Learning research

Data from the course #Lak11 can easily be misinterpreted when personal interpretations are made.

2011-02-27T21:04:00.001+01:00

I find myself far down the data - http://ariadne.cs.kuleuven.be/monitorwidget-lak11/. It is true that I have not spent so much time in Moodle, not written so much and doesn´t read so many posts. My ambition when I started the course was to be an active participant, but due to time constraints and above all the fact that it was a completely new area - I have not been as "visibly active" as I hoped to be. I became a lurker in the course.

I'm thinking about what it means that I am found far down in this data. It shows quite clearly that I have not been as active in Moodle, however I have learned a lot. I have been following the lectures and seminars, read the literature and related literature, read blogs an so on. None of this is shown here. The data do not show what I feel - that I have learned a lot. It is true that the data does not show anything more than that I have not been so active in this forum, but it's very easy to feel that my efforts were not so great. It is also easy to interpret the information in the way that I have not learned so much. In any case, that is what I feel when I see the data and make comparisons with the others.

Fortunately, I am aware of what the data says and know about what you can use the information to. However, it is probably not as much knowledge about this among teachers and students. Information like this is still often not available to students and teachers, but it's probably safe to say that similar information will become common in the coming years. Then will it be vital that there is a high level of knowledge among teachers and students on how information can be interpreted. It may not be used because it is easy to measure and compare. Students and teachers emotional interpretations, as I did, must be prevented and the only way is that teachers and students learn more about learning analytics.

Thank you for a rewarding course.
I look forward to the conference as a lurker, but I´m sure that I will learn a lot and that it will appear in any data.

Thanks Tony!

2011-01-28T15:52:00.005+01:00

After following Tony's great instructions, I managed to get "my facebook network. "
It is with some hesitation I show the visualization of my "Facebook network", because it says a lot about me even thought I'm not a frequent user of facebook. The goal to visualize relationships in Diigo groups have come a step closer, next step is to continue to read Tony's tutorial.

Reflections on Bakers presentation week 2

2011-01-23T21:39:00.000+01:00

In previous post I wrote that I think that the structure of this MOOC is brilliant, but the content is also impressive!

There have been two presentations so far in the course, both were very valuable, for me. What I particular fell for in the last presentation by Ryan S.J. Baker about Educational data mining (EDM) was:

Unfortunately is the most interesting parts in the presentation not useful for me, when Baker talked about “Gaming the system”, this is extremely relevant and I think it´ is the very hard for the teacher to observe.
PSLC Data shop is interesting, but I´m asking myself what does the students learn from the program that was used in the examples in the presentation.
When Baker tried to explain differences between EDM and Learning analytics (LA) and started with that there are many similarities between the two communities.
The ethical questions around data mining are extremely important. Do the students know that the data is collected?

There were some very interesting posts in the chat:

Do the students know that this is happening?
Who is this data for?
EDM could answer Who, When, Where, but cannot answer Why. Are there studies connected to complement the findings of the data analysis with a more Qualitative research that could explain the behaviour or propose a solution?
“Does EDM use naturally occurring data and LAK includes how to generate the data?”
“For me the difference between EDM and LA is that Analytics should concentrate more on how the information extracted from the students actions is used to improve learning”
“LAK doesn't necessarily imply data mining - can build an explicit user model for instance from known inputs designed for that purpose”

The definitions of EMD and LA done during the presentation were clarifying:

Bakers definition of EDM

“The area of scientific inquiry centered around the development of methods for exploring the uniique kinds of data that come from the educational settings, and using those methods to better understand students and the settings which they learn in.” Baker 2010

Siemens definition of LA "Learning analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs"

From my point of view "big data" (discussed in the presentation) is interesting and can be used to design better and other tools and also improve education, but this will be in another scale than the teacher. Probably will not the teachers use big data, rather system administrators, product developers, researchers and so on.

What I see as the largest question, except ethical questions, is how the analysis of the gathered data are made available to students and whether it can be created built-in feedback mechanisms in software.

Today I can see that EDM can be used alone to answer questions about students learning, that it must be combined with qualitative research.

Copy the structure of a MOOC to design of education in upper secondary schools?

2011-01-20T14:52:00.000+01:00

It´s overwhelming to join the MOOC course #LAK11, first of all the structure itself. In this course Siemens use Netvibes to aggreagete the information from the participants, google groups to send out Daily mails, moodle as so on. I think it´s an brilliant solution.

