I’m enrolled on PLENK 2010 and look forward to seeing how the debate on personal learning environments has developed over the last 3 years. In 2007 I was interested in the relationship between the emerging PLE and the traditional LMS / VLE (that is, if a technology only 15 years old can be called ‘traditional’) and gave a presentation at the NZ Moodle Moot on the topic ‘Can MOODLE become more SUPPLE ?’
Since then I’ve had to explore the limitations of Blackboard in relation to the same question – to what extent is it possible to develop a PLE space for learners in an institutional context dominated by the lecture as the default mode of on-campus teaching, with the corresponding mirroring of transmission-pedagogy in the default use of the LMS ?
I think that while the PLE debates (and diagrams ! 🙂 have become a lot more nuanced and complex, we haven’t really seen a shift away from the LMS into a setting where the PLE becomes the default mode of online engagement for learners. One promising development that I have noted is the Open Learning Network (OLN) at Brigham Young University – but this is a distant blip on the radar for NZ universities.
I’m also interested in the theoretical aspects and will be trying to unpack some thoughts on the relationship between PLEs / PLNs and the theoretical perspectives of enactivism, biosemiotics and the emergent understandings of technology as the technium or the 7th kingdom of biological life.
Also lots of work to do in the day job but that goes for everyone I guess ….