Personal Learning Environment

Full Discussion: A Learner Centric Systemic Approach to Positively Change Education

by Charlie Guy

General Problems Facing Education Today

Thomas Friedman’s, author of The World is Flat, main argument is that technology has flattened the world, and that we are now in a global economy that brings countries like China and India to our doorstep as competitors. With a computer and an Internet connection, an individual can participate in the global economy. If his analysis is correct, then this trend provides many new opportunities for educators, especially those with an understanding of collaborative technology. Globalization will flow through the conduit of collaborative tools and new ways of communicating, both domains in which many dedicated educators have already accumulated five plus years experience. These select educators are perfectly positioned to transition, becoming connection-makers rather than content deliverers.  

From his remarks at the April 2005 Carnegie Council Books for Breakfast (Merrill House, New York City), Freidman further states,   

As Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard put it to me, everything we called the IT revolution for the last twenty years was just the warm-up act. That was just the forging and distribution of the tools of collaboration. What you are now about to see is the real IT revolution. When the world goes flat, we are connecting all the knowledge pools in the world together. I believe we are on the cusp of one of the greatest eras of innovation that the planet has ever seen. That is the exciting news. But to be able to plug and play in this world, you have to have the educational skills to do that. As we push out the boundaries of knowledge farther, you have to have more education.

Further addressing the pending changes facing our world, Friedman states:  

The fact that we are now at the beginning of learning to what I call horizontalize ourselves. We are  going from a world where value was created almost exclusively in command-and-control silos, from  the top down, to a world where value is going to increasingly be created by connect-and-collaborate,  horizontally. We are going from a vertical value-creation model to a horizontal value-creation  model. 

Additionally, Susan Patrick, as the then current Director of Educational Technology, US Department of Education, in her January 7, 2005, remarks concerning the then current National Educational Technology Plan, best summarizes our country’s necessary and new educational technology planning direction:

We should be transforming education vs. automating old instructional methods. This plan should help lead a systemic approach to change education. We must align the learning environment to the real world of today. Students[learners] should be the center of our planning. 

What are our country’s learners/students telling us?

Today’s learners feel strongly about the positive value of technology and use it in nearly every aspect of their lives. They are more comfortable with technology than their parents and their instructors. What they are telling us is they want to help us understand this great new world of technology and its vast possibilities. And they want us to listen to them.  

Some of their specific visions were shared when the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Education, and NetDay study (Visions 2020.2: Student Views on Transforming Education and Training Through Advanced Technologies) asked (in the fall of 2004,) 60,000 K-12 students [learners] the following question:  

Today, you and your fellow students [learners] are important users of technology. In the future, you will be the inventors of new technologies. What would you like to see invented that you think will help kids learn in the future? 

Looking across the four broad themes of the learners’ answers and combining some of the most popular concepts in these answers paints a profile of how learners may wish to use technology for learning. In their view of this world: 

Every student [learner] would use a small, handheld wireless computer that is voice activated. The computer would offer high-speed access to a kid-friendly Internet, populated with websites that are safe, designed specifically for use by students [learners], with no pop-up ads. Using this device, students [learners] would complete most of their in school work and homework, as well as take online classes both at school and at home. Students [learners] would use the small computer to play mathematics-learning games and read interactive e-textbooks. In completing their schoolwork, students [learners] would work closely and routinely with an intelligent digital tutor, and tap a knowledge utility to obtain factual answers to questions they pose. In their history studies, students [learners] could participate in 3-D virtual reality-based historic reenactments.

Ms. Patrick then further stated at the national announcement of this NetDay study on August 21, 2005:

More than ever, student [learner] participation in the future of their own education is critical. This  report shares student [learner] views of how we can help compete in a global workforce through  empowering better access to educational opportunities in a changing world. Students [learners]  are expressing how they are leading the charge in a digital age, students [learners] understand that  education and 21st century skills are critical for future success and students [learners] know the  importance of having new choices empowered by technology drive the change and transformation in  education system as well as in our economy.