Is a similar solution possible to use instead of a LMS in a class in upper secondary schools? What would happen if that is the structure in all classes? What would the situation for the students look like? Is it worth to put a lot of time to learn the students to aggregate the information? Are schools and teachers willing to let the students take that responsibility?

What kind of information, and communication must be hold in closed groups?

These are some, for me, unanswered questions, that I would like to have answer to.

But there more questions. What are the “learning community” is it the class and the teacher. Of course is the learning community bigger, if the we look from the student perspective. Students communicate with friends, parents and so on, but this is usaly not visible for the teacher or other students. I dosen´t make sense to structure the communication between students, teacher in a similar way as #LAK11, if the idea is that the communication should be closed in the class.

I have seen several examples where there is a problem that the students and teacher not are able to communicate with other outside the class in the learning situations through the LMS, but does the teacher and students want to open up the “classroom” to let other take part in the communication?

Where, when, why students learn outside the teachers scaffolding is not anything the teachers (schools) can decide. But by using the same tools (and also to show the possibilities to learn with them) for communication in the education as the students use outside the “formal learning” can make off course open up the “learning community” and make the connections more visable. It will also give possibilities for teacher and other students to take part of what the students learn outside the classroom.

The “extended learning community” will never be able to see, but it can be more

How should an upper secondary school be organized if the education is based on the ideas - personal learning environment (and network) and the structure of a MOOC?

The structure of a MOOC can´t be the fundament of the education structure, but some parts would be very useful to use.

Reflections on week 1

2011-01-19T00:42:00.000+01:00

The literature is largely on the analysis of large data sets and how institutions can see patterns in students' use of LMS. The term academic analysis refers to how institutions gather, analyze, and use data (Elias 2011). Bakers article The State of Educational Data Miningmakes is a valuable “review of the history and current trends in the field of Educational Data Mining (EDM)” (Baker and Yacef 2009) , but it not easy to enter a new area and understand the article. On the other hand am I sure that the content in this article will become clear to me during the course.

Before this course I saw the potentials of data visualization in the way it´s been used in Knowledge Forum where the technique Latent Semantic Analysis were used (Teplovs and Scardamalia 2007). They use the visualization tools with the goal “to extend this analytic framework to enable embedded and transformative assessment of the knowledge building process, not simply assessing its end point.” Their goal requires that they present the results (from the database that store information such as time-stamped information about activities and interactions and knowledge objects and artifacts) to inform the users about their ongoing process that answers questions such as “in what contexts has a particular individual worked? What are the dominant ideas in the discourse space?” (Teplovs and Scardamalia 2007)

Their work is interesting and particulary the use of the information to formative assess the users, where formative assessment “can be conceptualized as a cybernetic system with feedback loops serving to drive the system in new directions” (Teplovs et al. 2007)

There are several different tools; Participation and Collaboration Tools, Writing Analysis Tools, Semantic Analysis Tools and “The Participation, Collaboration and Writing Analysis tools focus on surface features of contributions. The Semantic Analysis Tools deal with the meaning of the discourse.” (2007)

The function of the Social Network Analysis Tool, “which displays the social relationships among participants based on patterns of behavior” (Teplovs et al. 2007) seams to me be easiest to understand and use, but in other tools, but also “The Semantic Analysis Tools deal with the meaning of the discourse.” make sense to me.

I´m not for the moment using Knowledge forum but the functions of the tools that are used are interesting. I would like to be able to analyze the social relationships when the students use different web-tools to see who the students are communicating with. So the first step to enter this area is to visualize students networks and it is striking that this seams to me be the historical development. Baker writes that relationship mining that was dominant between 1995 and 2005, in 2008-2009 it slipped to fifth place, (Baker and Yacef 2009)

I´m not sure that social network analysis is the same as relationship mining and I can´t place it in Bakers classification (Baker and Yacef 2009) of educational data mining methods.

Prediction
o Classification
o Regression
o Density estimation
Clustering
Relationship mining
o Association rule mining
o Correlation mining
o Sequential pattern mining
o Causal data mining
Distillation of data for human judgment
Discovery with models

I can see the opportunities with learning analytics, but there are several concepts that I have to understand to get more engaged in the course.

I also have to learn how to mine data from different web-tools and create and manage databases outside LMS/CMS.

There are also some more readings that seams to be very interesting:

Dawson, S. (2008). A study of the relationship between student social networks and sense of community, Educational Technology and Society 11(3), pp. 224-38.

Dawson, S. (2010). “Seeing the learning community: An exploration of the development of a resource for monitoring online student networking. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(5), 736-752. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2009.00970.x.

