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Friday, September 17, 2010

What does my PLN look like

In PLENK2010, this first week we are considering Personal Learning Networks and Personal Learning Environments, what they are, what they look like... One of the challenges this week is to visualize our PLN. So here goes:

First I distinguish PLN (Personal Learning Network) from PLE (environment). It seems that PLE refers to the tool or virtual place where learning occurs: in an LMS, on a blog or wiki or through an rss feed. My PLN is a network of people and resources. I already see how this graphic could be improved. I could add artifacts (books, wikipedia, blogs...)

What strikes me about this image is that my PLN used to be almost exclusively made up of people I've met in Second Life. Through a virtual world I have been able to locate hundreds of people from around the world with whom I share common interests and intellectual pursuits. Many fewer people at my university and in my home community are members of my PLN. Though we share physical space we do not share common interests. What is new to my PLN is the MOOC - which like a virtual world has the capability and capacity to bring together dozens/hundreds/thousands of people who share interests and expertise. There is a dimensionality to the MOOC experience that I did not think could be accomplished on the 2D internet.

1 comment:

Jim Stauffer said...

I like the way you used graphics to illustrate where the greater number of your contacts reside. Mine's still unfinished but you can view what I've done so far at http://mywebspiration.com/view/540438a2bb1f
I hope to post a jpeg and link on my blog this weekend.