Friday, May 29, 2009

Personal Learning Environments: the new era of education

Technology has taken learning to an entirely new level in the 21st century. No longer do students learn by just receiving information from instructors in the classroom or lecture environment. Tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, and smart mobile devices fold in multiple layers of alternative delivery of knowledge and communication.


Students no longer just write papers or take tests to show what they've learned. They create websites, blogs, and videos to capture and showcase their learning. I, for one, am very excited to see this wave of creativity surge in education. These new tools empower learners to develop a hybrid approach to exploring and defining their own learning styles.


What I've just described is the personal learning environment (PLE).

Watch & listen to this presentation by Graham Attwell, an "educational technologist, researcher and blogger based in Pontypridd in Wales and Bremen in Germany. "

Read more about PLEs:

- Attwell's compendium paper to the presentation above

- 7 things you should know about PLEs

Watch this great video that clearly paints the picture of our future, if not already present, medical students.




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