Dawson, S., Heathcote, L. and Poole, G. (2010). Harnessing ICT potential: The adoption and analysis of ICT systems for enhancing the student learning experience, International Journal of Educational Management 24(2) pp. 116-128.

Finally I will end this with the most interesting questions that I have found in the blog posts so far.

Dr. Kelly Edmonds raised some important questions

“Can we gather data about student attitudes and interests through social networking sites, their interaction in online learning platforms, their use of online library systems, etc. and blend the data to discover who they are, what they want, and how they learn along with their progress?

This leads to my second reaction: how will we be able to logistically mix the variables and constructs of the various data types? Will we be able to find a way to compare student preferences (from likes and dislikes on Facebook), with chosen modes and frequency of communication (email, LMS, smartphones), with grades and course evaluations?”

Reference:

Baker, R. S.J.D, and K. Yacef. 2009. “The state of educational data mining in 2009: A review and future visions.” Journal of Educational Data Mining 1:3–17.

Elias, Tanya. 2011. “Learning Analytics: Definitions, Processes and Potential.” learninganalytics.net/LearningAnalyticsDefinitionsProcessesPotential.pdf (Accessed January 18, 2011).

Teplovs, C., Z. Donoahue, M. Scardamalia, and D. Philip. 2007. “Tools for concurrent, embedded, and transformative assessment of knowledge building processes and progress.” Pp. 721–723 in Proceedings of the 8th iternational conference on Computer supported collaborative learning.

Teplovs, C., and M. Scardamalia. 2007. “Visualizations for knowledge building assessment.” in AgileViz workshop, CSCL.

Lak11 week 1

2011-01-17T20:56:00.000+01:00

Last week was an intensive week, which means that it was no time for participating in the MOOC #Lak11. To start a MOOC like this is more difficult than missing the start in a traditional course – the feeling is that it is impossible to read enough to catch up. But I´m shoure that this isn´t just because I missed the start – it is about the structure in a MOOC. I start to accept that I have to pic what I find interesting and not try to read everything – (and listened to Simens recommendations).

As totally new to the field educational data mining, it will be some work that have to be done to understand the mathematical methods and also the tools that are possible to use. But the big challenge is to learn more about the security aspects. What information is a teacher allowed to collect and what information can be collected, anlysized and published from an ethic perspective?

According to my experiences as a teacher. Teachers have knowledge about different groupings in the class and also work with the class to create new "learning-groups", to dived the class in different ways that to create a whole “learning community” of the class. It is very important that students meet each other and get used to learn (in dialogue process the information) with different classmates.

When working with web-tools is it much more difficult to get the knowledge (“feeling”) about who the students responds to (in dialogue process the information). Of course is it possible to dived the class in groups that work together in web-tools. But when the students for example start the work with personal inquiries in web-tools such as Ning and the students who are interested in the same topic responds on each other comments, it is much more difficult to get the knowledge (“feeling”) about different sub-groups in the class. Here is semantic (social) network analyze probably very useful to see different and get knowledge about the groupings in the class. This is seams to important for teachers to understand to be able to work with the social structures in the communication in web-tools

Looking forward to Learning Analytics #LAK11

2011-01-10T23:46:00.000+01:00

I´m looking forward to the course #LAK11 and hope too learn more about semantic (social) network analysis in educational design. I´ve done some first steps in analyzing students activity in Diigo-groups.

Here are two visualizations from relationships between tags in a Diigo group. The folksonomy (tag cloud) was created by students in upper secondary school in a Biology class.

The data were processed with a forced based algorithm and in figure 2 also Louvain method are used to find communities (groups).

Figure 1

Figure 2

I especially hope to learn more about data mining and tools for data mining in the course. To facilitate the work with collecting data. If you already have some tips for me, please write a comment.

Social bookmarking for learning with students in an international context - how can it work?

2010-11-19T00:17:00.000+01:00

I´m thinking, reflecting over my contribution in the session in Global education conference earlier today and my first thought is – are you allowed to not be successful? My the answer is very clear – YES if you can see it as a learning situation. – That’s what I always have said to the students and I will keep on saying it to students (and my self) again and again.

Today I had something I really wanted to discuss, I was prepared and looked forward to the session, but it was more difficult "when it was for real", than I ever could expect - to keep on talking and at the same time copy links into the room.
I have learned a lot from the sessions and keynotes I "been to" and from my own session. I´m already looking forward to the next Global education conference.

