For the Introduction to Emerging Technologies course I am taking, I was asked to create a diagram of my Personal Learning Environment, i.e. my PLE.
Here it is:
The distinction between environments I can control and environments I just 'use' or access is something I hadn't thought about before.
My blog, here, is whatever I want it to be, I can upload photos, control what goes in it and when, I feel ownership of this space.
LinkedIn and Facebook are places where I have no control over the design and speed at which information comes at me, I can join the race, or not, but I cannot alter it's style, form or pace, so I am just a visitor there.
Some of the environments are a bit of both, like Google Docs, where I am in the confines of the program, but the documents I am working on inside it are mine to manipulate as I see fit.
I prefer to be more in control of the environments I am in, which is perhaps why I don't like using the wiki we have at work? It doesn't flow with my sense of how things should appear on the screen, and I can't alter it to accommodate my style, so have to force myself into unfamiliar places to work inside it.
I also think about the LMS side I am working on, which will be accessed by outside parties. This is an environment I control (to some extent) which they cannot. Is this how educational systems have to be structured, so students can be 'managed' as to what they can see and do within the learning environment?
How does this external Environment mesh with my Personal Environment? Using D2L for this course provides me with specific ways of working through the course material, and does not allow for free thinking/wandering about in the construct of the program. This must require a lot of thought in the initial design phase to determine what will meet the standards of the masses.
Are there two environments, then? My PLE and an External Learning Environment?
Lots to think about.
