PLE is a big everything; don’t cage me in
Sep 24th, 2007 by robynjay
[image: dpade1337]
I’m taking a moment to post about the first of our one day events while the momentum is still there; it’s Monday morning and what better way to come down out of a wonderful weekend of living and learning.
Firstly thank you to everyone who contributed to a wonderful day of debate and conversation. The in-room component of the recordings weren’t great but I hope you take time to listen to our guests.
I’ve got to say that right from the start I struggled with the fact that people even thought we needed to talk about PLEs. The key thing is that that ARE personal. Tom suggested that PLEs are a nothing but for me, personally, they are everything. Life is my PLE. Learning is about exposure to great minds, new ways of approaching issues, making mistakes and learning from them and its about reflection. I do that on the bus reading a great book or listening to an inspirational podcast, I do it in the pub relaxing and conversing with friends, I do it in the shower as I reflect on the days proceedings, I do it when I find time to trawl my news aggregator, I do it when a colleague helps me out in Skype and sometimes I do it in formal learning contexts…. sometimes. Any suggestion that my learning should be contained within a certain time or context is as absurd as trying to stop the tides.
But I think what is a far more serious consideration, perhaps even concern, is the notion of e-portfolios. I would have liked much more time to delve because this IS going to impact on me and on all individuals. Over in the VET pedagogy blog we’ve been tackling the issue for some time - see here and here and here amongst other posts.
I really want some reassurance here!
Something Michael Coghlan said in his session pretty much summed it up for me. PLEs are mine - warts and all; E-portfolios are still mine but are targeted collections of my skills and knowledge, filtered evidence to specific audiences….. They are me sharing who I am and what I am passionate about with the world.
It seems to me we are drifting between two paradigms; poles apart but each equally as dangerous in our discussions on the topic.
Now, we can say it’s irrelevant whether these collections and musings are online or in a box under the bed IF all options carry equal weight and acceptance.
Let’s just assume that what we would want to store in a portfolio is selected highlights of our capabilities, achievements, reflections and life highlights. I have a red display folder of bits collected over the past 20 years and a few items in frames gathering dust in a corner cupboard. Instead over the past couple of years I’ve been using a wikispace with links to spaces like this blog, but I’d happily transfer to another medium if I saw it to do the job more effectively or if it provided me with greater multimodal scope.
Quite frankly I simply would not choose to study at at institution where I was going to be forced to comply with an internal e-portfolio mechanism - what a waste of time. It is quite likely that what I needed to gather for certification and that ‘bit of paper’ might need to be gathered in some way - happy to oblige - but I am quite sure that I would want to carefully select what went into my personal e-portfolio.
As educators, any thoughts about imposing an e-portfolio system on learners must reflect what we know about contemporary living and learning, it must support life-long and life-wide learners, it must respect needs and choices around style and content type. So it’s easy for us to sit back and swan around in our social software/ social networking spaces and say it’s user-choice. We take control, we take responsibility. But what assumptions are being made here? Who does this privilege? We HAVE choice but are you comfortable that the vast majority of the community do NOT; that they are limited to the ‘box under the bed’?
Do we have a responsibility, as educators, to remedy that? What are/ will be the expectations of employers - do they want more than that anyway? How many teachers actually have the capability to act anyway?
So the obvious solution, in a world of credentialism, is to develop a system that people can carry with them throughout life. Let’s just imagine some kind of resource that enabled choice, that offered secure storage and filters, that was life long. Something centralised is put in place that an individual can carry with them through their life as a learners and worker. Teachers are trained in its use and potential and to receive Govt funding educational institutions have the expectation placed on them that it will be used.
I don’t know about you but my alarm bells start to ring.
I have no answers.
Back to bureaucracy…….
I also think we need to reflect on the “forensic ” elements of education….the underpinning need as David Warlick says that students are only there to learn how to be taught….not to learn anything per say only to unlearn their way of learning and learn as indoctrination occurs.
We need to really critically analyze where things are at
[Tom suggested that PLEs are a nothing but for me, personally, they are everything. ]
I think that Tom was not so much saying it was ‘nothing’. ….rather a ‘no-thing’ ……or perhaps even a ‘no’ and ‘thing’.
I read into what he was saying that PLE’s are a generic education generated acronym to explain anything that occurs within their field of reference. I also think that you’ll find Tom would agree with;
[Any suggestion that my learning should be contained within a certain time or context is as absurd as trying to stop the tides.]
