Blogs As PLE’s
May 28th, 2007 by alexanderhayes
[image courtesy of weblogged]
…..or perhaps PLE’s as blogs. What of wiki’s ?
What would our youngest learners care when it’s all buried in a cell phone ?
I seriously doubt whether either will be of any consequence when my son makes his digital mark in this world.
Are you entitled to take your creations with you anyway when your contracts up as a teacher ? Why bother making the effort for learners ?
For those of you who are averse to use learning management systems or to paying James Farmer to give you alternatives, then why not visit the Higher Ed BlogCon presentation and watch the Camtasia rendition of where James believes it should be going.
The presentation points at the fact that IDENTITY has again come back into the conversational playing field and PRODUCTS that are used to realise learning appears to have fallen back a notch. It’s an interesting notion that students might actually be more concerned about what became of their online interactions and less about what tool was used to be engaged within to achieve tasks …..only to find no evidence of anything even a few weeks after semester re-commencement.
I’ve got reliable feedback from teachers saying that given the choice between using a learning management system tool and a blog that they’d choose neither.
Makes sense as the same argument existed ten years ago only the brandnames have changed.
Peter Allen often speaks of this need to respect the content rights of students, in fact he seems to have dedicated his whole life to the cause.
I’m convinced that Personal Learning Environments are anything that students and teachers choose to use and not a standalone one-stop product that clicks into the existing CMS. Out of the control of IT departments. Into the hands of those who wish to “control” their own data flow.
Small pieces loosley glued.