Personal Learning Environments: using SymbalooEDU

What is a PLE?

“The concept of the PLE is being developed by a loose collection of people, each of whom is informed by the other. Any particular element of that development - such as a definition - has as much of the others' input in it as of the actual author.”

Stephen Downes, May 18, 2007

Types of Learning

• Formal

• Formal learning is planned learning that derives from activities within a structured learning setting.

• Informal

• 1. learning that derives from activities external to a structured learning context.

• • 2. unstructured learning

within a structured learning environment.

What does a PLE look like?

“ The PLE is a unique interface in the owners digital environment. It integrates their personal and professional interests (including their formal and informal learning), connecting these via a series of syndicated and distributed feeds.”

Terry Anderson 2006

This means a PLE looks and operates as the user wants it to

What does the educator do?

PLEs are “systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning. This includes providing support for learners to set their own learning goals, manage their learning; managing both content and process, communicate with others in the process of learning and thereby achieve learning goals.”

Mark van Harmelen 2007

What is SymbalooEDU?

It is a software application that enables learners to organize, integrate and share online content in one setting or Personal Learning Environment.

It also enables each user to share content and update shared content.

How does it do this?

• By allowing users to create and customize tiles using URLs.

• With cloud computing almost anything can now have a URL …. think Google docs

Learning can occur anywhere Social networks, facebook, twitter, MySpace etc.

Integrated curriculum activities – blogging, facebook pages etc.

Collaborative cloud tools, Google docs, Dropbox etc.

IVLEsAll these learning applications and storage systems can be accessed by the student at anytime using a smartphone, iPad, or notebook as long as they have internet access.

Some important distinctions• Social learning is a view on how we learn i.e. socially in interaction with each

other.

• Social networks, personal networks and communities of practice are different ways that social learning manifests itself.

• Social networks (a bunch of PLNs) refer to connections and relationships between people that are used as a resource for solving problems, sharing knowledge and making more connections (1)

• Communities of practice are a learning partnership between people who use each others practice as a learning resource (1)

Bev Trayner 2011

Read more here..

An Overview of PLEsWeb 2.0, PLEs and the future of LMSs