Distance Learning and Education

My last post on Online Presence was starting to get overly long and complex, so I decided to omit discussing Distance learning and its affect on language learning to this separate article. Such a task reminds me of the daunting task of having to narrow down my choice of topic for our assessment at the end of the year.

Online Persona

Once of the unique things about online communication is to a reasonable extent, you are free to portray whatever persona you wish - be it yourself, how you want to others to perceive you, or someone completely different to you in real life. Like being a stranger at a party, the choice is yours to be who you want to be, with changes to your height, age, profession, even perceived intelligence all possibly going undetected. You could even be God if you so wish. However, the ability to alter or distance yourself from your online persona can be a double-edged sword, as seen in this poignant video from Shaun Highton:

What's on your mind? |  Shaun Highton | 2014

But how does the ability to create an online persona and interact with others online effect learning?

Community of Inquiry

The Community of Inquiry (COI) theoretical framework, first introduced by C.S. Pierce and John Dewey, represents a process of creating a deep and meaningful (collaborative - constructivist) learning experience through the development of three independent elements - social, cognitive and teaching presence. The COI emphasises that knowledge is necessarily embedded within a social context and thus requires intersubjective agreement amoung those involved in the process od inquiry for legitimacy. (Eteokleou - Grigoriou, N. & Photiou, S., 2014:126)

In recent years, the COI model has been utilised as a 'dynamic process designed to define, describe and measure elements supporting the development of online learning communities' (Swan, K & Ice, P. 2010:1). Garrison et al (2010:88) note that 'The model of this Community of Inquiry assumes that learning occurs within the Community through the interaction of three core elements. Fig. 1 shows the three essential elements: cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence'.

Fig. 1 Garrison et al (2010:88) | The COI model

Garrison et al (2010:89) go on to note that 'social presence, is defined as the ability of participants in the Community of Inquiry to project their personal characteristics into the community, thereby presenting themselves to the other participants as "real people"'. The fact that your social presence in a group may be 'indirectly facilitating the process of critical thinking carried on by a community of learners' or even a 'direct contributor to the success of the educational experience' is enough to make you stand up and take notice of how you present yourself online in an educational setting.

It is easy to see how a more friendly and amicable group might find it easier to communicate together online, than a tense atmosphere of a group of strangers. I noted in my first post that our first meeting for DTLT on Adobe Connect was a little awkward, but now that we have built up a bit of a rapport and friendship with each other, we are chatting and communicating so much more freely now that we find ourselves quickly running out of time for discussion. This social interaction is particularly beneficial to language learning which is, in essence, a social activity.

Distance Learning and Education

Distance learning is a expanding rapidly, due its ease of access online and it's relatively cost effective nature, but are you receiving the same bang for your buck, so to speak? It was addressed in our tutorial that it is perhaps unfair to compare Distance Learning to traditional classroom education. Both offer different forms of learning, it is true, but the importance of Education is so great that questions constantly need to be asked of all aspects of it. Hubert Dreyfus (2001: 32) posed this question of Distance Learning:

"can distance learning enable students to acquire the skills they need in order to be good citizens skilled in various domains?"

Dreyfus believed that these skills were acquired in seven stages.

Simplification of the model - Credit: Online Reference

Novice and Advanced Beginner being the basic steps and learning through instructions and examples, Dreyfus (2001: 35) stated that  'learning, whether it takes place at a distance or face to face, can be carried out in a detached, analytical frame of mind' and thus mattered little if it was distance learning or not. In fact, I and many others frequently engage in this form of learning online. I follow instructions for recipes, watch how to correctly perform exercises at the gym, even video game tutorials follow this line of skills acquisition.

Reaching the stage of competence, where the student learns to pay less heed to all the rules, or he/she may become overwhelmed, and relies more on experience and decision-making rather than following a strict set of rules. Here, Dreyfus (2001: 39) concedes that 'the net's limitations where embodiment is concerned - the absence of face-to-face learning - may well leave students stuck at competence' Lucky for us, technology has now advanced such that this no longer applies, though I'm not entirely sure it applied to begin with. I completed an online TEFL course through e-mail, and though Dreyfus (2001:39) noted that in Distance Learning there was little  'possibility of taking the risk of proposing and defending and idea and finding out whether it fails or flies' I still had the opportunity to engage with my tutor and discuss our thoughts on Educational methodologies. Sam Harris, a well-known author once debated linguist Noam Chomsky over the ethics of war, via e-mail. I believe that if it is possible to put forth these opinions, and even though the person may be 'at home in front of his or her terminal' (2001:39), it doesn't necessarily make them immune from the risk felt and may still effect your learning on a personal level.

