Hot theme 04: Personal Learning Environments

This week’s hot theme is Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). They have been bubbling under for some time, but have now hit main stream discussion.

The result has been the usual confusion of semantic squabbling, evangelism and dogmatism that accompanies that strange moment, the tipping point when a buzz phrase enters the collective consciousness.

More on that later. First – just what are PLEs, and what are they good for?

The shortest definition is that they are ‘systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning’ (Wikipedia definition – good for background and general history ). However, that doesn’t capture the reason for popularity of PLEs, and some of the debate around them.

PLEs’ sudden popularity springs from a desire to avoid the centralisation of learning epitomised by the Learning Management System. We have all heard LMS horror stories, of low participation and feeble content designed at a distance. The PLE is supposed to be a way for users to put themselves in control of learning, from the selection of content, to the choice of subject matter experts, to the delivery mechanism.

However, this anti-centrist approach does not mean that PLEs are against technology or the aggregation of information. Sims Personal Learning Connections points out that the workforce is increasingly mobile, living longer and more likely to change occupation during its working life. As a result, some form of tracking and on-going support of life-long learning is essential in support.

Sims cites the report on PLEs from CETIS (that’s the Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards), which is pretty dry stuff, but which also focuses on the shift from the centre to the user:

The essence of our characterisation of the PLE highlights its change in the locus of control of technology from institution to learner, and therefore this centralised coordination of technology by institutions should be re-examined in the light of the arguments we put forward for the PLE.

See what I mean about dry? Meanwhile, Jay Cross asks for some common sense on PLEs:

The concept is right but the terminology is wrong. PLEs aren’t P, L, or E.

In an admirably concise posting, he argues that PLEs sum up a way of learning that is not really personal (because many of the technologies are shared); it is not purely concerned with learning (that is one of the things that happens on the way) and is not a specialised environment, because really it refers to the web, the workplace, the home, wherever you happen to be learning.

Clive Shepherd on PLEs picks up this thought in a dialogue with Donald Clark and questions whether the PLE offers enough to be considered a stand alone entity. Although positive about PLEs in his own posting, here Donald comments:

The PLE debate seems like the dying embers of the LMS debate.

Going deeper, Stephen Downes struck a very positive attitude in this 57-slide presentation on PLEs to the Centre for Social Innovation, Vienna, Austria, almost a year ago. In it, he draws distinctions between old and new media, pointing out that while traditional media describe the world, new media represent it:

A website is not a person’s description of themselves … It is a presentation of themselves through their network.

Again, Downes shows PLEs as a reaction against centralized, institutionalised learning systems and methods, but does it in a very approachable way. Normally I am not a fan of trying to interpret slide decks without the author, but this one is worth a viewing. However the question remains – what if everything Stephen says is true, but he is describing not the attributes of a single technology called a PLE, but just the way a very interconnected person lives these days? (Something akin to Jay Cross’s approach.)

Of course the PLE discussion is not really new, it’s been bubbling under at least since January 2006 (see Terry Anderson’s seminal post). The real take off (in discussion, if not implementation) has come over the past six months, as Web 2.0 tools (especially blogging tools) have become more widespread and easier to use. This has enabled people both to do a bit of PLE-ing, and to talk about it much more.

Michele Martin has an excellent post on how – practically speaking – she has organised her own PLE.

My own opinion is that PLE is like a lot of terms that gain currency suddenly. People pick it up because it seems a good label to identify something that’s happening but which they hadn’t quite got hold of before. Of course it means different things to different people, but there’s enough commonality for people to feel they’re travelling in the same direction.

What happens next? Inevitably we will have semantic disputes as different definitions of PLE are taken up by different parties. Schisms always follow semantics, and we might even see some fireworks on the blogosphere.

Evangelists will make extravagant claims for PLEs. Some will be driven by academic conviction, others by alignment to a vendor providing a particular solution.

And there will be the practitioners. They will quietly pursue their activities, regardless of how well they fit any of the different definitions of PLE.

And finally, the dust will settle. We may never reach an agreed definition of a PLE (did we ever with e-learning?) but we will have a better idea of what it is, and what it promises, and the quiet practitioners who have actually been doing it all along will present us with some pretty extraordinary tales of success.