Suzana Loshkovska Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies - Skopje Skopje 30-31 May 2011.

Suzana Loshkovska Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies - Skopje Skopje 30-31 May 2011

Personal Learning Environment A facility for an individual to access, combine, configure and manage digital resources related to his/ her present learning needs and interests Personal Learning Network Learning resources Potential collaborators, tutors, etc. Pedagogy Active and collective-based forms Autonomy, creativity and social connections

facilitating online interaction: interaction with content and interaction with other individuals around the shared content; putting the control over the learning process in the hands of learners; bringing together all resources of the learners interests and simplifying their management; allowing to create new meaning through interaction with disparate existing resources (annotation, linking and aggregation).

Most often PLEs are realized through combination of various Web 2.0 sources and are called Mash-Up Personal Learning Environments or MUPPLEs.

Mashups by aggregation: mainly support learners in putting together content from different sources into a single interface. Personal dashboards, like iGoogle, NetVibes and PageFlakes are typical examples. Mashups by integration: allow combining data from different sources and exchanging data among the tools and services integrated into the PLE; enable adaptation and personalization of PLEs. requires programming skills and thus have not been that widely accepted among end users (learners and teachers).

Common features include: pulling data from external (RSS or Atom) feeds, filtering, sorting, and combining many feeds into one, exporting results as RSS, JSON, XML, and other formats, creating a widget for seamless integration of the results in other Web sites.

Examples: PLEM a mashup-driven aggregator and filter of diverse kinds of learning resources. allows one to create a personalized space. provide a mechanism for ranking and recommending learning resources. MUPPLE (Mash-UP Personal Learning Environment), allows the reuse of different existing tools and their presentation to the user in an integrated manner. These tools do not communicate and their data cannot be interchanged, integrated and/or combined. ReMashed a system that recommends learning content by using the collective intelligence. uses collaborative filtering to offer recommendations;. Ratings and tags are used to create personalized recommendations for the current learner.

Talis Aspire allows user to easily discover appropriate content that can be re-used and remixed. provide recommendations to authors of new lists within comparable subject areas. students votes for resources are used as a source of data for generating recommendations. completely based on Linked Data principles and makes use of several ontologies to fully semantically describe the resources so that they can be easily combined and remixed. cannot be consider a typical PLE

The GroupMe! system combines Web 2.0 and Semantic Web technologies to provide personalized content management in a group context offers intuitive user interfaces that allow users to create groups of resources. allows the integration, sharing and better (re-)use of resources relevant for a group of users. The Ensemble project is exploring the potential of semantic technologies to support and enhance teaching and learning in higher education. The adopted approach assumes the combined usage of digital repositories, Semantic Web technologies, and features of social software to allow for reuse through reconfiguration, adaptation, and collective action.

PLEF Ext allows mashing-up RESTful services and makes use of semantic approaches to deal with service integration and mediation within mashup PLEs. uses semantic description of learning services, to enable finding, sharing, integrating, managing, reusing, and remixing the services with minimum effort.

PLEs bring a shift in how we view learning. Pedagogic approaches are influenced by resources in a PLE. Learners are active participants, creators of knowledge and seekers of engaging personal experiences. The old-fashioned closed classroom models, which place emphasis on the delivery of information by an instructor and from textbooks are replaced by learning-centric models.

McLoughlin and the coauthors introduce the concept of Pedagogy 2.0 comprised of three main components: Participation including communication, collaboration, connectivity and community Personalization Learner choice, learner agency, customization, self-regulation and management Productivity learner-created content, contribution to knowledge, generativity, creativity and innovation

Green, Facer, Rudd, Dillon and Humphreys summarise four key areas pivotal to enabling personalised learning through digital technologies: pedagogy must ensure that learners are capable of making informed educational decisions; diversify and recognise different forms of skills and knowledge; create diverse learning environments; and include learner-focused forms of feedback and assessment.

Three generic activities that individuals should perform to find, make sense of, use and share resources are: connect, consume and contribute. Grouping these activities together aims to bring the individual and collective aspects of self-regulated learning closer together, considering the characteristics of modern work environments.

Constructivism is a broad approach that includes theories coming from a cognitive tradition. Learning is a constructive, active, emotional, self- organised, social, situational process. Learning is a process where individuals construct new ideas based on prior knowledge. The major concerns of constructivism in PLEs are learning and construction of the knowledge process.

Another pedagogical perspective is based on learning through personal or social interaction amongst learners. A collaborative learning process can help students to share goals, exploit learning materials and achieve deeper levels of understanding and knowledge built by the social construction of meanings and knowledge. Several different activities can be included: group discussions around a certain topic, cooperative problem solving and collaborative project work. Collaborative learning is particularly useful to develop social skills such as respect for others, tolerance and team work.

