I have not managed to participate in SL and so am fascinated by your success. Like you I am excited by the enabling possibilities of cloud computing. I see this participation as invitational too. I read your post after watching Jay Cross’s ‘No more learners’ video.

I conducted a small survey recently of colleagues in a Yammer group. It was helpful and led to a discussion of how to support and develop PLEs.

Best wishes

Keith

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.

Although be careful wading through technical stuff, not everything that floats is a buoy.

Damo.

Beautiful image.

It’s striking that you are thinking about Whitehead in the context of/around cck08. I found my way back to him recently by participating in a distributed reading group on McLuhan’s Medium is the Massage. McLuhan quotes Whitehead liberally throughout, and to striking effect. So I have gone back to the source. He seems to speak well to the times, or at least to those of us in these times questioning what and how knowledge and education are and could be. And so the following: http://the-ed-rush.blogspot.com/2008/12/expectation-of-information-conversation.html