VY9BGSEY

• What is our role?

– Provide conducive situations that allow students to engage in creating effective PLEs by organizing and managing their own learning experiences

• 21st Century Skills:– Learning to learn– Metacognition– Ways of thinking – Ways of working– Tools for thinking – Tools for working

• Self-Regulated Learning: – Goal setting – Self-monitoring – Self-evaluating – Use of task strategies – Help seeking – Time planning and management

Engaged Learning

Self-Regulated Learning

Personal Learning

Environments

Social Media

Pedagogical Ecology

SRR, PI, IPT, CAI

Broadcast Technologies

Direct InstructionIsolated Curricular UnitsDrill & Practice

Pedagogical Ecology

ConstructivismCoP, Knowledge NetworksDistributed Learning

Internet Based TechnologiesICT (Web 1.0)

CollaborationExplorationSocial negotiation

Pedagogical Ecology

Informal LearningPLEs, SLEs

Social Media (Web 2.0)

Blogging, MicrobloggingSocial Tagging

Pedagogical Ecology

Learning Theories Pedagogical Models

Learning Technologies

Learning PracticesSocial Interactions

Phases Social Computing Context Examples

Pre-Internet

(pre 1969)

Thinking MachinesProto- Learning NetworksComputer-based conferencingHypertext

Memex (Vannevar Bush) oNLineSystem (NLS) (Englbart) Galactic Network (Licklider) Xanadu (Nelson)

Internet

(1969-1992)

Computer-Mediated CommunicationNetworked Supported CollaborationPersonal Computing EnvironmentGroupware

ARPANET USEnet Virtual Communities (The Well) EIES (Electronic Information Exchange System)

(Groupware – 1977) CSCW (computer supported cooperative work)

Web 1.0

(1992-2000)

World Wide WebGroupware-based social interactionOpen source movementCommunities of practice

CSILE (Knowledge Forum) CSCL MUDs/MOOs Knowledge Webs

Web 2.0

(post 2000)

Social Software PlatformsCollective intelligenceNetwork effectUser-generated contentArchitecture of participation

Wikipedia Virtual Worlds (Second Life) Experience & Resource sharing tools Folksonomies Social Bookmarking RSS/XML

• Social media

– a set of networking tools premised on Web 2.0 technologies and enabling the design of Personal Learning Environments or Experiences (PLEs) and Social Learning Environments or Experiences (SLEs) in which learning activities that emphasize learning how to learn are supported, and opportunities for personalizing, contextualizing, globalizing, and socializing education are optimized

Level 1: Personal Information Management

Level 2: Social Interaction and Collaboration

Level 3: Information Aggregation and Management

• Grounded in the pedagogical ecology (learning affordances) of social media

• Applied, user- and use-oriented

• Based on a continuum of social media use in which the user can activate the features of the tool to enable the degree of interaction and sharing desired and/or required for learning

Dabbagh © 2009

3-Level Framework of Social Media Use

Personal information management

Social interaction and collaboration

Information aggregation and management

Synthesize, aggregate

informationGreater control of

the PLECustomizing and

personalizing the PLE around their

learning goalsSelf-reflection

Self-evaluationManage their own

meaning makingAdapting

Level 3

Communication, social interaction,

collaborationActivate sharing or

networking features of the tool

Informal learning community

Extending the PLE to a social learning space

Self-monitoring, help-seeking, task

strategies

Level 2

Manage private information

Personal productivityPassive, personal use

Self-generating content

Private learning space

Goal setting, planning

Level 1

Level 3

Students activate wiki features turning the private

space into a collaborative

Instructors can encourage students to form

independent groups using wikis to work on

collaborative projects

Collaborative space naturally progresses to a higher level

of experience sharing and content aggregation

Level 2

Students can self manage their

documents online

They do not necessarily have to

share their work

Level 1

• Testing the three-level framework– N=87– Participants did use social media progressively based on the levels of

the framework• Blogs, microblogs, social bookmarking tools, heavily used in level 1 • Wikis, cloud based technologies, and SNS were heavily used in level 2

– Social media more useful in supporting goal setting, task strategies, self-monitoring, help-seeking

– Not as useful in supporting time planning, self-reflection, and self-evaluation

• Social media can facilitate the creation of PLEs that help learners aggregate and share the results of learning achievements, participate in collective knowledge generation, and manage their own meaning making

• PLEs can serve as platforms for both integrating formal and informal learning and fostering self-regulated learning in higher education contexts

• PLEs empower students to take charge of their own learning prompting them to select tools and resources to create, organize and package learning content to learn effectively and efficiently

• PLEs are inherently self-directed placing the responsibility for organizing learning on the individual

Engaged Learning

• Thank you!• ndabbagh@gmu.edu