Two pedagogical models are complementary. The independent learning model benefits the autonomous and self- directed adult learner. A student with these characteristics can manage time, balance learning tasks with professional and personal commitments, and arrange work to suit their needs and interests. The collaborationist model can help to decrease the feeling of isolation characteristic of distance learning, opens up the possibility for mutual support amongst students and gives students the benefits that arise from interacting to build common knowledge.

Siemens introduces - connectivism. The information sources and communication channels exist online. The requirements of a changed knowledge society and the educational policy goal of lifelong learning raise the demand for an e-media-literacy. Successful learning outcomes depend on the setup of appropriate networks containing distributed knowledge bases. Learning in the connectivist sense requires open learning environments that enable connections and exchanges with other network partners. Web 2.0 (social software) instruments hence become increasingly relevant for PLEs as they promote perfectly an exchange of knowledge and the development of competencies in networks and on the web.

Self-regulated learning (SRL) is influenced by a host of instructional and environmental conditions, the clarity and pace of instruction, the amount of structure provided to learners, the degree of learner autonomy, teacher characteristics, and other classroom factors. Promotion of a supportive classroom environment, one that provides motivational, emotional, and academic support, has been shown to enhance learner self- regulation. Instructors who effectively assess and monitor the teacher-learner control balance, provide learners with choice and opportunities for self-appraisal, and move away from highly structured task assignments as the learner progresses tend to foster greater learner self-regulation.

Suggested guidelines to foster learner self-regulation: Encourage goal setting and self-monitoring of progress toward those goals. Incorporate opportunities for directed and self-directed reflection. Develop and foster habits of self-reflection. Assess and monitor the teacher-learner control balance during instruction. Move away from highly structured task assignments as the learner progresses. Provide learners with opportunities to make decisions which impact their learning. Allow learners periods to work independently. Avoid directives and commands. Incorporate opportunities for learners to seek help. Be responsive to a learners questions and comments.

PLEs include several Web 2.0 technologies like the socially-based tools and systems which impacts pedagogy too. Multi-player online gaming environments/virtual worlds can be used to teach simulation; visualization; collaboration. Discourse facilitation systems can be used to teach verbal and written communication; engagement with multiple global communities; socialization; tracking of information flow; Content management systems to teach creation and dissemination of ideas; collaborative writing, publishing, and peer review, Learning management systems - communication, groupwork; distribution and sharing of resources Relationship management systems - Establishing and maintaining social contacts, connectivity; spaces for communication and creation of identity

PLE is not necessarily a single application. PLE can be composed of one or more systems. Web 2.0 applications are the most commonly used for PLE tools. PLE can be a desktop application or other web-based services.

Instructional toolsAuthoring Tools, Testing and quizzing tools, Course and Learning Management Systems Communication toolsE-mail, Instant messaging, Web conferencing, Voicemail, File sender, Fax, Feed Processor Live toolsWeb meeting, virtual classroom and web-conferencing tools, Screen Sharing, Webcasting/Live streaming, Video conferencing, Virtual worlds Image, audio and video tools Image editing, Screen Capture Tools, Audio/Podcasting tools, Video tools (for creating and editing videos),Screencasting tools (for creating and editing videos), Video hosting sites Blogging, Web & Wiki tools Blogging tools, Wiki tools, web page/site tools, Form, polling and survey tools Social networking and collaboration spaces Public social networks and collaboration platforms, Group and team collaboration tools, Community and enterprise social platforms Other collaboration toolsCollaborative research, Collaborative mindmaping/brainstorming, Calendar, Sharing/event scheduling, Shareable Maps, Sharing Files Browsers, players and readers Browsers, RSS and News Reader, Other desktop apps and players, Personalized Start Pages Personal productivity toolsSearch engines, Research/Study tools, Alerts, Personal organizers, Personal notebooks, Personal mindmapping tools, Other tools

Environment for creating PLE Characteristics iClassIt can be used as a self-regulated personalized learning environment which run on modelling of learner information. CAMERAIt can be used for monitoring and reporting on user actions, thus fostering learning process reflection. WikiEducatorIt enables planning of education projects, development of free content and working on building open education resources. WikiversityIt can be used for learning resources, learning projects and research in all levels and styles of education. It enables to create open educational resources and collaborative communities. LTCWikiIt is a wiki of the University of Manitobas Learning Technologies Centre. It can be used for editing web pages and enables develop new ideas and write documents. ElggIt is a system that offers users a diverse set of tools that they can use in their personal learning environment.

Suzana Loshkovska Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies - Skopje Skopje 30-31 May 2011.

Documents

learning content

learning process

personal learning environments

digital resources

typical ple slide

present learning needs

combining data

social connections slide