a PLEa for EduCoherence

Likely – this has been discussed elsewhere in #PLENK2010 …

But thinking about:

1. my own design problem, that is, working with an intentional community of practice with both permeable boundaries and embedded PLE’s* for PHD students in a hybrid, low residency model, and
2. the issues of access, exposure, privacy, raised in the xWeb, eXtended web, data web discussions

has  me wondering about the possibilities of  intelligent data operating/informing at the community-of-practice level, as well as at the individual level. If a knowledge network can emerge within a somewhat bounded community commons, informed by the activities of its users through their interactions with one another and their dynamic content base, could not this community, in essence, function as a ‘person’ – a point of exposure for intelligent data? Would this create a choice re one’s personal level of exposure and still build/use one’s one PLE? Can a community-of-practice function as a privacy filter?

* embedded PLE = a functional, flexible, customizable individual presence within a social network portal designed to support the interactions of a community of practice. (my definition)

I had  strong gut reactions to two themes in today’s live session.

1) in response to the point in the “curation” discussion – and sorry – didn’t attend to which facilitator said this – that facilitators are particularly valuable in the curation process because they will seek out and  highlight participant contributions with which they agree, and that brings greater strength to the topic. (paraphrasing here). While I support that facilitator filtering as curation is an important process, if it indeed would be based on recognizing material with which one agrees – seems highly problematic, and antithetical to how good thinking and scholarship is shaped. Perhaps that isn’t what you meant to convey.

2) in the latter discussion on networked versus institutional learning, the facilitators focused on content – that we pay universities big money to get content we can get for ourselves. That seems simplistic for several reasons. Is it truly content we are paying for? Or, is it far more than that? Several valued outcomes of learning orchestrated through an institution spring to mind  a) Expert filtering and mediation of content – this can be critical to developing understanding b) opportunities to actualize learning through expertly designed experiences and engagement with content via many modalities, c) formal, individualized feedback and intellectual challenge, d) necessity to engage with the uncomfortable and unfamiliar – the kinds of things we are unlikely to do if left to our own devices, e) ready access to well-resourced hands-on experiences, such as lab equipment….so much more could be added to this list.

I am a big proponent of  the value of PLE’s and informal, networked learning. But…the content argument seems an extremely weak platform upon which to stand in its advocacy.

So, how has my thinking shifted this week? My take is that striving to draw lines of distinction between ple’s and pln’s isn’t useful to me. There are basic interdependencies here, and if there are boundaries, they are soft ones.

The environment I keep working to bring closer to what I would consider to be of rich value to me is an aggregator of discoveries, a tag-based concept integrator, a reference manager, key concept mapper, alerter, tracker, suggester, reflective representation of developing understanding. As just this, it is an internal world, informed socially in largely a second- hand way, and, as such, somewhat myopic. As just this, it is an island I never leave.

To be more than this, requires high quality connections to nodes of knowledge and activity that provide an informal, but critical challenge to a conscious exposure of my internal construction of meaning. Participation. Publishing. Artifact sharing. Exchange. This is the mechanism that holds the potential for my ple to become a node of it’s own in ‘the network,’ contributing to the larger social intelligence.

One other key thought is that it can also be extremely valuable to bring one’s ple into the framework of formal learning opportunities, where the guidance, feedback and challenge comes from an instructional source who’s role is dedicated attention and commitment to me as a learner.

Rita’s May 2010 Presentation was extremely helpful in diving deeper into a few of my primary design questions, 1) how to draw  from the benefits of networked learning to leverage informal feedback/challenges to learner thinking, while still making use of formal, expert feedback/challenge, 2) how to integrate a scaffold/framework for PLE’s within an intentional structure to support/kick start tech novices while still allowing for rich expansion by experts, 3) using an academic commons as a trusted, emergent, core hub of an intentional community of practice that captures more in the knowledge flow along the diverse paths of interaction. #PLENK2010

Finding the balance

Here is my personal, emerging list of PLE guiding principles – to date

• dynamic
• extensible
• flexible/agile/fluid
• sustainable
• interactive
• catalyzing
• networked – richly social
  
• balance of scholarship and wild/crazy ideas
  
• promotes value-based CONNECTIONS (diff)
• results in value-based nodes
  
• accessible
  
• future-oriented
• personally coherent
  
• promotes individual learning/understanding
  
• value-added
• concept rich
  
• balance of security and sharing
  
• diverse tool set
• diverse content
  
• ability to leverage what’s out there
• richly visual
  
• aesthetic control and flexibility
• highly customizable
• builds a meaningful/shareable knowledge base
• shared interactivity with other networks
  
• accessible from multiple touchpoints
  
• taggable-searchable
  
• creates a cohesive path to intellectual liberation rather than act as control or containment
• self-organizing through social interaction
• learn about me/dialogue with me/suggest to me
• functions as an emergent scaffold
• opportunities for collaboration

…to dive into PLENK2010.