Dreyfus seems to have a very narrow viewpoint of what distance learning can be and I related more with Nigel Blake (2002: 379) in his retort to Dreyfus in that 'I do not find my own online practice described in this books, even in vague terms'. He too believed online learning had the 'potential for some form of extensive and serious intellectual and personal engagement, one-to-one if not face-to-face.'

Stage four is Proficiency, which Dreyfus (2001:40) notes as 'seems to develop if, and only if, experience is assimilated in this embodied, atheoretical way'. As noted in the above image, this entails being able to see "the bigger picture" and that 'the student at this level sees the problem that needs to be solved but has yet to figure out what the answer is"

In the next stage of Expertise Dreyfus (2001:41) notes that 'The expert not only sees what needs to be achieved; thanks to his vast repertoire of situational discriminations, he also sees immediately how to achieve his goal.'

Stage 6 is Mastery. As one goes up through the stages of skills acquisition, you can see the nuances and difference between them starting to lessen. It is hard to see what separates the Expert from the Master, except for here the Master must develop his own style, to go out and learn from different masters, to learn from different perspectives in order to create their own perspective.

Stage 7 - Practical Wisdom. Here Dreyfus has even abandoned his own examples of a car driver and a chess player and has dove deep into the theoretical and draws influence from the great philosopher Aristotle. Practical Wisdom as Dreyfus (2001: 48) sees it is 'the general ability to do the appropriate thing, at the appropriate time, in the appropriate way.'


While this is seen as the pinnacle of Dreyfus' stages, to me it doesn't quite fit well at the summit. Practical Wisdom seems to be more on a tangent with all the other stages, and influencing them all.

Using our Practical Wisdom - Barry Schwartz - 2010

Psychologist Barry Schwartz in his TED Talk 'Using our Practical Wisdom' , likens it to

'jazz musicians. The rules are like the notes on the page, and that gets you started, but then you dance around the notes on the page, coming up with just the right combination for this particular moment with this particular set of fellow players'

Certainly, it requires skill to pull this off, but do you really have to have mastered a skill before you can improvise and know when to do the right thing?

Conclusions:

Dreyfus' stages of skill acquisition are certainly intriguing, though I think through a narrow-minded view  of what is capable from online Education, and perhaps a bias towards spoken language, I believe he has misjudged its potential for higher level learning and critical thinking. Blake (2002: 383) again notes that 'all writing is fundamentally a social interaction' and Dreyfus should not be so quick to dismiss its qualities in respect to the emotional. Nowadays, we also have Skype, Youtube, video-conferencing and more to further interact and emphasise our presence online. With the technology we have available to us now, we have the means to enable higher-level learning online, we just need to be imaginative in the process. As stated earlier, Online Education is not the same as the traditional classroom of old. As John Maynard Keyes once put it

"The difficulty lies not in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones"

Bibliography:

1. Anon, Exchange with Chomsky [online] Germany: Znet, 2015 (viewed November 26th 2015) Available at: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/exchange-with-chomsky
2. Blake, R. (2002) Hubert Dreyfus on Distance Education: relays of educational embodiment. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 34, 4, pp.379-385 
3. Dreyfus, H. (2001) On the Internet, 2, pp. 26-49, London: Routledge
4. Eteokleous-Grigoriou, N. & Photiou, S (2014) Integrating Blogs in Primary Education, Research on e-Learning and ICT in Education: Technological, Pedagogical and Instructional Perspectives, 9, pp.121-137
5. Garrison et al, (2010) Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), pp.87-105
6. Highton, S. What's on your Mind? [online] 2014 Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxVZYiJKl1Y
7. Keyes, J.M. (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, United Kingdom: Palgrave MacMillan
8. Online Reference, The five levels of skill acquisition, Novice, beginner, competent, naster and expert [online] 2015 (viewed November 26th 2015) Available at: http://blog.envole.net/the-five-levels-of-skill-acquisition-novice-beginner-competent-master-and-expert
9. Schwartz, B.  Using our Practical Wisdom [online] New York: TED Talks, 2010 (viewed November 29th 2015) Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_using_our_practical_wisdom?language=en
10. Swan, K & Ice, P. (2010) The Community of Inquiry framework ten years later: introduction to the special issue. Internet and Higher Education, 13(1-2), 1-4