I think Global education conference is a fantastic initiative, so many interesting sessions and keynotes. I only been able see some – it is material for teachers training a year ahead. I really appreciate the work Steve Hargadon, Lucy Gray and the staff have done. I think this conference, in the long term, will have a big impact on teachers everyday work all over the world.

Back to the questions for the session today.

It started with at presentation "social bookmarking with students" – based on my experiences from bookmarking with the students last year. Here are some glimpses from that work:

Social bookmarking - examples from upper secondary school 20101117 on Prezi

The use of social bookmarking tools have changed how I teach in fundamental ways. During last year the students bookmarked, tagged, discussed the contents of pages as CK-12 and Tree of Life.

I want to develop this and let the students meet other students and their questions, interpretations and understanding of information on sides like this. With other students I mean students all over the world.

Diigo is a very complex tool and include functions as:

http://www.diigo.com/community/reader/tolweb.org

http://www.diigo.com/community/site/tolweb.org?tab=recent

This will functions might be useful in creating dialogues between students as a complement to the group function.

Is this possible to create a groups for students, for example upper secondary schools, to discuss information?

Of course is it possible, but will it work? That’s a tricky question and depends mostly on the teachers, if the will include this learning in the formal assessment.

It depends also on how the participants tags the information. It takes long time to understand how to tag and I didn’t have enough knowledge last year to teach the students how to tag. This led to information were tagged with synonyms witch made the tag cloud not useful.
During the year I have learned how to tag from the work with building Nationell bokmärkessamling.

We have a structure for social tagging (so far in Swedish) that can be useful in for teachers and students.

Does teachers in biology…, have time to introduce and learn students how to search, tag… information? It took long time for the students to understand diigo even thought we didn’t focus on how to tag. In the beginning didn’t the students understand why the should do this in biology. But in the end of the course the lessons were very different – we could focus on questions on another “level”. We al shared the same information, information which were relevant for the students because they had collect it and that it started from their questions.

If it will work to create groups for students to tag (with the same structure) and share information in common groups then it will be faster search in this groups to find relevant information, than to “goolge”. Next step is to start to follow others…

I can see so many possibilitys with this and I am shore that I´m not alone with this ideas. So here are some questions to you:

How can tools as Diigo be used to create a global conversation about the contents in sites such as "tree of life" and change "who the students learn with"?
Is it helpful to have the same structure in tagging? Is it possible?
Is it possible to create groups in diigo open for students all over the world, to participate in?
Have you seen any examples? How does students and teachers find groups?

I will close this blog post with: It was a long time since I learned so much in biology as i did during this work. I had to evaluate and interpret the information together with the students. We learned together and they could see me when I was in a learning situation.

(I have to add that the teacher are very important in this process. )

Writer, connector or... What am I?

2010-10-22T19:12:00.000+02:00

Stephen Downes just said in the live session in #plenk2010 start to wright - thats exactly what I need to hear today. I have had alot of other stuff to do the last two weeks and it´s realy heavy to pick up what I think I missed and to come back in the course.
In the following discussion I listen extra to: If you keep on with writing it will be easier and with higher quality after som months. Thats exactly what I used to say to my students but it is very valuble to hear it sometimes from other!

I have to learn more...

2010-10-09T07:28:00.000+02:00

I realize from what I have read this week that I have alot to learn about leraning theories. I also realize that I in "my" practic, during the last year, have worked on a mix based of connectivism and constructivism, maybe social learning perspectiv.

For example have students used socialbookmarking tools, Diigo, where they together with me have collected and reworked, what they thought were, relevant information. It have not been possible for them to read all the information (frustrating for many of the students in the begining), they have had to choose who the want to follow and respond to.
Of course wasn´t it an eduaction totally based on connectivistic theories, the students didn´t build up a PLE, with personal blogs, RSS-readers... The framework with teachers planned their own lessons and the structure in time an space didn´t allow an education totally based on connectivistic learning theory. Another limiting factor was that the students or I were not ready for an education based on connecitivstic theories.

A very clear signal for me this week is that I have to learn more about theories to design a better education and it became even more obvious when I reflected over the picture of the framework that Rita Kop presented in the blog post The symbiosis between theory and practice.

My first concept map in the course #PLENK2010

2010-10-01T11:48:00.001+02:00

My first concept map in PLENK2010. It it looks more like 1600 - century map of Africa or .... instead of a satellite photo from 2010, but a good basis to work on...

