PLE I hear Thou

(cross posted from here)

"- Can you picture and describe your Personal Learning Environment?
- Learning? Isn't that the stuff I had to do at school?
- Yes.. but surely you did not stop learning the day you graduated, did you?
- True… I suppose my experiences, my goals, my thoughts, my responsibilities, my training, my projects, all constitute ongoing learning..
- And it looks you are onto a good thing, so keep with it as "your ability to learn is the only lasting competitive advantage!"

I have been thinking about the place of the ePortfolio in a Personal Learning Environment. ePortfolio and Personal Learning Environment can both be a software system or a concept. I am considering the latter here.

The ePortfolio is a great personal space to collect, select, and make sense of information, throw ideas around and verify the more potent ones.
The Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is a layered, variable, distributed, open, collaborative space.
ePortfolio and Personal Learning Environment are inherently linked, each feeding the development and make up of the other.
PLE is nothing new, but since it is bound with technology its form, shape and purpose continue to evolve with it.
 
To me a Personal Learning Environment is a self crafted connected ecosystem comprising of people, tools, and spaces:

 - that I build, maintain
 - that grows and adapts to my needs
 - that is both physical and digital
 - that serves my purpose,
 - from which I collect information,
 - with which I experience new learnings, am comfortable with or challenged into doing new things,
 - that lets me engage in conversation around topics of interests
 - with which I interact and share my understanding of these common interests
 - that allows me to chose the media, the time and the place at which any of this happens
 - where I feel "at home"
 - that lets me dream, frame ideas and act on them

My PLE is a mash up of : friends, peers, mentors, with whom I have a relation of trust, clients, influencers that I respect and who I connect with via a range of tools, Twitter, my go to social media for short and sharp info and for just in time conversations on specific topics, ePortfolio as planning and goal setting space where I archive and reflect on flow, blogs, including mine , Feedly where I make up my own reading lists from blogs of interest, online forums and groups,  and google scholar on serious topics, google alerts, Youtube for "how to" do something, curating tools like Scoop It and Pinterest when researching for a project, LinkedIn as my office, Facebook as my playground, Quora as my knowledge base where I sit tight and absorb,  Evernote to keep notes, email where many a one on one conversations are continued and developed, Pocket to save and organise links of interest… Elements in my PLE are public, others are shared with a selected audience, some face to face, others online, some are private to me.

Some spaces come and go, some topics come and go, according to my needs and wants, new people are added as connections widen and grow, interests evolve, opportunities arise. My PLE is a living space.

It is undeniable: the way I learn and work is increasingly project based, individualised, flexible and is also increasingly less structured, less time and space dependent. And adapting to new ways of working and learning require more self discipline, self determination and independent thinking to answer questions such as "how am I doing?" "what problem am I trying to solve?" "how can I do this better faster more efficiently?". Hence my need to articulate my understanding of my own online presence and pin my position in this environment I create.

As I develop the skills and the mindset to evolve in this environment I develop a more open approach to sharing ideas and meeting new people. I engage more in conversations, seeking new information, making new knowledge, and together with my network push my own boundaries. The Internet has multiplied the opportunities to become agent of my learning, transferring knowledge between context and domains as well as people, so I ask myself:

Taking charge of one's own learning is the default attribute so do I want to be limited by institutionalised software?  
Sharing what I know and make it explicit is not an option, do I want to have control of how and when and with whom I do this?

With a device at my fingertips any time any where, it is easy to access an ongoing flow of information, to communicate, to create, share, cross pollinate thoughts and ideas, to participate in a network I build over time,
I can also capture and archive meaningful pieces, organize them for a purpose, and reflect upon them. I blend formal learning with informal, learning is no longer the work of the individual, it is the work of the network! I am "done learning" I am self directing it!

Along the way the boundaries between my personal self and professional self blur and blend.  And with it the need to "develop a strategy to manage the various information streams" and design and organize my own learning, and recognize it happens in different places, with different people, in different contexts.

The challenge for any learning institution, should they be schools, universities, training providers, companies L&D, is to recognize that individuals' access to information, tools, devices, experts and peers impacts on their ability and willingness to drive how, what and when they learn. The learning institution have to adapt their learning design, the tools they provide, to support the development of learner attributes. Through fostering a sense of community, nurturing a stimulating environment and culture conducive to serendipitous knowledge transfer, ideas and solutions generation the learnplace/workplace will start realising the potential of knowledge sharing and the innovation and opportunities it brings about.

