Personal Learning Environments - "LMS vs. PLE"

I just read one of Mohamed Amine Chatti's posts about Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). Before choosing which post to respond to, I have to say that I felt a little overwhelmed by all the acronyms - PLE, MLS, VLE, TEL, etc!

However, the article I picked, which was entitled, "LMS vs. PLE," really got me thinking about how technology can be used in many different ways to promote learning. In the LMS (Learning Management System) framework, technology seems to be a means of delivering teacher/institution specified content, and uses specific tools for students to learn. Students follow a framework, such as a syllabus, or modules, to complete course work, and are using specified technology to do so. The Blackboard system that Pace University uses seems like a very good example of a LMS.

Chatti is critical of LMSs because he thinks they are too "institution/teacher" driven (course syllabus and tasks are predetermined, and they employ a "knowledge-push" method of learning). PLEs, rather, are a collection of all of the tools that a student uses to learn, including email, blogs, rss, webpages, social networks, etc. A PLE is not determined by the teacher or institution, but is personal for each individual.

 PLEs sound like a great way of learning, but as a teacher, I feel there needs to be some central and connecting environment to actually "be" the PLE, especially if you are working with children, because it can help them organize information and have a central place to see all of their tools and problem solve about which ones will help them within specific learning tasks.

I think Symbaloo EDU seems like a very cool way to help students create PLEs. That way they can have all of their tools in one space in an organized and efficient system. Without a central location, I think kids might be too overwhelmed with how to find the resources they need to learn about something in a meaningful and valuable way.

Now, if you're talking about someone teaching themself how to do something, then undoubtedly, they'd be using their PLE, but it may not "be" in a central space like Symbaloo. Someone using their PLE, may just look like them logging in to their email, checking their RSS feeds, doing internet searches, etc.

I feel like a lot of advocates of PLE stress that the learning should be completely student-centered and not directed by a teachers and institutions. However, I'm pretty sure that I would not be learning nearly as much about "Designing Standards Based Technology-Enhanced Curriculum" if I was just teaching myself through my PLE. The structure of the syllabus and week to week modules in Blackboard give me a framework in which to move through. Figuring out the same information on my own might have taken much longer, or I might have missed out on knowing about many of the tools I've been exposed to through this class. However, to be honest, there are a lot of things about Blackboard that I'm not crazy about. For example, it would be great if you could have RSS feeds about posts you write in the discussion board. Right now, it seems like the only way to see if someone responded to you is to log in and find that specific post. Knowing about how RSS works and Google reader, I just think it would be cool if you got some notifications that someone wrote back to you. So in this instance, I think it would've been nice to have been able to use a different tool for discussion threads/posts than the one blackboard has. I guess that supports the argument for PLEs, so that you can use your own tools, rather than the ones predetermined for you by the institution.

But no matter which way you slice it, and without getting too caught up in acronyms, I think that taking a course on something, and working through tasks in an organized way, that has been planned and thought out by an expert teacher, is still a great way of learning something. As long as components of individualized choices are worked in to the mix, it can be a great balance. I think it would be even more true for children, because many need the structure to be able to navigate through and accomplish something. At the same time, they need differentiation based on their interests, learning styles, and abilities.