Thinking About Learning: Personal Learning Environments

If one is concerned about life long learning and strives to reach that never-ending goal, a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is essential.  Yes, PLEs are a new approach to education.  However, education can just go so far.  One of the criticisms I have heard about the Certification Program on eLearning at Bellevue College are the missing pieces of the course for this certification. Some learners think it is because we spend more time learning how to use the different tools of the trade or progs, then trying to grasp the concepts and goals in the course. Still others, those that I agree with,  think the lack of a course designed to put all the pieces together into a presentable on-line course is lacking and probably the most important part of the certification.  This is especially true for those of us in the course who have not had teaching experience.

One of the questions raised in our first module on assessment is what do we see ourselves doing in the future, when we achieve all the skills we are now learning to master. I, for example, really don’t see myself using them.  Why? Because I need to teach and to do this I need experience. Fives years as a graduate student and a eLearning certificate will probably not enable me to find work in the field. When I think about assessment, I think about what the assessors in the college are thinking about when they offer certificates and programs to students. What good is the education if you still do not have all the skills you need to secure employment in that field of study? And, what do you do when there is no other forth-coming programs and/or courses to help you continue to develop these skills? I think what happens is, the people with teaching experience or who are currently teaching use what they learn and the rest of us are still knocking on the door trying to get in. So I created and am creating a personal learning environment and network to help fill in the blanks, since I am not in a masters program and cannot get a teaching assistantship, which many universities offer in their disciplines.

My personal learning system or environment and/or network consists of tools to help me get the information I need to use the tools and master the concepts we are being taught.  Also, it helps me stay current with the developments in the field of eLearning and instructional design. I am searching for an online college that might give me further help toward achieving my goal of teaching, if possible. I have not been very successful in this regard. There was a course called, “How to Teach in a Community College” offered by Central Washington University; but they don’t seem to be offering it this summer. I need a course like this to succeed in an interview and to prepare for the next challenge of actually teaching on-line.

With this in mind, I have set up Facebook which is my primary social media. Because I am a student, I use a Learning Management System (LMS) called Blackboard. In the future, I hope to use a new system called Instructive Canvas that allows learners to link Web 2.0 technologies with this new LMS. Diigo is my library.  I don’t have room in my house or on my hard drive to store all the things I want to keep and refer to as I complete my current studies and beyond. Wikispaces is my work place or work bench where I go to create my class and my ideas for a class. Instructive Canvas is where it will all end up, once I can put it together completely. Twitter and my numerous search engines, and this includes Google, You Tube (my favorite) and blogs…are the places I go to get the answers I want, especially the how to information. Linkedin and Google are my storage sites for my portfolio information, with the written refinements of my portfolio on my blog site in WordPress and on Google.

These are the places I am creating in order to keep learning. I have found on-line instructors are facilitators not necessarily educators.  If I have a question about how to use a tool, I go to my “go to” and “how to” places on-line. Eventually, I hope to have a few people I can go to and learn from on a personal basis as well. So far this is not happening as much as I would like. I spend a lot of time on the courses I am taking currently and have not had the opportunity to promote my blog site and develop outside friendships. With luck and some hard work, I hope to cultivate and expand this aspect of my learning environment. I am a social creature after all and cyberspace can be a lonely environment or virtual reality.