The challenge for the individual is to have awareness of their own network, maintain it, grow it and diversify it. And to realise its potential for personal and "collaborational" growth. My PLE is constantly changing making managing time, sources and relationships within it unprecedented and complex. My PLE is constantly challenging, hence my deep engagement with it.

---

Readings:

Pontydysgu: New Thoughts on Personalised Learning EnvironmentsGraham Attwell: Personal Learning Environments
Ilona Buchem: Definitions of a PLE
Harold Jarche: The ability to learn is the last competitive advantage
Jane Hart: The Social Learning Handbook

Photo courtesy of: tata_aka_T [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Starting with the Who

Last week saw the launch of Shared Histories, a France-New Zealand schools cross-curricular project  spanning the five years of the commemoration of World War One Centenary, starting 2014.
Initiated by the French Embassy in Wellington it corresponds with both the signing of an Arrangement of Education Cooperation between the Ministries of Education of France and New Zealand, the official launch of the Centenary Commemoration by François Hollande, President of France, and of many initiatives up and down New Zealand.
Shared Histories in New Zealand currently receives the coordinating support of the French Embassy, the Ministry of Education (NZ), NZAFT  and ILEP

Shared Histories is about fostering the Duty of Remembrance. Participants will interact around building a consciousness that human experiences are universal.
It provides a framework for New Zealand and French schools to form partnerships and work on common projects on the theme of WW1.

It is not about simply developing language skills:  it is about developing personal relevance for the all the students involved, through genuine social interaction and explorative reflection, supported with authentic documents and experiences.

This is a personal account of two extremely rich days, working with competent, visionary and courageous colleagues who see Shared Histories as the framework for cross curricular collaboration in their schools as well as the opportunity to engage with their students in the discovery and analysis of the world around them.

I was invited to facilitate the conversation around collaborative project building and the scaffolding role of ICTs.

inspired from Julia Atkin's Values & Beliefs about Learning to Principles and Practice

It is about project co-construction at all levels involving conversations and negotiations to establish grounds for collaboration and cooperation, to take action and make choices together but also independently from each other.

We worked around this starting with Who. Quite a few participants had already thought through and defined the project that they would like to carry. Starting with Who reminded them to consider who are the participants in their project  and potentially questions their assumption about the fact that the project they have in mind is the best idea until they know for sure that it is wide enough and encompassing enough for all participants to take ownership of it also.

WHO as identified by participants:
students in French class, History class, English class, vertical classes, librarian , Media studies , art, music teacher/students extra curricular students, principal, parents, school community, RSA, old boys network,

Considering Why also drew in a fair amount of conversation, as the Why? participants came out with is their Why, not the Why that is a common purpose designed and adopted by the community of Who which is going to give the project a life! This served as a reminder that in designing a project, it is important to consider who executes the project, their reasons, their motivation, and to provide a scaffold that allows participants to find their own drivers.

WHY as identified by participants:
opportunity for a cross curricular French led project, create a school partnership with a French school, create a product, opportunity to use language in an authentic communicative context, multilevel, identity, cross generational

Moving onto the How was about thinking of actions that will make the project happen. It was a worthwhile step as it focussed participants on the type of learning outcomes  they want their students to get out of the project. This was also a starting point to think about the type of tools that can serve the purpose and forced people to consider the capturing, selecting, curating of information, the creation of content during the process, the feedback and conversations emanating from this process…

HOW as identified by participants:
research, gather, archive, share, connect, build framework, involve, define setting, communicate for the project, communicate about the project, relate, reflect, build collectively, discuss, manage contacts, feedback, develop global citizenship awareness.

Arriving at the What, participants were invited to consider the value of capturing the process that leads to the completion of a project. Often the proposed projects at this early stage are prescriptive. The stages of development to lead to this are worth capturing as they will tell the story of the project and also allow to get feedback and tweak/progess. Building in regular check points also gives visibility to individual and groups contribution so that all involved have a clear view of their involvement, what they are learning and how they are learning. What is produced out of this process can end up being a range of creations, and a quick brainstorm around what it can look like indicated that participants were considering a product they could have control over (e.g.: a video, a wiki etc). This led to go back to Who? and to build a project framework that allow for creativity and interpretation for all involved to shine through.

Key Words for building a Shared Histories project as identified by participants:
Time, sustainability, partnership, flexibility, communication about the process, about the product, visibility.

Participants can use the Who, Why, How, What circles to work with their partners in their school as well as their French partners. Getting to know each other from the outset is essential to work towards defining a common framework that is negotiated and  actionable over time and distance, including a range of actors, supported by ICTs that are accessible to all involved.

