The VLE vs. PLE debateGráinne Conole and Ricardo Torres Kompen

PLE Conference, Aveiro, 13th July 2012

The PLE and the VLE: which is which???

Outline

• Format for the unkeynote– Process pre-conference– Downes on VLEs vs. PLEs– For each question:

• Quotes• Summary• Audience discussion• Videos

– Emergent themes– Vote!!!

• Carry on the debate on Cloudworks, FB and Twitter!

The process• Questions, prompts on Twitter and FB• Experts invited to provide short videos• Space to aggregate resources and for discussion on Cloudworks

http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/6391

Questions

1. What is your personal digital learning environment and how do you use it?

2. What are the main obstacles for building and maintaining a Personal Digital Learning Environment?

3. How has your use of technologies changed in the last five years?

4. What are your views on the PLE vs VLE debate? Is the VLE really dead?

Stephen Downes - @oldaily

PLE

VLE

Informal Formal

Accredited courses +

Accredited courses

MOOCs

Study guides & resources

Tools

Pedagogy Context

1. What is your personal digital learning environment and how do you use it?

Antonella Esposito Twitter: I like its nature of open asymmetric social network, which enables me to continously find new sources of knowledge and usually pleasant interaction, pearls of wisdom or a mere, precious LOL ;-) It took time to build a good network, but I increasingly appreciate the value to be connected in a web of conversations. Especially love 'intercepting' conferences and sharing links to reports, blog posts and published articles. But sometimes some great chats occur, despite the 140 characters.

1. What is your personal digital learning environment and how do you use it?

José Mota I see the PLE not as a technological platform or a set of tools, but as an ecosystem or an ecology of people, tools and resources you interact with online. It's very dynamic and keeps changing and adapting according to my needs and interests. Those I rely the most on are, currently, Google Reader, Twitter, blog (Wordpress), Google+, Diigo (synchronized with Delicious to use the Firefox add-on), Gmail and Google Docs. I also use Scoop.it, but mostly for teaching and am going to focus more on Mendeley while writing my Phd. .

1. What is your personal digital learning environment and how do you use it?

Martin Dougiamas A collection of feeds that I generally check daily, carefully selected to maximise the signal to noise ratio. The rest are larger projects that I give myself, to learn this or that. They are usually hands on activities where I construct something useful for others to see and perhaps use.

1. What is your personal digital learning environment and how do you use it?

David Martin Blogging and Social Media? Try digital learning in a corporate environment. Still very last century! David Hopkins (1) Twitter, LinkedIn, and own blog ... (2) time ... (3) iPhone and iPad means I'm connected all the time, which isn't always a good thing ... (4) want to see a working PLE before I decide, but I prefer the ability to bring the tools I want/need into my learning environment instead of being forced to used prescribed VLE ones (which aren't always the best or technically capable). Hope this helps. .

1. What is your personal digital learning environment and how do you use it?

Alastair Creelman I have a toolbox compiled on Symbaloo that includes Twitter, Fb etc as well as RSS feeds from news sites, blogs and search criteria via Netvibes Ebba Ossiannilsson Working on it all the time, Netvibes is on; i wished I could have a simpler one and I wish I could have better overview of my resourses and my social networking/media .

Gilly Salmon - @gillysalmon

Joyce Seitzinger - @catspyjamasnz

2. Main obstacles for building and maintaining a PLE?

Antonella Esposito It comes to mind the necessary efforts for a continuing engagement in building and maintaining a PLE. Someone in a MOOC mentioned 'gardening' as a compliant metaphor. Moreover, one has to iteratively re-focus her own objectives in order to get the most from this 'hanging out and moving around'. However the most difficult thing it is grappling with two opposite but productive behaviours: 'keep control' and 'let the river run'. Serendipity and intentionality.

2. Main obstacles for building/maintaining a PLE?

José Mota The first obvious difficulty would be, I guess, the lack of enough technical proficiency and enough online experience to develop an effective and rewarding PLE. Understanding online culture, getting familiar with modes of communication, developing enough technical skills to be autonomous takes time and effort, that can, often, be minimized with some modelling or guidance. Another difficulty is keeping the participation level and being an active and valuable contributor, so that your PLE isn't just a black hole that sucks everything but from where nothing comes out :-). Being active and sharing knowledge, ideas, artifacts, questions, resources, experiences, etc. is a crucial part of one's PLE, but that is not always easy to keep up continuously. .

2. Main obstacles for building/maintaining a PLE?

Martin Dougiamas Curating it. What do you need, and what do you not need. Alastair Creelman Time to create a coherent structure, finding which tools fit where Ebba Ossiannilsson Universities the "desire and needs" of control

Steve Wheeler - @timbuckteeth

Ilene Dawn Alexander - @IleneDawn

3. Change in use of technologies in the last 5 years?

Antonella Esposito I think you need a 'niche of co-evolution' (eg a MOOC) to make sense of the current plethora of social media and understand what it is worth for you doing with them. For me since 2009 Cloudworks has worked as a niche, in which I imitated others' digital behaviours, progressively acquired self-confidence and finally tried to propose my contributions, as content curator, occasional blogger or tireless twitterer. To tell the truth, my current digital behaviours have been shaped by attending Cloudworks for about two years. Now I adopt different tools and have different objectives, but I have experimented there the type of online engagement that I currently undertake. The nice thing is that there are still 'traces' of these early attempts. These traces would deserve a more careful reflection...

