Personal Living Environments
I hereby decree that PLE and PLN now refer to personal _living_ environments and networks. Cinching the borders in narrowly to the word “learning” brings along too much historical baggage, pinning the idea of learning down to a discrete, particular time and process that we endure only as long as necessary before resuming our journey somewhere else.
We need to help students stop thinking about education as something they get done and help them understand learning as a continual lifelong process.
In the archaic– and continuing– model of higher education it is possible to discard the activities and paraphernalia of learning. With more or less nostalgia, “former” students can recall the strange rituals of library-going, note-taking, research, and information management and resource management that they took part in the same way they more or less fondly remember dorm life, cafeteria food, and co-eds. Except for those continuing in academia, where some aspects of being a learner continue in (often rather) abstracted ways, the only thing part of the experience that remains “active” is an institutional email address and machines generating billing statements for student loans.
In the emerging model, students learn to navigate, assess, construct and participate in a living network that comprises the heart of their learning network and they take that with them when their time as part of any particular institution’s offerings come to a change.
Though all of these activities have their parallels in later work and life, few former students (again, outside of those who become career academics) will again need to perform traditional research activities or face a pile of assigned reading and even fewer will will be authoring papers or cramming for exams. But if we do our jobs properly they will be participants in professional communities; they will have a desire for self-expression; they will be members of the pro-sumer class. They may not need to figure out MLA format and how to format footnotes in word, but they will need to know how to blog, wikify and twitter. They may not have to create an annotated bibliography, but they will need to know how to marshal and share resources with del.icio.us- and flickr-like systems.
“Going to school” is an activity that has a life and dies; learning is a continuing process. Enrollments and degree programs terminate; personal living networks accompany learners through life– the ultimate educational institution– serving as companion, confidante, and oracle alike.
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:22 pm
internal vs. external locus of control. for people who are still requiring external motivation, a PLE won’t work – they won’t “get it” – but once they shift to internal motivation, PLE is a natural outcome. or is it? hmm….
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Natural? I don’t know. Better? Yes.
And you are absolutely correct that motivation is key– part of our job has to be finding the right switches to turn on the internal light bulbs so students become motivated from within…
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
ah, but there’s the rub – you can’t throw the switch on someone _else_ to become internally motivated. they have to do it themselves. I suppose all we can do is model and support…
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:13 pm
It’s semantics. You say you can’t turn the switch on for someone else, I say that through example, inspiration and sharing we effectively *can* by helping them to.
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:14 pm
That “all” in your sentence is a whole world of which we (educators) have only explored a bit past our back yard
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:16 pm
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]
January 4th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
[...] “In the emerging model, students learn to navigate, assess, construct and participate in a living network that comprises the heart of their learning network and they take that with them when their time as part of any particular institution’s offerings come to a change…’Going to school’ is an activity that has a life and dies; learning is a continuing process. Enrollments and degree programs terminate; personal living networks accompany learners through life– the ultimate educational institution– serving as companion, confidante, and oracle alike.” Chris Lott [...]
January 8th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
The New PLE: Personal Living Environment…
Chris Lott defends this broad declaration well: that students need to be taught that learning is life-long, and that hopefully today’s teachers can instill a motivational love of learning through self-expression….
February 19th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Good post. You make some great points that most people do not fully understand.
““Going to school” is an activity that has a life and dies; learning is a continuing process. Enrollments and degree programs terminate; personal living networks accompany learners through life– the ultimate educational institution– serving as companion, confidante, and oracle alike.”
I like how you explained that. Very helpful. Thanks.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
[...] love what Chris Lott [...]