Shared Histories provides an ambitious opportunity. The scope and range of the project came to life as teachers from French and New Zealand met on Saturday morning via video conference. Shared Histories is definitely real and the welcome as well as the input of the French from the Amiens academy was an amazing reminder that what we had been working on for the last few days was actually starting now!

Schools had been provisionally paired in the light of their initial project outline.  Each introduced each other, in their respective or the other's language, exchanged a few ideas around how they envisage to go about the project.

Shared Histories in NZ school actually started on Saturday 7th November. It is an exciting challenge ahead.

A different kind of a week end...

How to find real life learning, with an authentic purpose, in a supportive, energetic environment, where collaboration and competition keep momentum, curiosity and drive going?
How to test what I can add to a team of people I don't know, in an unknown setting with an unknown challenge?
I have signed up for Tauranga StartUp Weekend•, a 54hr "learning curve" where up to 80 people from various professional backgrounds (tech, design, marketing, entrepreuneurs...) get together to form/join a team on an idea that is pitched on the first night, build a viable business, convince investors.
This is going to be a little... "uncomfortable"!

So what shall I take with me to "pad the ride?"
- a bit of tech end user experience,
- some facilitation skills
- a burgeoning understanding of the Design Thinking mindset (I'll have to tell you about that as I am putting this in real time practice for ThinkAgency!)
- my ability to generate ideas
- a capacity to look for, find and analyse relevant information
- my "to do" list obsession
- an aptitude to look for "work arounds"
- all that the world of teaching and learning has armed me with: patience, stayability, keeping things simple, working with others, curiosity, solving problems... will all this come handy?
- an open mind, ready to fill the kete!
- my brand new phone (again!) my laptop, my chargers.

And here is what I shall leave behind:
- preconceived ideas
- fear of the unknown
- feeling overwhelmed in front of awesomeness
- worry that I will be out of my depth.

So will I pitch on the night or what? One minute to convince an audience that your idea is worth spending time and energy on? It has got to be done.

• About Startup Weekend: Startup Weekends are 54-hour events designed to provide superior experiential education for technical and non-technical entrepreneurs.  Beginning with Friday night pitches and continuing through brainstorming, business plan development, and basic prototype creation, Startup Weekends culminate in Sunday night demos and presentations.  Participants create working startups during the event and are able to collaborate with like-minded individuals outside of their daily networks. All teams hear talks by industry leaders and receive valuable feedback from local entrepreneurials. The weekend is centered around action, innovation, and education.  Whether you are looking for feedback on a idea, a co-founder, specific skill sets, or a team to help you execute, Startup Weekends are the perfect environment in which to test your idea and take the first steps towards launching your own startup.

Watery inspiration

Welcome home à ma co-bloggeuse!
I'ts been a bit quiet on the BTTDB front as, in St George mode, I try to fend off a variety of fire-breathing dragons. Survival first......
Still, my daily wallow in the bath gave rise this week to a bit of inspiration. We had been discussing in a Year 10 class how we might best make a joint presentation, à la Powerpoint.

There was talk of adding a slide and airdropping the presentation to the next student, which seemed a long and drawn out solution.

We first decided to gather/create the info and images on individual word docs which would be sent to me to compile into a powerpoint. Not a brilliant solution as I end up doing too much of the work and management of documentation.

So after a couple of classic BTTDB 'false' starts (I prefer to see them as an essential part of the learning process, and far from a waste of time) I suddenly thought of Google docs and the 'presentation' function which seemed to be a slightly simplified clone of Powerpoint.

The task was to make a slide illustrating your favourite animal and why you liked it. The task required the students to incorporate direct object pronouns (Je les aime parce que.......) and allowed for differentiation as there was a minimum requirement but those that chose to could add as much as they liked.


I started a 'presentation' Google doc and shared it with all the students. They very quickly got onto it and began working on their slide. It was interesting to observe the motivating factor of being able to see what everyone else was doing. Of course this quickly led to the realisation that they could not only 'chat' while they were doing it but also edit each other's slides. This gave rise to some sabotage initially before the novelty wore off. Some students realised that if they made their slide from a screen shot they'd made from Powerpoint, then the content couldn't be edited by others. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage as the language can't be added to or modified once we go through the slides together to look at them critically.

The only drawback to using this Google 'presentation' doc is that, unlike Powerpoint, there doesn't seem to be a voice recording function. I would like everyone to have included a soundfile of themself reading their text aloud. That would've been fun and made it an even better task. I guess they can record themselves in some other way and insert the sound file but it's much easier if it's a one-click operation.

Here's the link to the presentation. Hope it works. It's a work in progress as we haven't reviewed it yet and some students are yet to finish.

