Friday, January 24, 2014

Weekly Report & Reflection blog post #2: My Current PLE

When it comes to "social technographics" I fall under the spectator, joiner, and conversationalist sections of Bernoff’s ladder when participating in the online world (2010). Like 70% of the study who are considered spectators, I enjoy reading and watching online content more than creating and publishing it (Bernoff, 2010). But the way you participate online drastically affects your personal learning environment (PLE).

My current PLE was never critically analyzed prior to this course. After reading and watching the assigned resources, I decided to create my PLE based on Malan’s categorizes which are aggregate, organize, collaborate, connect, and create (2010). My PLE focuses on 3 main categories: organize, connect, and create. I tend to use (and sometimes even depend on) my Samsung Galaxy’s calendar and to-do list to effectively organize my life, both for educational and personal purposes. Using these built-in task management smartphone applications help me plan and organize my busy schedule while reminding me of important upcoming events such as when assignments are due or exams are to be written.  Connecting with others is another main category I use to create an effective PLE. I connect with others and therefore learn through various social networking platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter on a daily basis. I use these social media tools to share and collect information about others and the world itself. Additional web tools I use to connect with others include e-mail, forums, and blogs; however these tools are usually only used for academic purposes. The last category I use to strengthen my PLE would be creating content online. By creating content, I can share my knowledge with others and receive critical feedback. I use several different tools to create various types of content. These tools include blog websites, Windows Office (Word, PowerPoint, etc.), YouTube, Adobe Premier, Adobe Photoshop, and more. These specific tools assist me in creating blog posts, digital documents, videos, photos, and other content, to share with the online world. The other 2 categories that Malan encourages to use in order to create an effective PLE are aggregate and collaborate however, I have yet to use these techniques to further my learning but plan to by the end of this course.

When beginning to create a more effective PLE consider 4 elements: personal, learning, environment, and habits. In 5-10 years from now, I want to be an educated and hardworking citizen who is a successful entrepreneur who travels worldwide. I wish to be confident, productive, and efficient in my technological skills considering these skills are critical for success in today’s new media environment we live in.  Right now I would like to be more educated and less procrastinating while finding a healthy balance between my educational and personal life. In order to get to where I wish to be, I need to learn and/or improve many skills and attitudes. This includes becoming more motivated, finding the right environments to network within, and effectively utilizing new media to help me grow. To meet these learning needs I must work on changing my environment. By changing my environment, I may be introduced to the skills and knowledge to get where I wish to be. But what if I may not need to “change” the environment but instead simply create new environments that provide better opportunities to learn and grow? Good habits needs to be created such as seeking opportunities to network, while bad ones needs to be broken like minimizing distractions such as cell phones when doing my school work. 

After creating my current PLE and the WordCloud of Post #1, I realize I still have a lot to learn in the new media environment. I am happy with how far I have come in my digital learning considering how ubiquitous digital learning has become in the educational system in North America but believe there is always room for improvement (Attwell, 2007). I would like to further enhance my PLE by incorporating Malan’s aggregate and collaborate categories into my environment. Although I may not know how to do so just yet, I am confident that after this course I will have the necessary experience and tools to easily integrate these 2 categories into my future PLE.


Worboys, J.  (CC) 2014.

Worboys, J.  (CC) 2014.


References

Attwell, G. (2007). The Personal Learning Environments: The future of eLearning? Retrieved from http://www.elearningeuropa.info/files/media/media11561.pdf

Bernoff, J. (2010). Social Technographics: Conversationalists get onto the ladder. Retrieved from http://forrester.typepad.com/groundswell/2010/01/conversationalists-get-onto-the-ladder.html

Malan, A. (2010). Growing your Personal Learning Environment. Retrieved from http://prezi.com/-xhpuupxgjin/growing-your-personal-learning-environment/

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