My Personal Learning Environment - Week 2 Reflection

 Personal Learning Environment (PLE)

What is it?  A PLE is your own personalized set of tools that you use through your learning journey.  These tools range from the word processing software you use while writing your assignments to what is now commonly known as Web2.0 tools.  If you're familiar with, have followed or are currently following an "Online Course" as part of a Distance Learning (DL) program you are probably progressing through your course in what is called a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) or Learning Management System (LMS).  It is important to know that a PLE is not like a LMS or VLE because those only provide a few tools that mainly serve the purpose of administrating the course itself and provide a means for students to communicate and submit assignments for instance.  Your PLE goes way beyond those limits because it is what allows you to make the learning experience yours by using the tools you prefer to; acquire information, network, communicate and collaborate with each other and most importantly to create content. One of the main benefit of the PLE is that, as Dr Alan J. Cann puts it, choosing your own tools for your PLE "promotes engagement with the learning."

While reading about, building and reflecting about my PLE many things dawned on me, the first of which being that I've had been maintaining mine for years now.  Once you know what a PLE is and it makes sense to you, you'll realize that you have one too.  We all have a set of tools that we use but how developed is that environment? That was my second revelation, realizing how little I knew about the multitude of tools that are available online and for free in most cases.  I consider myself to be a fairly tech savvy person, as I'm sure some of you do too, but the sheer volume of tools that I explored on the site webTools4u2use was very humbling.  As I clicked on the link I felt like I would simply be looking at a list of tools which were already known to me but I couldn't have been more wrong.  I spent hours exploring and discovering the various tools available in most of the categories but have yet to even scratch the surface.  Many of tools duplicate each other or share similar sets of features but that's the beauty of it all because, as you know, your PLE is personalized to you and once you find your favorite tool out of the many available to perform a given learning task, you integrate it within your PLE.  Now you aren't just using the suggested or most common tool for a given job, you are using your tool for the given job.

There are probably as many ways to categorize the tools in your PLE as their are various tools available.  As you look at my PLE mind map, you will notice that I gave each category multiple names.  The first one being what I use the tools for and the second one referring to which part of the following social technographics ladder

click on image to be redirected to its source

  Here is a Mind-Map of what is my initial Personal Learning Environment (PLE)

Click here to view my PLE Spicynodes  

***UPDATED PLE DIAGRAM BELOW*** (Dec 2012)

After having just been blown away by the multitude of tools out there I couldn't help but notice how limited my PLE was.  I realized that, for the most part, I had just kept using what I had possibly been forced to use in the past or had used because it is what everyone else used.  Being human being can also mean we fall into a tendency to stay with what we know instead of venturing for other ways of doing what we are trying to do.  To be fair, I only included the tools I have genuinely been using on a regular basis for some time and left out certain ones that I just recently began using.  Blogger, my blog that you are currently reading and Spicynodes, the mind-mapping tool I used to illustrate my PLE being two examples of tools that I have just recently discovered and did not feel belong on the list yet.

In conclusion, I feel like my PLE, much like my digital footprint (see word cloud below), is in it's infancy stage.  I have a collection of basic tools that are now accompanied by a very strong desire to, not only, expand on them but to hand pick the ones that I really like, whether it be because of how user friendly they are and how much of my creativity and personality they allow me to showcase.  It was also very evident that as I aim to increase my digital footprint, I will need to find more tools which allow me to create content since most of my arsenal is that of a spectator and not a creator.

Leclerc, M. (CC) 2013

 Now that you know what a PLE is and have seen an example in mine, map your own PLE, go have a look at the tools on webTools4u2use and reflect on how it looks now compared to how you want it so look later.  At the end of the day, these tools that you currently use or want to start using in the future won't just make your life easier, make you more invested in your learning or make it more interesting for you to learn but they will help set you apart from the people who haven't invested the time and effort you will have in a PLE.  In today's age of increasing competitiveness, it's hard to argue that setting one's self apart isn't a great advantage, so go ahead, leap ahead of the rest and create a PLE.

Mathieu Leclerc