Week 23: Meaning-making and metaphors / A3: Thinking about your own learning

learning , resources and tools

Think about your own learning – the resources and tools you use, where and when it takes place

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What is your experience of being a learner?

I consider myself to be an open practitioner, and by the same vein an ‘open’ learner. I think the whole idea of being able to learn in an open and honest way suits my learning style and personality. I think this may have had something to do with the fact that I have been brought up on distance learning. I prefer being able to direct my own learning and much prefer to be able to do this at my own pace although this is inevitably not quite as flexible as I would like.  I also think I am quite a bit of a social learner and the advances in technology have really helped me interact and engage with others.

What tools and resources do you use? What are your views on different technologies?

I tend to be a bit of a tool and resources butterfly … I tend to flit around using new tools as I come across them. Some I settle on and stick with such as wordpress for blogging and twitter for microblogging but others I have to revisit a number of times before I really get used to using them. I cant quite get a handle on what makes me engage with a particular tool yet though but I have a feeling it might have something to do with a) ease of use  b) cost and c) how pretty it looks !  That probably sounds fairly shallow  …

Can you think of examples where technology has made a significant difference to the way you learn?

I think blogging has probably had the most major impact. I’ve been blogging now for just over 18 months and I think it has really enhanced my reflective thinking skills as well as improving my connections with like minded people.

Can you think of counter-examples where you had a bad experience of a particular technology ? What did this do to your motivation for learning?

Yep I used a particular VLE on a short online course at work towards the end of the year. I just didn’t get on with it. I was really surprised as having had quite a deal of experience with online learning I really wasnt prepared for the impact that the VLE would have on me. I found that the desktop version was cumbersome, really difficult to navigate , full of technological quirks that were quite frustrating to overcome and above all quite boring. This really affected my motivation to engage with the course. I did find though once I stumbled across the mobile app ( by accident) this did work much better and consequently improved my motivation and engagement with the course …

How did you deal with the situation?

I guess I dealt with it by searching out possible solutions – hence looking for and finding the mobile app. I suppose I also did rather a lot of moaning and complaining inwardly and in some cases outwardly ( which did give me an awful lot of material to reflect on ! )

You have already sketched an outline of your own Personal Learning Environment in Weeks 21/22. We want you to return to this now, but this time we want you to explore how you might articulate and represent your learning experience and environment.

My blog post on my PLE is here …  I’ll be revisiting this shortly ….

#FOS4L : Day 1 Digital literacy and identity – Making Activity – Places that I visit online

Making: Which places do you visit regularly when online? Where do you stay a bit longer and why? Create a map of your digital me. (ilo-3)

I’m not sure it will come out ok but here is my map of my personal learning environment (PLE) where I engage ( at the moment ) of places where I go online….. as for the places where I stay the longest – I think for me this is a combination of wordpress, twitter and also more recently Google+, I think the main thing in common is probably the sense of connectedness and social presence that I get from these places which helps me to feel part of something .. if that makes sense

PLE – Personal Learning Environment

Week 21 / 22 Activity 2g  – Write a blog post on personal learning environments and where you think they are heading. Incorporate a representation of your own PLE

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Here is my mind map of my personal learning environment. Using Martin Weller’s blog post on his PLE example as a framework I have tried to incorporate the main tools that I currently use.  I remember doing this exercise a while back for another course ( before I had this blog) and if I can find it I will post that aswell as I think it would be useful to compare the two. I have a feeling it may have too good a hiding place however so it make take me a while to track it down ! 🙂 Any how here is the one I have just done … the ‘one I made earlier ‘will hopefully follow shortly ..:)

My main observation is that like Martin I have way too much Google in my life !  I also have a strong sense of collaboration and social presence coming out of my PLE and that connections to people demonstrate the strongest branches ….