Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) have been around for quite a while in conceptual form but various technology implementations are now starting to offer not only the academic but also the commercial workplace some tangible benefits with simple small steps implementation - but should this scary Web2.0 technology be introduced into the workplace!?
Wikipedia entry on the History of Personal Learning Environments for background.
Stephen Downes presented a discussion on the some of the principles of a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) at the Brandon Hall Innovations in Learning 2008 conference.
In essence Stephen's personal "PLE" is
- a place to store
- a place to write
- a way to stay up to date
- a way to communicate with others
A PLE from a learners point of view is introduced by Stephen as
- a "world" of free learning resources that are engaged with:
- as a "thing" - book; content object etc. (content)
- as events (content)
- as flow (experience)
Key issues in realising such a PLE raised include:
- too much information and need to filter information
- too many sources to scan, and increasingly new sources emerging
- localisation, personalisation and relevance or context
A response to addressing these issues could be around the area of "network semantics" where proven Web 2.0 technologies and practices can be of assistance:
- social networking for community engagement and contextualisation
- tagging (as a lone effort or in collaboration with others) for learning resource discovery
- mashups, APIs and identification & authentication for resource consumption and reflection
Addressing "digital identity" Stephen delivered a presentation earlier this year at the e-portfolio and Digital Identify conference in Montreal, Canada that introduced PLEs as Web2.0 based delivering distributed content and allowing interactive and collaborative engagement.
David Davies delivered a presentation at the IMS Summit on Interoperability Now and Next on "Feeds-based provision of resources: a case study in medical education" - "lightweight RSS for syndicating learning resources" which really illustrates how effective and simple implementing Web2.0 technologies can be.
Scott Leslie has a great collection of PLE diagrams collated for a workshop he delivered that are categorised as:
- tool-oriented
- use/action oriented
- people oriented and
- hybrid/abstract/other
I particularly like Scott's diagram categorising the tools used within a PLE within three "circles of trust" emanating from "me" in the middle:
Tony Hirst from the Open University delivered a presentation at the Mupple (love that name!) 08 workshop on Figure:Ground - PLEs and the Flexible Learning Environment, that explored feeds and presentation from a number of sources into a "PLE" in more detail, with a good The Apprentice winner "that's what I'm talking about" theme running throughout that illustrated a string'n'glue (stringle) concept starting to come to life.
These simple Web2.0 techniques are also being taken up in the business sector and Ray Sims has a couple of blog entries that introduce the inclusion of a PLE into a corporate learning/training infrastructure well:
Of course Web2.0 tools and techniques are already becoming essential in the workplace in many ways and Oscar Berg and Henrik Gustafsson of "The Content Economy" have a great presentation from their "Web2.0 at Work" seminar that introduces communications and collaboration technologies and concludes with a Gartner quotation: "Realize that Enterprise Web2.0 is unavoidable. Begin planning how to deploy effective Web2.0 capabilities for maximum value".
But surely all this Web2.0 technology is scary and has no place in the workplace!?
Laurie Buczek, from Intel, has a great post on "Keep Your Scary Software Out of the Workplace!" that includes a number of quotations from "industry articles":
- Email has no place at work (1994)
It’s clearly used for goofing off. The last thing I want are my employees wasting my money emailing each other. What’s the use case for email at work? What’s the ROI? Who else is doing it? See industry article - Internet access has no place at work (1996)
Giving employees access to the internet would be a massive productivity problem. Not to mention there are huge security concerns. What’s the reason employees should be allowed to cybersurf? See industry article - eCommerce is too high a risk for our company (1998)
Our company can’t afford the risk associated with opening ourselves up to new, unproven channels or even hacking. There are a lot of thieves online. Why would someone buy our products on the World Wide Web? See industry article - Instant Messaging has no place at work (2002)
It’s a massive distraction. Interruptions cost billions each year. Employees shouldn’t be allowed to spend time chatting all day work. Instant messaging has massive productivity loss implications. See industry article - Social Software has no place at work (2005)
It’s clearly used for goofing off. The last thing I want are my employees wasting my money blogging or networking with each other. What’s the use case for social software at work? See industry article
Most of the above technologies have started out as being "personal" but due to them being both effective and essential have crept into the workplace only to be challenged by the same management argument as above.
A possible industry argument for 2008?:
- Microblogging has no place at work? - "What are you doing?" ala twitter is a massive waste of time. The last thing that I want is my employees jabbering on about the little detail of what they are doing throughout the day.
...and the TechCrunch50 winner this year is Yammer!