After reading the entry by Graham Attwell, I got a better understanding of what exactly a personal learning environment is and why this collection of content is so important for our lifelong learning. I believe the learning process has moved far from the traditional institution and text book. As stated in the article, many of todays youth pulls information from the web as a sufficient way of learning. I know I do. If there is every a time that I hear something on TV or through conversation and don’t fully understand the concept, I quickly run to Google and search it out. The issue of knowing what information is legit and what is not was very important to me. Even now I have a hard time distinguishing what is useful information and what should be ignored. I also found it interesting that 56% of young people today are using computers for creative activities, writing and posting of the internet, mixing and constructing multimedia and developing their own content. I would consider myself to be part of that 56%. So with that being said, I think PLE’s are essential for lifelong learning. But do we necessarily need a application for PLE? From the article I would have to say no because a PLE is PERSONAL. With any application there are guidelines and rules. Who are you to tell me what I can and can’t have in my own PLE and what you would consider adequate learning information! And besides, searching through different desktop applications and social software is part of the learning process. I think the following quote sums it up for me, “Learning becomes as much social as cognitive, as much concrete as abstract, and becomes intertwined with judgement and exploration.” Seely Brown(2005)
I agree that packaging a PLE would run counter to the very essence of what they are supposed to mean to the individual. Instead, I would imagine some kind of website would do the trick, something like a PLE portal that would provide definitions and listings for all of the PLE components you would like to gather, and from there you make your own decisions of what fits you. Or, something like a del.icio.us account, where you would put all of your personal PLE resources within an equivalent PLE section in your account. Then others could look at this specific section to get an idea of what resources work for you, and what in turn might work for them.
Well, the applications aren’t necessary BUT quite helpful to those who want to draw information from many sources.
I questioned the same thing you did… do we really need an aplication for PLEs? i disagree also and think that if we were forced into a situation in which we had to follow guidlines for our search engines and basic internet operations we would feel cramped and unconfortable plus im sure with to many applications our internet would lag a whole lot!
I think you hit the nail on the head when you touched on about what information is legit or not. Part of the process that we need to discover is finding who is on the right side of information and learn from them, only then can we better ourselves. Because if we start pulling information from people who don’t know jack then what have we learned? Nothing.