I think it’s not so much about nilhism as others would take Tom’s musings rather an ‘every’ thing. …..perhaps not a thing rather an inclusive all thing , practice, understanding, creation and certainly not one product…boxed and labeled.
Your musings Robyn on the fact that the web is one big repository and that it would be bloody stupid to keep as a sector restricting students choice and then lock up their interactions etc. as incredibly valid. I do hope you critically explore the way that this can be taken forward by those who would otherwise box in even the term PLE and the marketise it….I suspect that the next iteration of the AFLF will toss out those that call themselves experts and coaches and bring in those who would otherwise be ignored as they beaver away growing knowledge and not policy and procedure.
[...] Jay has come into the PLE discussion from a big everything perspective. I’m going to refer to David Warlick’s Landmark project wiki [...]
re Comment #2…
Yes of course Alex I understand totally what Tom is saying which is what I alluded to. PLE is not a thing it’s the process of living and learning in the context of life. I can’t even begin to get my head around thing that would suggest that a PLE is a thing at all.
This of course places the responsibility for learning - for professional development too - in the hands of individuals. What I am seeing in education are teachers who want their learning (PD) handed to them on a platter - this is what you will learn, now, and here’s the $$ to cover your time. Wow - amazing stuff.
I posted this comment over at Alex’s blog but the site is behaving weirdly and rather than lose my thoughts (even if they aren’t worth much) and chuck ‘em in here:
Have you checked out some of the postings over in the Edna forums? Some of the postings there make me think that just the idea of “online presence” is enough - too much semantics and old bloke’s egos at stake to properly discuss the PLE acronym. For some, who also like to belittle the discussion occuring on blogs, the PLE is as much a learning environment as the cow with its head clamped in the milking shed manger is in a pasture. (’Scuse the rural metaphors.) Lock the students in place, offer them the choice of hay or hay, maybe some oats and then tell them that they have control of their own learning. Under the tool’s conditions of course.
It wouldn’t be so bad if some of the posters were actually interested in discussion as opposed just imposing their take on things.
It’s a bit like the Web 2.0 phrase being commandeered by an advertising company and suddenly a piece of the English language that had potential and multiple meaning is reduced to the speculating experts POV. If I wasn’t so cynical and couldn’t overlook the commercial links, I’d say that PLE is a great way to make money from education - as soon as they can be convinced it’s a necessity.
Hmmm, I’m still in reflection-mode from the Sydney event, Tom’s presentation and Michael’s insights! I tried putting some thoughts down here: http://edge.edublogs.org/2007/09/19/personal-spaces-thinking-places/
…and still feel I’m in a liminal space with all this!
However, I’m sensing (alert but not alarmed - yet) that whilst we educators banter over process and product, learners are whittling (some would say pounding!) away at YouTube, FaceBook, ‘myspace-is-myplace’, etc, and so I reckon we should be advocating that learners ARE our bells and whistles! Kill the product-process division and get hooked into the policy-makers/managers of our esteemed institutions to heed the bells and whistles in action, on the ground, living and breathing, learning lifelong!
We have much to advocate for in the next iteration of the Framework and we’d better be at the head of the pack, before the ‘business-case phenomena’ drown us out!
Marg
All these are useful perspectives! Perhaps the discord is a timing issue where the process view of PLE’s is coming too soon. To go inside Graham’s metaphor, exploring alternative purchases of free range grazing land is premature if the learners are “pastured at a feed trough”. First, the learners need their rights protected, interests served, and power restored. This may be a battle with legislators and employers looking to control, cross check and credential candidates for employment.
Working the PLE as past-learning credentials/ePortfolio issues on the ground of job seeking needs to come before the PLE as future-learning objectives/RSS feed generating issues on the ground of life long learning. Otherwise the learners are being abandoned and the good fight is getting avoided.
Hi Robyn, I love this post as you so articulately outline the traps associated with ‘the system’ effect that has the potential to deaden everything it touches. Once something is “named” and given fad currency the consultants and vendors rush in to claim a piece of the action- and the danger is that well meaning people assist without realising the losses involved.
I’m hoping that eportfolios could be used for multiple purposes-including personal reflection and recording lifelong learning (at term which has itself gained a certain amount of branding). Would you be interested in being part of a focus group around eportfolios in higher education?
I’m still optimistic- but recognise that others - such as IT managers in big institutions,or accrediting professional bodies will have very different needs and requirements for ‘eportfolios’ than individual people.