3. Change in use of technologies in the last 5 years?

José Mota I cannot pin point major differences, apart from the tools and services that come and go - some disappear, others become obsolete, new ones are created, some of my interests and needs change, etc. I guess I am using the technologies more or less the same I did five years ago, for the purposes I stated above. Martin Dougiamas It used to be mail, then iGoogle for years but now it's Flipboard and Reeder on an iPad.

3. Change in use of technologies in the last 5 years?

Philip Butler Hah! massively! (and I don't even like technology that much but some of it is life-changing). ULCC have some very interesting statistics showing how communications and collaborative activity decrease in a VLE when it's a component of a digital framework (ULCC Personalised Learning model). It's moved to student arenas like the e-Portfolio which challenges the 'social constructivist' design we talk of when dealing with Moodle, etc. Alastair Creelman I've moved to cloud services almost completely, also more mobile thanks to iPhone and iPad

3. Change in use of technologies in the last 5 years?

Ebba Ossiannilsson networking much more with friends and colleagues from all over the world and even more informal networking with colleagues. Contact here and now, faster and more intense networking, easier with collaborative, building on trust, The way you show with this small exercise is an excellent exampleDeeper and more close relation with people, Sharing and connections are the key and use and reuse

Cristina Costa

Helen Keegan - @heloukee

4. Is the VLE really dead?

Antonella Esposito The VLE is alive and healthy, and in many cases keeps on effectively serving institution-bounded educational offerings. However, its importance in the life of a learner is closely linked to the timespan of the course/class/forum in which s/he is enrolled in. A PLE affords data portability, it can become your e-portfolio among the formal educational initiatives and work tasks in which you take part.

4. Is the VLE really dead?

José Mota This would take a while to discuss :-), but the brief answer is no, of course not. Formal education and institutions have requirements that need to be met…. The idea of an open, distributed environment for learning is not equally appealing for everyone, especially when there are assignments and grades and certifications involved. On the other hand, the LMS provides a secure, centralized and practical way for formal educational contexts, despite its many shortcomings.

4. Is the VLE really dead?

José Mota

…institutionally supported VLEs (which are, in most cases, VLE 2.0, actually) that provide an experience that, to some extent, is similar to that of a PLE but with some of the strong points of the LMS (centralized, secure, managed by institution, "all-in-one-place")…

4. Is the VLE really dead?

José Mota Currently, for formal education, my favourite set up is using an LMS like Moodle for some core course components (information, learning contract, some base content and resources, some of the assessment, support forum, elements that may require privacy within the cohort, etc.) and than the students' PLEs for searching, managing information, publishing their work, cooperating/collaborating/communicating with other relevant people outside the course, etc., making the most of what a networked learning experience has to offer.

4. Is the VLE really dead?

Martin Dougiamas Not at all. An institution has to "be" somewhere on the web. They are also rich sources of information like any other web sites (a lot of my feeds are RSS from Moodle, for example), and places to get involved in collaborative projects. Alastair Creelman 90% are not ready for PLE and it's hard to define. VLE will live for many years to come as a clear administrative tool. VLE may well shrink to become a white dwarf (secure area for identity-sensitive information and examination material). The rest will be PLE.

4. Is the VLE really dead?

David Cummings Btw, I think it's unhelpful to think in Manichaean allegories. VLE vs PLE. It's like comparing facebook to social media, ie platform vs concept. Ebba Ossiannilsson As long as institutions cant leave the control I think we unfortunately have to have the VLE, I mean when people lock even OERs into a locked VLE, something is wrong. The main thing is let the learners take the control, and leave the control needs and demands...I wish VLE was dead long time ago, even worst is that still dept at universities create their own which can’t communicate with anything else...

Chahira Nouhira - @CosmoCat

Jane Challinor - @virtualleader

Themes• Curation and filtration• Digital literacy skills and

understanding the online culture

• It takes time to appropriate these tools into your practice, need for learning by doing

• Keeping up• Participation• Need for structured, guided

learning pathways, open/distributed learning environments not for everyone

Themes• Rich range of tools for finding

and managing information, and communicating and collaborating – each person adapts and personalises

• Closed institutionally controlled systems vs. portable, learner-controlled tools

• An ecosystem or ecology or people, resource and tools online

• Blurring of boundaries between the VLE and the PLE

Vote! http://twtpoll.com/ygdu01 Is the VLE dead, long live the PLE?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/preshaa/4603343169/

Crystal gazing

• Blurring of boundaries• Mix of institutional and

cloud-based tools• Spectrum of formal and

informal offerings• More sophisticated

learning analytics tools • Learning design tools to

guide practice