Love in the time of Cyber Space

One of the first things to intrigue me about this course  was this quote from Blake (2013:18) about attributing human characteristics to a computer:

"users are polite to computers and respond to the personality of both the interface and whatever computer agents or avatars that are present"

Human beings have always had a knack for anthropomorphising animals and objects, sometimes with deadly consequences - such as expecting a wild animal to behave like anything other than a wild animal, but I never realised how this could be  used to our advantage in online education, interacting with people and programmes online in a personal manner.

But it is possible to make real meaningful connections solely through technology, or are they simply tricks of the brain to trigger certain emotions or states of mind? Recently there have been a plethora of movies probing this topic, though admittedly through far more advanced tech and robots than we have available today. For now, I will try and steer away from the realms of science fiction and keep the discussion grounded in the real world.

Putting a face to the Avatar

Making connections is difficult enough in the real world. Many people have more affinity with their pets than with other human beings. How so then can we be expected to empathise and truly communicate with a user online, who may be nothing more than a faceless avatar to you?

Facebook's  default avatar

This is quite a common occurrence on social media sites and forums online, where new users are gifted with generic profile pics or anonymous usernames. In fact, on the forums of the Fantasy Football website I frequent, it has become a common issue. New members often wonder how to get more replies on their questions and the general consensus has always been to get a distinct Avatar so people can more easily recognise you and to comment more on other people's threads so people will see you are an active member of the community and not some 'grav-less' poster selfishly looking for their own needs to be filled. Being new to a site can often be difficult, as Roed (2003: 169) points out 'Once a group's identity has been formed it is a difficult and slow process for newcomers to break in and play a part. It takes time to build up the necessary trust'

Online Dating

Online dating is growing in popularity these days. With apps such as Tinder or OKCupid, it is beginning to shake free from the shackles of stigma once associated with it.  Yet, can one truly socialise or fall in love online? Subconsciously at least, I never felt any real trust with people I met online until I had met them in real life. Physically, they could be blatantly lying about who they are, or more subtly by only showing their most flattering photos. There are emotional hang-ups too. Being connected solely through the internet, they can easily just disappear from your life in an instant. It's hard to put a lot of emotional investment into someone who could then turn around and delete you from their lives at the click of a button. In order to fall in love online, surely a great level of trust is needed and though it may be naivety on some part, to simply accept what someone on the internet says as truth,  is their love any less real?

Online Presence

While such trust is needed to establish romantic relationships, is the same level of familiarity required for more platonic activities? Is trust a key factor to establishing an online 'presence' and if so, trust in what?

Naturally, the first thing you must trust in is that you are communicating with a human being on the other end, and not some annoying spambot, but once this basic hurdle is over, what does it mean to have a presence online? For me, this is the key. Not so much that they are truthful, but that they are genuine and real. After all, our friends in real life lie all the time. Many of us lie to ourselves from time to time. It appears to follow a similar path to suspension of disbelief in movies, in that it doesn't have to be real, but certain things can detach you from the illusion. For example, someone could have an avatar of a badger and you wouldn't bat an eyelid, but if his/her avatar was a famous person like Hugh Jackman for instance, it might resonate with you that it's not really Hugh Jackman and the suspension is gone as you become aware that you are online and this person could be anybody.

Take the above picture as an example. Did you read it in your own voice? Or did you hear the voice of Samuel L. Jackson in your head? It's not easy to disassociate the words with the imagery attached to it. You could begin to project traits or a persona onto a user,  loud and aggressive or shy and cute, simply by their avatar. One could view an intimidating avatar as aggressive or hostile, or a smiling avatar as friendly and welcoming.

What then if the avatar you see is not well known, just some unknown pretty girl online? To some it may seem like a blank canvas to create your own persona for the person. With a beautiful photo and a perfectly crafted persona of your own making, one can begin to see how many people may be catfished online.