Reseach and knowledge production. #PLENK2010

2010-09-28T10:55:00.002+02:00

Two interesting blog posts arose the question of reseach and knowledge production, #PLENK2010 Research, John Mak and the in Jennys post #PLENK2010 Research, technology and networks. I´m yet not familiar with the concept Mode 2

"Gibbons and colleagues argued that a new form of knowledge production started emerging from the mid 20th century which is context-driven, problem-focused and interdisciplinary. It involves multidisciplinary teams brought together for short periods of time to work on specific problems in the real world. Gibbons and his colleagues labelled this "mode 2" knowledge production." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_2)

- but it would be interesting to discuss this in the course #PLENK2010, in relation to the questions that John and Jenny arose about "good reaeach".

Another important issue (connected to the issue above) in the discussion of PLE / PLN in higher education is, Open access - there must be access to research articles that are available for students... to be discussed in Diigo groups...

The most interesting question of PLE/PLN is maybe not about learning!

2010-09-28T09:45:00.000+02:00

When I today read through blogposts and posts in Moodle - one question arose:

Mayby the most interesting question of PLE/PLN is not about learning - I think that formal education will turn more towards PLE/PLN because students (or at least a few in every class) starts to communicate for learning in FB, twitter. It will take a lot of time and therefor this process can be facilitated by teachers..., but I think that the education system, in the long term, will turn in this direction (I know that it´s an enourmous generalization and that it may in some cases already have happend and that it never will occur in other situations.)

- it is about assessment of knowledge. That people are learning and will learn through communication with other people in internet.... it´s clear to me but what is that worth?

Who wants to go to a doctor that is autodidact and have an enourmous PLN and a lot of knowledge but are not cerificated?

Do I?

In the same time it can´t be a assessment system that is separated from the learning context. The students knowledge must assessed in a way that is based on the same learning theories as in which the knowledge is learned.

How can a "connectivistic system for assessment" look like?

I have no ansers to this questions - but I can see that it maybe will be two parrallell systems, one where the doctor have a PLN/PLE - that is very valuble when she/he starts to work and during the time she/he is studying but it´s separated from formal learning and evaluation of knowledge.

Of course the thouts of PLE/PLN is very intersting in life long learning and in proffesional learning in relation with "online learing communities", BUT it´s not so probematic for me.
When I look at the life long learning - I have a fantastic example of a friend of my who works as a plummer: he´s looked at all TEDX presentations and he use FB... to communicate.
In proffesional learning is it of course some certifications/licenses that must be taken and in those situations need skills to be evaluated. But in most cases I believe it is clear what an employee can. The question here is rather how the PLE / PLN will be linked to company trainingprogram and involved in learning communities.

Some reflections on the course #PLENK2010!

2010-09-28T09:07:00.000+02:00

Would it be more activity in an open course like PLENK2010 if it had learning objectivs and that the course started with that the praticipants asked themselfs questions. The next step in the course would then be to together rework this questions and out of that more or less together deside the content in the course.
It may have been easier for each participant to set up own goals in the course if they know more about the course objectivs.

The course leaders would then plan the course body, add some content, present invited people only to start the discussions... and then as you do lift some interesting questions every week.

I´m not criticize this course I think it is a fantastic intiative!
But I see that I fill my time in the course with reading the content that comes from "the instructors" and not from my self or other course praticipants.
I also see it a bit problematic to have an open course - with the PLE/PLN concept. As I see PLE/PLN it´s driven by individuals and I ask if it´s possible to design a course like this. But in the same time I don´t have other suggestions how to structure a connectivist course.

- I think the questions are really interesting and thanks George, Stephen, Dave and Rita for the course - I´m learning alot!

PLE require a reform of the assessment of knowledge!

2010-09-25T01:05:00.001+02:00

In this post I will discuss the issues of week 2 in the course #PLENK2010, based on my experiences as a high school (upper secondary) teacher in sience and math and my reflections of the input from the week.

The issues week 2 in the course are:
”Key questions arise as to the role that PLEs play in relation to structured enterprise-controlled systems (VLEs and LMS). Can PLEs be seen as institutional level software?
Do PLEs require dramatic reform of the education system? Must PLEs and LMS be seen as antagonistic to each other? Why can't they just get along?”

PLE and PLN can be used in youth schools and higher education, it can be as a part of or comlement to VLE, LMS, but it can not replace LMS. It is not because of the technical stucture in PLE or LMS it is rather because of that using PLE require a different view of how learning occurs, ie other theories of learning than those that are generally accepted among teachers today (my opinion).

PLE in youth school and in higher education is not possible to use because of curriculums are written in a way that define the content that the students will learn in courses and a PLE require a student driven approach of learning. This is not at all true in all circumstances and it may be different in advanced courses at universitys.

