Personal Learning Environments

This is a representation of my personal learning environment


I think that most users of the Internet are starting to build up a collection of tools that they frequently use. It is important for educators to understand the use of these tools and consider if they can be used by students to enhance their learning. However not all students will come with this well developed working environment. They may need some guidance around available tools and how they can be harnessed to support their learning.

To some extent choice should be incorporated wherever possible so that students can use tools which they are familiar with and already use for that purpose, e.g. Blogging tools. When collaboration and assessment are involved however this choice may have to become restricted in order to ensure that the systems being used are robust and accessible.

Collaboration
If students are being asked to use a tool to work together then it is important that all of them are able to access it. Institutional tools have generally been developed or purchased with accessibility in mind where as some Web 2.0 tools have not always been developed with this in mind which can make them unusable for some students.

Assessment
If tools are being used to produce items which will be formally assessed then it is important that they are robust. If the tool was to fail when students were trying to work on their assessment then they may have trouble meeting the deadline as they can not work on or access the work they have done so far. If the institutional system fails and all students are using it then the course leaders would be able to fairly extend the deadline based on this downtime.

So in conclusion the choice of tools whether they be institutional or personally selected by the learner should depend upon the cohort of learners and the purpose of the activity for which they are using the tool.