Web 2.0 Personal Learning Environments (PLE 2.0):From dreams to reality?Denis Gillet • École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

ED-MEDIA Graduate Student Program • Toronto, CanadaThursday July 1, 2010 • 2:45-3:45

Abstract• Talk

• Current challenges and research questionsrelated to the use of social media as personal learning environments (PLE)

• Self-Directed Learning (SDL) and HumanComputer Interaction (HCI) issues

• Demo of a PLE prototype

• Workshop

• Define your dream learning widget

• Design your own personal learningenvironment

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Current e-Learning Trends

Claims for Higher Education• Students learn everywhere but in classrooms;

however, they create, shape and populate alternative spaces for learning: Personallearning environments exist !

• Students use technology and social media for everything but learning; however, they interactand learn with knowledgeable peers: Informal learning and social learning exist !

• Students dislike Learning Management Systems (LMS); however, they exploit all available learning resources and opportunities (inside and outside Institutions): Self-directed learning exists !

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• Learning 0.0: One Ape for everyone !

• Interaction inchosen contextsand stimulatingenvironments

• Learning relies on Aspiration, Affect and Artifacts

Historical Perspectives

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Historical Perspectives• Learning 2.0: One App for everything !

• Interaction inchosen contextsand stimulatingenvironments

• Learning relies on Aspiration, Affect and Artifacts6

Current e-Learning Trends• Focus on personal learning environments,

informal, social, and self-directed learning

• Educational institutions start to recognize,exploit and support students in these important but unexplored and unexploited frameworks

• Trends towards personal learning environments and self-directed learning using social media

• When social media are exploited with a prior intention of learning or a post recognition of learning, they are referred to as Web 2.0 Personal Learning Environments (PLE 2.0)

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Personal Learning Environment

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Formalizing Informal Learning and/or Informalizing Formal LearningBlurred Separation between Personal and Personal Learning Spaces

Implemented in Liferay

ROLE European Research Project on Personal Learning Environments

ROLE Objectives• From unintelligent mash-up of various legacy

technology to intelligent user-driven aggregationof openly-available resources, services & people

• ROLE Vision: Empower the learners to build theirown responsive personal learning environments

• “R” stands for Responsive

• Personalization according to own explicit or implicit preferences, competencies and learning objectives

• Personalization relies on just-in-time user-driven context definition, recommendation and aggregation

• http://www.role-project.eu10

Psycho-Pedagogical Model

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Learner objectives. preferences and profile (if any) are defined or revised

learner finds and selectslearning resources + people

learner works on selected learning resources + people

plan

learnReflect

learner input regarding goals, preferences, …

creating PLE

recommendationsfrom peers or tutors

assessment andself-assessment

evaluation andself-evaluation

feedback (from different sources)

learner should understand and control own learning process

ROLE infrastructure should provide adaptive guidance

attaining skills using different learning events (8LEM)

learner reflects and reacts on strategies, achievements,

and usefulness

monitoring

recommendations

be aware of

Explicit or Implicit stages➀ Zimmerman & Tsikalas (2005) + iClass Self-Directed Learning Model

➀

Web 2.0 and Personal Learning Environments

Personal Learning Environment• The notion of Personal Learning Environment

(PLE) as conceptualized by Attwell (2006, 2007) refers to a set of the different applications,services and various other types of learning resources gathered from different contexts

• PLE is constructed by an individual and usedin everyday life for learning (may not be unique)

• PLE construction is part of the learning process

• Web 2.0 or Social Web predominance in PLEs allows people to connect, collaborate, createand share (personal but not lonesome)

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Personal Learning Environment

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Pedagogy PLE Cloud Technology PLE Cloud

Requirement Analysis: Conversation between 26 experts in personal learning (pedagogy) and learning environments (technology)

Personal Learning Environment

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Content coming from different providerswithdifferentstandalone packaging

Personalized according toown preferences and context

… following dietrecommendation

by the cook or peers

Chosen from aall-you-can-eat (learn) buffet

The trustis in the

brand

Interaction, Aggregation, and Recommendationfor Personal Learning and Knowledge Management

Web 2.0 Interaction Model

Any of the 3Apillars can beselected ascontext

Asset, task,or communitymanagementsystem

Integratedawareness,notification andrecommendation features

3A model describes interaction in social media,resulting from PALETTE European project dedicated to

learning in Communities of practice and developed in ROLE

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CRUD:Creating,Reading,Updatingand Deleting

SALT:Share,

Assess,Link,

Tag

Activities

ActorsApps

Assets

EventsRelationsActions

Context

TopicsTasks

Groups

People

Services

Agents

Smart DevicesDiscussion threads

Wiki pages

Documents

Spaces

Feeds

Objectives

Graaasp Social Software

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Graaasp is a contextual aggregatorwith recommendation of entities (people, spaces, assets and tools)

Graaasp encourages aggregationof 3A entities by design

Contextual relation-based recommendation

DemoGraaasp Open Social Gadgets and W3C widget contextual aggregatorand player

Final Thoughts

Recommendation• Search and recommendation driven and

customized by learners for

• rated resources (content)

• trusty people (reputation)

• validated interoperable services (widgets)

• relevant competences (gaps & objectives)

• sensible learning activities and paths (processes)

• PLE configurations (contexts & mashups)

• PLE containers (Netvibes, iGoogle, Google Wave, …)

• available in various repositories and social media

Evaluation Challenges• Evaluation is a research issue (control experiments

for uncontrolled learning and personalized spaces)

• Personalization makes all PLE different and difficult to compare in terms of features and possible outcome

• Ethnographical approaches derived from KM useful

• Elicitation of informal and self-directed practices

• Social, pedagogical and technological requirement analysis

• Digital literacy is an issue, especially for PLE 2.0

• Adoption (practices and environments), darwinism

Final Thoughts• PLE 2.0 are about• aggregation of and interaction with learning resources,

services and people

• empowering learners, facilitating interaction, providing room for emotions, and supporting knowledge and competency management

• agile contextual learning and agile constructionof the learning spaces and instruments

• Search, recommendation and trust and are key PLE issues to be tackled as complement or substitutes of institutional and corporate role and reputation

• Are self-directed learning and PLEs for all ?

• How to connect PLE 2.0 with the physical spaces ?

Workshop

Workshop

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NoYes, relying on social media

Yes, relying on something else

# # #

Why?which social media?

what else?

➊Do you use something you could identify as aPLE (relying or not on social media) ?

➋What social media or aggregator would you use to build your own PLE ?

Your answers are welcome on paper or in an email to denis.gillet@epfl.ch

Workshop➌What gadget(s) do you dream of being integrated

for learning purposes in your PLE ?

➍ Is the graphical integration of many gadgets useful ? Any prefer number of simultaneous gadgets (widgets or apps) ?

➎Do you wish to keep a separation in yourplatforms for social and educational interactionwith resources, services and people ?

➏Do you or would you use different digital identities for different interaction purposes ?

➐Would you accept to let a system track you actions to provide you with better recommendation ?

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Workshop

ROLE will launch soon a competition for the best learning gadget

Stay tuned and start to develop your dream gadget

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Contact & Links• denis.gillet@epfl.ch

• http://interaction.epfl.ch

• http://graaasp.epfl.ch

• http://www.stellarnet.eu

• http://www.role-project.eu28