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.
Margerit,
ReplyDeleteThere are two words you have used, painting and foraging, whcich i think are very appropriate to the use of web 2.0 technologies, PLE and learning. whatever we do often changes before the paint drys, and so it should be in a world where we have instantaneous access to information. Foraging seems to be soemthing I dofor informaiton all day... I just like the hunter gatherer approach.
Use me if you want more assistance for LMS vs PLE vs VLE vs CMS ...
Vince
Lots of acronyms! I've done a bit more research on PLEs, and need to set aside some real time to delve into it deeper. VLEs and CMSs are newer. Perhaps once the course is done. I'm hoping to suggest a new workshop to U of M on emergent curriculum for adults, and I think the idea of the PLE will lead me to an approach. The tricky thing is that, while it needs to be "emergent" for the learners, it still needs to reach an outcome that is seen as valuable, and so the planning needs to happen behind-the-scenes. Bit, if Freire can do it ... :)
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