In upper secondary (high) schools, that I have most experience from, are the steering documents and the curriculums formulated in a way that makes is impossible to design the education on the base of PLE.
The curriculums are separated into subjects and this does not provide PLE. The students have alot of freedom to choose witch courses the want to take, wich makes the education in most cases fragmented. I think that the students want be able to have "different PLEs" in up to 10 courses at the same time.

Even though this is a makes it difficult to fully use the concept PLE in education, is there another factor that is more crucial - assessment of knowledge!
The traditional forms to assess knowledge is not possible to use in an education based on PLE/PLN. The most accepted form of assessing knowledge is to have written tests where the students not are allowed to communicate and esspecially not through internet.
The assessment of knowledge must be in the same context in which learning occurs and the national test does in most cases not provide other ways of tests. This makes it difficult (My opinon as it is in the whole post.) for teachers to have test and other forms of assessment of knowledge, that the school authorities approve and are accepted by collegues, students...

Fortunately, the reality is more complex and manifold.

I think, based on my experiences (Se my blog in Swedish - Tankar om lärande ), that it is possible to substantially base the education on PLE.
But PLE or PLN is not possible to use completely in the educational system because of the reasons that has been named and the fact that the content is too pre-determined.
Despite all the obstacles it will not prevent teachers from using PLE as a complement to traditional education. However, something must be removed from the content of students will have the opportunity to build PLE.

In the spring, I have as teachers tried to use the various tools that may well have been the basis for students' PLE - BUT it has not been there. for the reason that students do not themselves have been running their own knowledge process!
See blog (in Swedish)

See the blog post: Social bokmärkning i undervisningen genom att använda verktyget Diigo – 2

Of course, PLE can be part of teaching in compulsory education, if students are freer to develop their skills and if:

Students along with teachers interpret goals, so that students understand what they should learn.
The teacher assesses skills in the context where students' knowledge has been developed.

Finnaly:

There is another type of schools in Sweden, called Folkhögskola. Folkhögskolan has other "policy documents" than youth schools and higher education. In this schools it is possible to fully use the concept PLE.

The issue of PLE is important.

Continued on trying to define the PLE, PLN, based on concrete examples. #PLENK2010

2010-09-17T16:20:00.002+02:00

In my last post I wrote about definitions of PLE and PLN from my own experience, where a usable definition of PLE is

"The tools, communities, and Services That constitute the individual's educational platforms That learners use to direct their own learning and Pursue educational goals." EDUCAUSE: 7 Things you should know about PLE's

http://www.educause.edu/Resources/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutPerso/171521

If I define the PLE as the tools, networks, it is easier to define the PLN. A friend of mine who´s goal to, in his spare time, train himself in Java programming. By starting from the questions in a test to get certified in the Java programming accession, in a very advanced level. He thinks that to answer the questions is a great way to learn.

BUT he does not only respond to questions - he creates slideshare presentations that have become popular to download.

My friend uses a peronalized learning envirionment and in that he publishes presentations, and other downloads them. He has in this case, no social capital to maintain and his PLE exists but it is not social in the way that I see that PLN is social, according to the definition: "PLN Are The sum of all social capital and connetions That resulted in the development and Facilitation of a PLE " (Veletsianos G. Emerging technologies in distant education, AU press 2010)

Thus, PLE exist without the existence of a PLN.

Furthermore, his PLE consists of a forum where he answers questions arising from his presentations.

But he does not use the forum to answer the questions in the certification.

I reckon that my friend has a PLE but not a PLN.

How do you view this?

Continuation of my definition of PLE and PLN on the basis of practical experience - linked to others' definitions. #PLENK2010

2010-09-16T15:30:00.003+02:00

Continuing to reflect on my definitions of PLE and PLN on the basis of how I use social media ... and information on the Internet for learning myself.

In my last post I wrote that it is the concept of PLN is most interesting, perhaps it is so, but really it is not important to choose which of the concepts that are most important. It is not possible in my learning context to distinguish the tools from the people.Hence the need for two terms and it is important, for me, to define the concepts of PLE and PLN to raise awareness and develop how I use the internet to learn myself.

What tools / network do I use?

Is Facebook a useful tool? In a few occasions it has proved to be useful because the people I want to communicate in a learning context is there, but usually it is not relevant for me to use FB.

Today I use mainly:

Twitter, skype, Diigo, buzz, various networks as Ning...

