Implementing PLEs like we are supposed to.
There has been so much talk about PLEs but very little committed action from those of us who ponder its pedagogical potentials. Graham Atwell’s Slideshare presentation –
is interesting and insightful, until the concluding questions: What is a PLE? and What can we do with a PLE? Arrrg!. We thought for a moment there that some answers were in the offering. But we understand that this thinking is simplistic.
He talks about the need to contextualise the PLE. Well, yes. My colleague and I have decided to push ahead with our own contextualised understanding, so we can start to reflect upon rather that speculate about our PLE work. But we still keep getting stuck, half way over the implementation hurdle! If we telelogically suggest a way forward for any group of learners, then we are not facilitating a PLE, we are imposing our values. It’s easy to join in the chorus of what a PLE is not!
Atwell points out that in a PLE, learners will set their own goals. Now here is the difficulty. We are trying to fit a free-flowing design into a rigid situation like an assessed and accredited course. Course designers draw up rubrics – boundaries and fences in which learning objectives and assessment strategies are imprisoned. PLEs, if they were released on the system, would, by their very nature, transcend those boundaries.
I think this is why it is so hard to implement PLEs into higher education courses.
January 30th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
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February 22nd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I think that there are two answers:
It’s entirely possible to give students a PLE for themselves with a ‘here’s something to start with’, and particulary with some training on how to choose/configure thier own PLE facilities. Think of it as scaffolding, getting the students going.
But on the other hand, there is an theme of getting students to direct their own education as peer-assisted learners that runs through the PLE movement. So its (regretably) gratifying to read that the approach seems intractable in formal educational settings.
But ultimately, I feel the former approach is the way to go, a step towards helping students along the path to self-determnation in their own education.