Now for a weekend of culture. There's so much happening here with films (Film Fest) and concerts that I'll have a hard time deciding what to go to.........
Vivement ta visite!!

Educamp Dunners

Here we are on a moist Saturday evening in Dunners, reflecting on my first experience of an Educamp. It was, as I expected, a complete contrast to the traditional 'expert', 'key-note' sort of affair where one tends to drift off even if the wisdom being imparted is relatively interesting.

What did I take away from it? Well, for the first time in my life I made notes in a word doc instead of in a notebook. That's quite a shift for an old paper addict. But as I type much faster than I can write it makes good sense and I'm not sure why it's taken me so long. I'm likely to do much more with my electronic notes as I know where they're stored, for a start, and can copy and paste sections of them as required. I can also upload them onto MyPortfolio in some form as part of my record of professional learning (no doubt ticking some RTC box or other, but that's the least of my reasons for doing so!!) Leaving a timely trail of reflection as one goes (while the trail is still warm) is eminently sensible (as we're doing now), compared to doing massive, window-dressed, probably fictitious, template-filling reports for purposes of compliance, which no-one, least of all the author, will ever read.

So what did we do?
Several campers shared interesting stuff during the Smackdown. Here are some of the things that I'm likely to revisit some time, or which I found particularly interesting:

•  'The 100 Days Project' seen at TedX Auckland, which consists of signing up to do and share one thing for 100 days (share some magic). The example used was of someone undertaking to paint 100 canvasses. I wonder what I'd choose to do?
•  Breaking the classroom bubble - power of the # was preaching to the converted about the power of connectivity for taking learning and sharing beyond the classroom.
• App crayons (not available in NZ but under $20 US for a box of 6, for writing on ipads
• 10 ways  to use a cellphone in class - kids taking snaps instead of notes, screenshotting everything to save time and effort and to make it instantly available for sharing.
• I liked the Gliff to attach an iphone to a tripod. $30US
• bluetooth mouse and keyboard 90% of functionality of interactive whiteboard
   bluetooth headphones / not tethered to your laptop
  
  
  (and now for some reason the bullet points are having a spazz as I try to cut and paste and edit and they won't go back to the right place despite repeated efforts so I'll put that one in the not-important-enough-to-waste-time-on box)
  
  
  •  http://www.sparkol.com/home.php
    (used for RSA animates) $6 on ipad
    a bit fiddly on the ipad but much cheaper than for laptop)
    
    
    SESSIONS - SOMETHING YOU CAN SHARE AND SOMETHING YOU'D LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT
    As we put up post-its of the above it reminded me very much of the Réseaux d'Echange Réciproque des Savoirs which some of my French PLN are exponents of and which dates from the early 70s. You may remember I took part virtually in a RERS conference in Paris from the comfort of my own office in 2009 (I think it was).
    
    I was eager to crack the nitty-gritty of creating Google Docs and that was the largest session. It consisted mainly of two people showing how they used Google Docs to enhance their students' learning. I found it mildly frustrating as I already knew how I wanted to use them but lacked the practical expertise. Fortunately as a follow-on from this session we had another chance to choose what to do next and I opted for an impromptu how-to-do-it session with David Fitzgerald from Cromwell. I like the way the sessions grow organically from the needs identified on the day rather than being set in concrete in advance by the boffins. It is, as you say, teachers being responsible for their own professional development and going and getting it rather than going along expecting things to be handed to them already packaged. It's a mirror image of what I've encountered with some of my students. They take a while to get used to being the drivers of their own learning.  So (revenons à nos moutons) we had a chance to negotiate our way around the Google Drive page and collaborate on a document. It was just what I was looking for, so that was an added bonus to an already satisfying day. I've come away with something concrete that I'd already identified the need for, so it was TIMELY. I was able to reciprocate on a very small scale by showing David how I used MyPortfolio. I was all set to come home and try a Google Doc between my two laptops using different addresses but I've ascertained that my school address isn't recognised by Google so either we rectify that school-wide or I get my students to create a gmail account for collaborative work.
    
    
    In addition to the above it was good to have a chance to meet Greg Carroll and see Anne Kennelly again. They carried us through the proceedings with flair and enthusiasm without in any way dominating them. It was all very horizontal. I look forward to further developments at Columba vis a vis the E-Learning Plan of Attack, or whatever its official title is. 
    We rounded off with a convivial lunch at No7, where we'd dined on Monday evening. It was packed to the rafters so it's just as well we had plenty to say to each other.
    
    

    

    
    
    Bonne nuit!!
    ^. .^
    =+=