uManitoba’s LTC wiki on Personal Learning Environments lists several examples of “Production Tools”: wikis, blogs, podcasts and video/YouTube.
So, how do these contribute to a PLE for me?
Well, this is a blog I’m using for reflective practice in one of my MET courses. If it weren’t for the assignments and expectations of this course, I probably wouldn’t post as much as I am, let alone as much as some of my more reflectively-abled classmates. Also, this blog is intended to be an ePortfolio for ETEC565, which gives it added functionality within my PLE. I did start blogging earlier this year (http://cellodav-blogtolearn.blogspot.com/), but I haven’t been very good at posting regularly.
I’ve used a couple of different UBC wikis as collaborative tools during the MET program, and set about creating a Teaching and Learning wiki at Laurentian with a colleague last year. Growth has been fairly slow, but the grassroots formation of an informal “Pedagogy Research Group” on campus may provide a community that has the interest to use and expand on this resource.
I haven’t created any podcasts yet, nor have I posted any videos on YouTube. These are tools I expect to explore in ETEC565.
Thoughts…
These different tools may contribute to my PLE, but they are somewhat scattered. There are LMSs out there that incorporate blogs and wikis, but they persist only for the duration of a course or program. For a Learning Environment to be Personal, it must persist as long as I want or need it to. What I need to keep my PLE organized is some sort of flexible, customizable interface into which I can plug in or embed all the services I use so that they’re “fingertip” accessible.
Next…
I’ll look at my use of Collaboration and sharing tools.
Cheers,
David