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Thursday 29 March 2012

My Personal Learning Environment

I'm currently preparing a presentation for the ASC / CHOBE Conference at Birmingham City University in April. In the presentation I talk about the potential power of Web 2.0 technologies in construction education and I make reference to personal learning environments. I had a go at defining my own personal learning environment almost two years ago as part of my OU studies, but I thought it was time I updated it. So here's my latest effort:


Three things really strike me in comparing this version to the one from 2010. Firstly, the sheer increase in the number of applications and devices I am using, and the fact that I can access virtually all of the applications from all of the devices, and in most cases they are all synchronised. Secondly, I have introduced graphical references to 'the cloud'. This is to represent the fact that, increasingly, all the data I am accessing is being stored remotely. I still keep files on my own devices, but a lot of the stuff I access on a daily basis is held elsewhere. Finally, one of the most significant changes is that I have removed any distinction between different aspects of my life. Thus, I haven't really distinguished between work-based applications, personal stuff, and those aspects related to my studies. I'm not sure whether this is a positive change, but I have definitely experienced a blurring of the boundaries between different aspects of my digital life!

3 comments:

  1. Hello Tony, I was one of your colleagues on H800, and I also find that a lot of the ideas from that course are worth revisiting periodically.

    I'd agree that our identities depend less on membership of specific institutions like workplaces, political parties, families as the "information economy" gains pace. Wishing you a successful conference!

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  2. Hello, John - Good to hear from you. Thanks for the comment. I wish my current module (H809) was as stimulating as H800 but sadly it isn't!

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  3. Well that's a matter of taste I suppose. I did the first edition of H809 in 2008 and found it a good way into the whole area of educational research. I reckon it ought to be the first course in the MAode.

    For me as a teacher, the whole idea of practitioner research was quite exciting, and ever since then I've tended to see the whole of life itself as an exercise in "action research".

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