The concept of a personal learning environment arises out of constructivist learning theories. Putting all technology issues aside, you can think of an idealized personal learning environment as a place where an individual can organize and direct his own learning beyond the walls of any school or workplace. The concept embodies the basic assumptions of the constructivist approach to learning: an individual learns most effectively if the learning process is somehow grounded on his or her own unique personality, social background, cultural background, educational background, mental capacities, needs, desires, store of existing knowledge (however perfectly or imperfectly remembered). The implications are really far-reaching.
In some sense, from the perspective of teaching, it is an issue of audience. Do we really teach to “individuals”? Do current educational practices generally (or maybe better to say in some specific school), sufficiently take into account the will, needs, capacities, etc. of individual students? The constructivist approach says no. How do we teach to individuals? In an institutional context, this generally means an approach which encourages personal involvement in the subject at hand, through exploratory, constructive, and reflective activities, with opportunities for self-expression, collaboration, negotiation, sharing … and so on.
At the same time an institution needs to recognize that learning which takes into account the whole individual and has a lasting impact should naturally extend beyond the classroom, beyond the end of a particular course, including any number of formal or informal sources. Not only must an institution involve the individual more closely in its own institutional learning process, but it should also empower the student to take control of his or her own personal learning processes.
But are most students ready or willing to take charge of their own learning? Are they ready to be shown the way and provided with the means to take control of their own learning? Are they ready to be provided with their own personal learning space, again leaving the question of technology aside? I’m rather sceptical. First, learning has to be valued in and of itself, valued enough that someone would want to give it a prominent place in their own personal space – or even give it a space of its own. Maybe learning is in fact more effective when it involves the whole person, but I think only when the whole person is willing to be involved, when in effect, the subject is really of personal interest, say when someone has in interest in computer programming, photography, cats, magic tricks, or whatever. Try as you might, most subjects offered by institutions will fail to stoke any deep personal interest.
Does this make personal learning environment technology irrelevant? I don’t actually think so. I think it still has a place, particularly in certain subject areas (definitely not all), but I don’t think it will ever live up to the grand expectations imposed on it by the friends of constructivist theory.
John,
Thank you for a really nice blogpost, it was intresting reading for me and as a tutor, I really felt that I could learn something from your post
You were asking “But are most students ready or willing to take charge of their own learning? Are they ready to be shown the way and provided with the means to take control of their own learning? Are they ready to be provided with their own personal learning space, again leaving the question of technology aside?” and you are sceptical. I agree with you that at the moment it seems that students are not ready for being self-directive learners and they don’t know much about lifelong learning and although they are using many Web 2.0 tools, maybe even with educational purpose, they don’t think of them as components of personal learning environment. I also think that not everyone should be self-directive, not everyone is able to motivate him/herself and they are not supposed to do that. But those, who would like to be self-directive learners and to create their own personal learning environements, but they have lack of skills, those need to be educated in that area
Best,
Kairit Tammets