Even what is written is open to interpretation. With the lack of nonverbal cues, or the ability to read ones face, it is hard to detect subtle nuances in written text. Are they being funny or sarcastic? Does the use of Caps Lock and exclamation points imply that they are angry or excited? Roeds (2003:171) again notes that 'it is not only that students’ behaviour changes but also the perception of students’ behavior' Given an ambiguous statement, a person may apply a different meaning or tone to the conversation. Emoticons and clear statements can go some way to curb misunderstandings, but then again aren't misunderstandings a part of everyday life too? It is clear to see that feelings and emotions can be inferred through technology. Just ask anyone who has cried at a sad film. It now becomes a matter of honing that ability online to truly make your presence felt. As L.M. Montgomery put it

"It's dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other."

Bibliography:

1. Blake, R., Brave new digital classroom: technology and foreign language learning. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, [electronic resource]. 2008
2. Montgomery, L.M., Emily's Quest. 1983 New York: Dell Laurel Leaf
3. Roed, J., Language Leanrer Behaviour in a Virtual Learning Environment. Computer assisted language learning. 2003. 16, 2-3, pp.156-172

The Social Learner and the Social Teacher

This weeks lesson on Personal Learning Environments (PLE) was really insightful. I had never really thought much about the network I have put together to further my education. Podcasts, online tutorials, apps. Nowadays, there is a wealth of opportunities available to help us learn.

But it is not just information that is out there. No, now we are so well connected with people that we can chat and discuss anything from Pokemon to Nuclear Physics with complete strangers.

As much as some people like to comment on all the negativity they see on the internet, there is a huge array of selfless individuals uploading and creating things purely for your benefit and will to learn. From small things like Yoga instructors showing you the correct way to do a pose on YouTube, to bigger things like Harvard University offering free courses for anyone online. Or how about this course on cosmology by a Nobel Prize winning physicist? Of course, much of this stems from people looking for ad revenue or recognition, but as Buckingham Shum and Ferguson (2012: 6) note, some of this is due to new ways of attaining accreditation outside of large institutions whose stranglehold is now being loosened

"Internet services may also begin to apply pressure to one of the slowest evolving elements in educational provision: accreditation" and that "initiatives such as OpenBadges may provide new ways to accredit learning outside established institutions."

People seeking out learning are benefiting greatly from these 'Social teachers' making this information available to them and often presenting it in fun and interesting ways.  It is an interesting dynamic at play. Is the demand for such learning seeing educators flock to the web to create and deliver content to the masses online or is the availability of such resources allowing students greater freedom in their PLE's. Perhaps the most likely cause is a combination of both.

Social Learning and Technology

Social learning is not a new idea. Albert Bandura established his theory of modern social learning in the 1970's.Though while he was studying more the behavioural influences of social interactions on a human being, it is fundamentally learning at its core.

"Man's superior cognitive capacity is another factor that determines, not only how he will be affected by his experiences, but the future direction his actions may take" (Bandura, 1971: 2)

So how does the advent of modern technology affect the learning of the social learner? Bandura acknowledged mankind's ability to learn by observation and just as a child may learn not to steal cookies after seeing his brother get spanked,  so too may student's learn from the previous experiences of others. Though it doesn't take a genius to know you shouldn't eat a whole spoon of cinnamon or to try and smash your phone with a hammer, nonetheless, the internet still offers a wide array of more practical and sage advice from people who have learned from their experiences. In our last tutorial, discussing the making of our PLE's we learned some key information about what to do and what not to do, simply from viewing each other's work and discussing it. Martin Weller (2007: 21) in his discussion of socio-cultural learning and VLE's stated that "it is not just engagement with peers that is important, but also observation and interaction with established community members." While in the past this may have been somewhat limited to the layman or those living a large distance from a university, nowadays, people are able to connect with experts in almost every field with the touch of a button, be it answering questions on Reddit MMA's or simply liking a post on Facebook. Even Obama has a twitter account.

It draws many parallels with Drexler's (2010: 370) networked student which although it takes a more constuctivist approach to learning, maintains that need for social interaction, going so far as to state  "The connection to humans is a essential part of the learning process" and that connections between learners tutors and the wider learning community is key

It is the combination of these connections, especially in concert with human to human contact, that provide the most powerful learning potential (Goodyear, 2005)"

Society and all our knowledge and understanding owes greatly to those who have gone before us and those currently at work around us. Modern technological advances have allowed us to be more connected than ever before and it would surely be of great benefit to us, were we to take advantage of this in our quest for knowledge and consider creating more nodes and connections in our Personal Learning Environment's. As Issac Newton himself famously said

"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." 

