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  • Posted by aiya
  • September 18, 2008

I attended a forum last week at USC in which Niall Sclater presented on Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and the Future of Learning Management Systems. He made a point that I think has been missing from many discussions on PLEs - his laptop is his PLE. That’s where he creates, organizes, and connects to all facets of his learning.

In discussions about digital learning spaces, we sometimes forget that the PLE isn’t new - there are simply more formats in which it can be created. Your PLE can be a desk, a desktop, a coffee shop, a Pageflakes account, a del.icio.us account, etc.

Lately, I’ve been thinking that the browser itself can be considered a PLE (by the most common definitions of the PLE). Bookmarks and browser-based RSS readers can make it easy for people to link a variety of tools and digital spaces in a customized way. It’s low-tech and it lets people easily create a tabbed browser window that includes a variety of functionalities via the collection of open and available URLs.

Or, is this too disorganized? I’m not sure yet, but it’s certainly a cheap and easy way for people to manage their learning space through deep links.

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September 18th, 2008
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Tim Wright
Posted on:
September 18, 2008 at 2:00 pm

Do you think it’s the ability to make customizations (like a Myspace page or Firefox browser extensions) that makes a product thrive and create buy-in? Or is it more popularity-base (like Facebook becoming popular and THEN adding in the ability to customize)?

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
aiya
Posted on:
September 18, 2008 at 3:18 pm

If no one is using a product, then no one will build customizations for it. Why waste the time?

I think a product needs to meet a need that isn’t yet being met for it to thrive (as opposed to just creating a different version of an already-existing product). Facebook met privacy needs that MySpace did not. I think it kept itself in the market by letting people customize it.