I have many times tried to structure my RSS feeds and add and delete information I am interested in, but real-time communication has been more important for me. Especially when I worked as a teacher, I wanted to get input from many sources and to share ideas with others.

Here have people been most important (which I define as PLN). It is only recently I have started blogging, because of this there has been a shift in how quickly I communicate with other people and it has also led to "my" PLE has changed and therefore has "my" learning network (PLN) also changed. Here it is very difficult for me to distinguish PLE from PLN.

Today, I try to build up my learning network that I need as PhD-student. What I start with is to use the network I already have to make new contacts. I get in touch with the friends of my friends, I'm interested in getting in touch with. - I see this as "I am building out my personal learning network" (PLN) But at the same time I'm looking up the new contexts, tools and networks, where there may be other people that I have not met before. One of the new tools / networks is Cloud Works (I do not know if it's useful.) This looks to me like that I modify and extend my personal learning environment (PLE).

One of the key elements in changing my PLE is the sort which the flow of information I want to take to me. This means in practice to modify the RSS feeds ... Unfortunately, the academic publishing is locked up in journals that can not be accessed to use tools such as Diigo (social bookmarking) and to add in the RSS - feeds.

Therefore a parrallell process needs where I use the information channels that are established within the scientific community - to search for articles ... in databases. At the same time I try to build and maintain my "IRL" network. Communication via Internet is very valuable, but it is not the only way I need to learn myself what I'm interested in.

For this reason, it is important to me that the concepts of PLE and PLN are discussed in a wider perspective.

To return to that part of my personal learning network and personal learning environment that is linked to the internet is there a difference in how I define PLE and PLN from my practical use of the terms, but they complements each other.

Definitions of PLE that I want to highlight is:

"The term personal learning environment (PLE) describes the tools, communities, and services that constitute the individual educational platforms that learners use to direct their own learning and pursue educational goals." EDUCAUSE: 7 Things you should know about PLE's

http://www.educause.edu/Resources/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutPerso/171521

Definitions of Personal Learning Environment (PLE)
View more presentations from Ilona Buchem.

More definitions of PLE has Alastair Creelman compiled in "Personliga lärmiljöer (in swedish) from LTC Wiki, University of Manitoba:

"A Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is a collection of free, distributed, web-based tools, usually centred around a blog, linked together and aggregating content using RSS feeds and simple HTML scripts." http://seanfitz.wikispaces.com/creatingyourple
"a Personal Learning Environment is a facility for an individual to access, aggregate, configure and manipulate digital artefacts of their ongoing learning experiences." http://members.optusnet.com.au/rlubensky/2006/12/present-and-future-of-personal-learning.html
"Essentially, they are a collection of tools, brought together under the conceptual notion of openness, interoperability, and learner control."http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/archives/002884.html
PLEs: http://blog.simslearningconnections.com/?p=50 - PLE are very personal both in the sense of being independent of the university or employer and in the sense of being hand-crafted — although a bit necessarily too hand-crafted today. Even with a more ideal integrative application, PLE will still be highly customized to the needs and preferences of the learner. Portions of even the software application PLE will be kept behind our personal firewall. Learning is deeply personal, AND social.

Finally a good defintion of PLE comes from Mohamed A. Chatti (Edutech Wiki, PLE):

“ A PLE is characterized by the freeform use of a set of lightweight services and tools that belong to and are controlled by individual learners. Rather than integrating different services into a centralized system, the idea is to provide the learner with a myriad of services and hand over control to her to select and use the services the way she deems fit. A PLE driven approach does not only provide personal spaces, which belong to and are controlled by the user, but also requires a social context by offering means to connect with other personal spaces for effective knowledge sharing and collaborative knowledge creation.”

It is much harder to find definitions of PLN, but I think Veletsianos, G. definition of PLN in Emerging technologies in distance education, Albrasca university 2010, is intresting:

Veletsianos says that

"Defintions of PLNs, seem to extand this framework to more explicitly include the human connections that are mediated through the PLE. In this framework, PLE become a subset of substbtially humanized PLN"

and his definition:

"PLN are the sum of all social capital and connetions that result in the development and facilitation of a PLE"

(This compilation of various definitions of PLE is probably not necessary for more than for me.) Anyway, based on these definitions of PLE and PLN Cormirs short definition

"PLEs are (to me at least) the ecologies within which PLNs operate" 5 points about PLEs PLNs for PLENK10. fit well to how I in fact am using the concepts of PLE and PLN.

A development of concepts of PLE and PLN, which I find very interesting is

Learning as a Network (LaaN) , Chatti, where he uses the term personal knowledge network (PKN).