Bibliography:

1. Bandura, A. (1971) Social Learning Theory, New York: General Learning Press.
2. Buckingham Shum, S. & Ferguson, R. (2012)Social Learning Analytics. Educational Technology & Society, 15. 3. pp.3-26
3. Drexler, W. (2010) The networked student model for construction of personal learning environments: Balancing teacher control and student autonomy. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26. 3. pp. 369-385
4. Weller, M., (2007) Virtual Learning environments: Using choosing and developing your VLE. Routledge: London and New York.

The Role of the Teacher - Revisited

In one of my first posts, I made an attempt to deconstruct what it means to be a teacher in today's modern society where people have access to (almost) unlimited information at the click of a mouse. In it, I perhaps didn't do full justice to the role of the teacher and over-simplified it too much. While it was my intention to break it down to its very basics, I think I may have lost a certain nuance in just how critical a role the teacher plays in the learning process.

How teachers perceive themselves according to Beijaard (2000:756)

Last week's talks of VLE's and PLE's drew many parallels with my original musings of the role of the teacher. In PLE's especially, the pedagogy and learning distances itself from the teacher and becomes the responsibility of the student to seek out the information he/she needs. The teacher's role as such comprises much of the same three key elements I had outlined.

1. Provide guidance and assistance. A facilitator, acting as a grounding point for the student's PLE, the teacher offers them a safe haven if they are having difficulties and also as a guide to keep them on the right path in their discovery of knowledge and not to stray too far off topic.
2. Accelerating the process - the teacher kick starts the PLE by showing them how to set up their PLE, where to source their information from and how to differentiate between facts and opinions.
3. Ensure people's safety. Again this may mean literal safety but also in a more broader sense it is the duty of the teacher to ensure that the student has the necessary means to succeed in their PLE and are not setting them up for a fall, so to speak. It can be a daunting task taking over the responsibility of being in control of your own learning and the teacher needs to motivate and encourage the students to believe in themselves and their abilities.

However, it went much deeper than this. It was clear to see from the articles and videos about PLE's that the teacher plays a crucial role in the success of the PLE for the student. Drexler (2010: 382) noted this:

"A student's success depended on his or her motivation but also greatly on the strategic guidance of the teacher"

Drexler (2010: 370) also saw the teacher as a facilitator of the student's needs, quoting  Mostschnig-Pitrik & Holzinger (2002: 166) in that the teacher "supports the students in their search and supply of relevant material, coordinates the students' presentations of individual milestones of their projects, moderates discussions, consults in all kinds of problem-solving and seeking for solutions, lectures on topics that are selected in plenary discussions with the students and conforms to the curriculum"

The various roles of a teacher in a student's PLE according to Wendy Drexler

In order to connect with the networked student and guide them in their PLE's, today's modern teacher must become 'networked' as well.  As stated in my previous post, this new outlook and approach to teaching made me reflect upon my own PLE and see how my own learning is structured. Am I a networked teacher capable of guiding students to create and follow their own PLE's? Can I offer the same help and support to students as outlined by Drexler? What areas do I need to work on? I have never truly created and utilised a PLE to further my learning. Perhaps I will start from there. As Drexler (2010: 370) put it "A teacher is better equipped to facilitate networked learning if he or she has experienced the construction of such a model first hand."


Bibliography:

1. Beijaard D., Verloop, N. & Vermunt, J. (2000) Teachers' perceptions of professional identity: an exploratory study from a personal knowledge perspective. Teacher and Teaching Education. 16. pp. 749-764
2. Drexler, W. (2010) The networked student model for construction of personal learning environments: Balancing teacher control and student autonomy. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26. 3. pp. 369-385

My Personal Learning Environment

When I first saw the terms VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) and PLE (Personal Learning Environment) I thought myself a novice in unfamiliar territory. PLE sounded the more relate-able, whereas VLE sounded like another futuristic sci-fi term as any term with Virtual affixed to is is wont to do.

Virtual Gardening sounds awesome (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

When it was mentioned on the Moodle that we should all be familiar with VLEs and the more modern PLE's might be more tricky I started to worry.

 However, the 'reality' of the situation soon dawned on me and as with everything so far on the course, the technology exists in our time, I've just been perceiving it differently. In fact, I was currently using a VLE at the time I was panicking about what a VLE was.

