The current assignment is to begin to develop a map for a PLE (personal learning environment). The other samples I saw were quite amazing, and I was struck by the mind-popping energy in PLEs vs LMSs (learning management systems). THIS is what I'm looking for as a curriculum development tool, but not for myself ... for my students. I realize the contradiction in terms: me, setting up a PLE for them. Me, still trying to "teach". Maintaining the hierarchical structure I rail against so often.
But, couldn't I get things started by planting seeds in various places, and then just watch learners explore, helping them out if (and only if) they get stuck?
I've made my "model" of a PLE into my profile picture. It represents both my PLE and how I'd like to develop a curriculum. To me, the different colours of paint represent the various areas of thought I come across ( in my daily living and "foraging"), how ideas in one area meander and colour other ideas I've come across, how sometimes they bleed into each other and create new "colours". It shows how sometimes an idea begins to have a ripple-effect (like the Gaia principle that I've named this blog after) and how one idea can affect another that was already half-formed. It shows that there are white spaces, where things are not yet known, and paths that seem to lead to nothing ... yet. I know I may need to name elements of the picture at some point, but for now I can't. The picture represents process, and learning, and potential for curriculum development. Each of these, although represented by the same picture, would have different labels. That's the next challenge.