Back to my use of the concepts in practice.

For me, it is useful to start from classical didactic issues, when I want to learn something

(Even if the questions have to be made to fit into the situation where it is I who will learn):

what shall teaching include
- In this case what I want to learn?
how is this made available?
- In this case, how do I aggregate, rework and publish information?
who is it to learn?- I :)
when will you learn
- The answer to this question follows from the answers to the other questions
of whom shall be learned?
- What other people around the world (both proprietary physics and virituellt) are interested to learn the same things as I?
where will you learn?
- It depends on how much time learning should take, what an opportunity I have to travell, who I meet, what artifacs I use .....
through what to be learned?
- Totally dependent on the anwers of the other questions
why should you learn
- In this case, the question is already answered, but as teaching situations is the key.
who determines the learning
- This is usually a very interesting question, but not in this case.

What interests me most today is how communication via the Internet are linked and may intertwine with the information in books, "IRL" network ...

In order to better understand and develop my learning, I need more knowledge of how concepts (below) are related, linked to theories of learning. I hope and believe I will learn a lot during this course.

learning Network
vle
PLE
PLN
online learning communitys

"My definition" of PLE and PLN! #PLENK2010

2010-09-15T20:33:00.000+02:00

First of all "my definition" of PLE and also PLN is not based on the technical systems. I have "my" PLE and PLN even if I change the tools, technical systems. I know that this is not true - I have to use different tools to communicate with different people,

some people doesn´t use internet or only mail and other people can I only communicate with in twitter...

The important issue is why and with what content I want to communicate,

this is the "base" in PLE and PLN in my defenition of PLE & PLN. After asking myself this questions I can choose with who and with what tools I want to communicate. In "my definition" of PLE & PLN i think of PLE and PLN as my personalized learning network and envirionment on the web, but also also in IRL.

I do not know whether PLE is a relevant concept for me today, I think right now that PLN is important.

I have seen my PLN as the network of people I want to learn from and with, while the PLE is the environment / context in which I communicate with "my" PLN. But on the another hand is the concept PLN depending in wich context I communicate, so I realise that I have to work with the definition of PLN and that PLN include the form of the communication.

I have read a lot about PLE and PLN, and I have used the ideas to change my way of learning as a teacher. I have also used the ideas of PLN to change the way of my education.

It is not easy to explain the structure of "my" (as a teacher) PLN, I use different webbtools and so on, but also traditional phonecalls IRL meetings books... and this mix is very intressesting:

How can I combine "my analog PLN" with "my" PLN?

I work since two weeks a PhD-student and does not work as a teacher, and I realise that "my" PLN have to change, and that most of the information I´m looking fore is written in books, papers... that is not availible on the internet. This is a big problem for me right now and another problem is that I can´t find the poeple I want to comunicate with on internet.

I have to work alot with "my" PLN and the fundamental theories about learning. Is the concept of PLN somting new? I think not although something is changeing with the new ways of ,

I would like to see the concept PLN in a historical context.

I´m really looking forward to the rest of the course.

I was hoping that time would be enough...

2010-09-13T22:15:00.001+02:00

The time was not enough to create more public reflections on the course #CritLit2010. I look forward to course #PLENK2010, which is just started!

Finally have I time for the course!

2010-06-20T07:18:00.000+02:00

During the year have I and high school students I teached have together used Ning, Diigo, blogs, wikispaces, Google Docs, Zoho Docs, Google wave, we have also tried to use wikiverisity and Twitter. No student has used all the tools, we have used the tools that are needed or could be used. All students in the class received instructions in and used the same tools.

The situation for students has even become so complex that they require a different way of relating to all the content that is written, there was no way to read everything. This has been most visible in the courses where I have and the students have been using Diigo. The students have together with me bookmarked, tagged, annotated and stored all the bookmarks in the same group.

My first reaction when I read:

"You are NOT expected to read and watch everything. Even we, the facilitators, cannot do that. Instead, what you should do is PICK AND CHOOSE content that looks interesting to you and is appropriate for you."(How this course works),

is that I get frustrated that I dont feel complete comfortable with the course structure, just like that many students have has been, even if they understood the purpose of using web-based tools.

I have, I realize now when I really got into the course structure, in my mind had the idea:

- Let the students write anywhere on the Internet and build on it the content that they find interesting.

The closest I have come this was a task where students commented on existing blogs and then mark and bookmark what they have written in Diigo, so that it became visible to me and the other in the course.

I am fascinated by the course structure and content I've read so far!