Post in response to #H817open MOOC Activity 16: Do PLNs offer anything new?
A response to reading:
PLN: (Wikipedia, 2012 )
The ideas:
The concept of Personal Learning Networks (or PLNs) seems to have evolved from a synthesis and extension of the concepts of Informal Learning and Personal Learning Environments.
Informal learning broadly encompasses a plethora of experiences a learner goes through, intentionally or not, that result in the acquisition of new knowledge or skills. They are also seen as being outside formal educational settings (or at least recognised educational activities within those settings).
Some commonly recognised features include:
- Outside educational settings
- Doesn’t follow a curriculum
- Often uplanned – originates organically, in response to events
- Not necessarily pedagogically conscious
- Natural
- Spontaneous
Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) are described as ‘systems that help learners control and manage their own learning’ (Wikipedia…).
Setting goals, managing content and learning processes, and facilitating communication with others during the learning process.
Wikipedia conceives Personal Learning Networks as the people the learner interacts with and derives learning from. I endorse this view. I equally conceive an environment in which I connect with others at nodes (whether these are online or in the physical world) in which I take an agenda or expectation, whereupon I interact with others. The learning that occurs is sometimes intentional and sometimes not, but I have a background awareness that learning is a possibility in all participation at the nodes. I’m also comfortable with the view that we take on different roles at different time in different nodes, and I feel this is a negotiated process, depending on who arrives at each node – much like in team building.
My view:
I’m comfortable with this, because it is intuitively how I have perceived the sum of my relationships since I was about 18 years old, and moved to a different part of the country, the point when I was suddenly connected to two very different worlds. I remember drawing it on a pad – that act and resultant product giving me satisfaction, but also then leading me to reflect on what this might look like for others, and how I might be able to use this network, with its unique collection of nodes (I’m pretty sure I didn’t use that term), and their relative distribution to my advantage. I remember thinking, ‘how do I maintain this network?’ The act of creating it, and then interacting with it, led me to begin to start managing it and setting goals.
I think also my lifelong love of geography, maps and similar graphical visualisations, has made this a concept that is particularly attractive to me.
Not, it’s not innovative, in the sense that it’s a new way of learning, as I’m aware I’ve done it for nearly 20 years. I don’t even think it’s an innovative term; I can’t believe I haven’t used it myself in the last 20 years, without ever being connected to this knowledge I’ve just cited. At the same time, I find it absolutely appropriate and in alignment of how I make sense of the world. Wonderful
References:
Bennett, Elisabeth E. (2012, June). A Four-Part Model of Informal Learning: Extending Schugurensky’s Conceptual Model. In the proceedings of the Adult Education Research Conference. Saratoga Springs, NY : AERC.