Think about your own learning – the resources and tools you use, where and when it takes place
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.
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
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
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 ….
Debs Open Learning Journey 