Yes, our own Moodle can be considered a VLE, As put by Weller (2007:16) 

"A VLE can be viewed as a useful collection of e-learning tools in a package that allows a common interface and sharing of data between the tools."

But then what of these newer PLE's? Well in truth, your PLE is exactly what it says it is, your Personal Learning Environment. How you interact with everything around you in order to learn. Essentially, everybody already has a PLE and our task for the week was to draw our own PLE. I drew mine using the mindmapping tool app.mindmapmaker.org and you can see my full creation here.

As you can see from the selected screenshot, it was quite a daunting task to try and make note of all the different ways and manners in which I learn and condense them down into various categories. As such, it is a never-ending task and could be adding to it forever more.

The four main branches of my PLE I chose were as follows:

1. Formal Study - an obvious one really. I used this node for instances where I actively was trying to learn something, such as studying for this course, opening a Korean textbook, or using a vocabulary learning app such as Memrise. 
2. Informal Study - this was for the not so obvious times where I learn something, such as learning a fact on filmography while reading an article about Steven Spielberg or seeing the name of a new spice while looking up a cooking recipe.
3. Personal Experience - as the old adage goes 'learn by doing'. Some things have to be experienced to be truly understood. What does a jalapeno pepper taste like? Just how riled up does my friend get during a game of soccer? What is the name of that girl over there?
4. Self Reflection - This section is kind of an anomaly, while the other nodes are fairly self explanatory this is difficult to explain. Are you really learning if the information is already inside your head? In my opinion, it is important to reflect upon what you have done, are doing and will do? Asking questions of yourself may lead to different conclusions. Moving to Korea, applying for my Masters Degree, all the big events in my life required asking myself a lot of questions and thus must be included in my learning environment.

As noted in the tutorial, at the centre is says 'MY PLE' and not simply 'Me' When I began this, I was thinking about all the different ways in which I learn, and as such was more of a peripheral figure in the context of the diagram though on closer inspection, and using some self-reflection noted in the diagram, it is clear to me that I am the centre of the PLE, though I am not sure which way the information is flowing in the chart. Am I seeking out and learning these things and choosing these methods myself? Or am I simply caught up in the middle of all this information freely available to me in today's society?


I really enjoyed making my PLE, seeing what others had made and discussing them in the tutorial. It was really interesting to see what the others had come up with.

However, while PLE's themselves may not be something new to us, the novel approach of creating a PLE utilising technology in order to study seems fascinating and something I wish I had the opportunity to explore when I was in school.

In such a learning Environment, the student is in control of what e-learning tools they will use to help them on their quest for knowledge - various websites, blogs, news feeds. podcasts etc., instead of been spoon fed information from the teacher and as such their course is not limited to what the teacher wants to tell them or even not limited to what the teacher knows, with the ability to get in touch with experts in various fields. As Drexler ( 2010:26) notes

"The ability to locate expertise beyond the classroom walls is one powerful benefit of a well-structured personal learning environment."

It also denotes a major divergence in the skill set required to learn in these environments. It is quite a shift from the passive leaning environment of the traditional classroom to having to create your own learning space and become responsible for not just what you will learn, but how. As mentioned in our tutorials, the is a certain safety to following a set pedagogy, be it textbook or VLE and it may be overwhelming for some to be plunged into the ever-expanding pool of information that is the internet. However, as Cousins (Land, R. & Bayne, S. 2005: 120) argues

"Without such exploration, the default position will be inherently conservative."

I certainly hadn't put too much thought into my PLE before this course and the various formal and informal sources of information and knowledge that I acquire my learning from. I am eager to better understand this model and see how it can be utilised in the classroom for more effective learning scenarios. However, it does seem to me that in order for a PLE to be effective, the student needs to be highly motivated themselves and coupled with a rather unknown quantity of time and energy expended in the PLE, is it really an efficient and sustainable way of studying?

Bibliography:

1.  Cousins, G., Learning from cyberspace in Land, R. and Bayne, S. (eds) Education in cyberspace. London, Routledge Falmer. 2005. p.11-129.
2.  Drexler, W. (2010) The networked student model for construction of personal learning environments: Balancing teacher control and student autonomy. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26. 3. pp. 369-385
3. Weller, M. (2007) Virtual Learning environments: Using choosing and developing your VLE. Routledge: London and New York.