If we are, in fact to create a successful learner centric systemic approach to positively change U.S. K-14 public education, there must be an accompanying set of clear cut technology implementation strategies that have been developed and tested in order to raise learner academic achievement.

A Learner Centric Systemic Approach to Positively Change Education: Personal Learning Environments (PLE) 

The systemic approach needed by our country to positively affect education should be based upon creating a digital Personal Learning Environments (PLE) or a BrightZone where millennial learners can SAFELY interact with SUPERVISION with eContent (their social media integrated with digital learning resources) utilizing their lifestyle technologies. Rather than becoming an ignored or competing alternative to the learners’ formalized educational environments, the PLE, when properly designed, deployed, managed, and supervised by these formalized educational environments, will greatly enhance the learners’ academic achievement by serving to:

stimulate new learning activities by introducing these millennials learners to new eContent and new learning opportunities educationally relevant to their formalized educational environments.

enhance their formalized educational environments by extending the millennial learners’ use of existing digital learning resources by increasing their participation in learning activities that are currently institutionally sponsored; and by providing enhanced virtual tutoring and community based mentoring opportunities.

Finally, by the use of the millennial learners’ lifestyle technology devices for the delivery of engaging digital learning resources or BrightBytes, this approach will also take dramatic steps to finally reduce the Digital Learning Apartheid that our country’s poorest families still experience at-home today.

As the world education management systems have attempted to horizontalize themselves from command-and-control silos, from the top down, to a world where educational value is going to increasingly be created by an approach of connect-and-collaborate horizontally, one of first attempts in restructuring instructional design has emanated from higher education within the United Kingdom. There it was first recognized that the command and control approach of what is often referred to as a Managed Learning Environment (MLE) is no longer able to maximize the true learning experience for today’s learners who have grown up with their lifestyle technology devices and their social media being such major focuses in their lives. In the U.S., the dominant vendor developed MLE systems are represented by such companies as Blackboard, Web CT, and eCollege. 

The first wave of attempted change in the United Kingdom to horizontalize a learning management system was called Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). Unfortunately the VLE’s were still basically vendor controlled proprietary solutions that were miniaturized MLE’s. Emphasis on the apparent importance of the managerial strengths of such a system was still based upon the perception of a digital learning system as:

content delivery with tight integration into a centralized management information system.

There is still today considerable pressure within the higher education institutions to lock-in to the enterprise solutions in the belief that this approach will be more efficient. Institutions are still giving primacy to the apparent strength of the management features being promoted by commercial MLE/VLE systems with  learner sensitive pedagogical flexibility coming in a poor second.  

The emerging digital Personal Learning Environment instructional design approach is, however, based upon a learner centric digital learning environment built upon their use of the lifestyle technologies and their accompanying tools or uses (social media) to learn initially via digital learning snippets or micro learning sessions (BrightBytes) that are also then linked to the learner’s formalized educational environments or institution’s digitized learning resources. This approach is but a first attempt to connect-and-collaborate horizontally the millennial learners to the world’s digital knowledge pools.

The Personal Learning Environment approach is focused upon the problem solving, collaboration, and communication skills that the millennials learners have previously acquired or are currently acquiring through self-discover in their everyday use of their personal lifestyle technology devices in their communication and collaboration processes acquired from their use of text messaging, IM (instant messaging}, wiki’s, blogs, social networking, etc. with others in their social environments who have taught them their use. The focus of the Personal Learning Environment is neither the instructors nor the management systems to facilitate instructors in the management of educational courses for their learners (especially by helping instructors and learners with course administration).

The new challenge for and the responsibility of a government supported education system will not be in teaching these millennial learners to learn through the schools’ successful integration of technology into its instructional materials or learning resources.

Rather, it must be recognized in stead that we must learn how to finally place the learner as the focus of education by first learning how these millennials learners use their lifestyle technologies and social media to learn and communicate in their everyday lives so that the formalized education environments of their institutions can be integrated and made compatible with these learners’ digital Personal Learning Environments.

The digital Personal Learning Environment is thus the convergence of three powerful elements present in the everyday lives of the millennials learners.

As any new element of change, the full and ultimate potential of the deployment of Personal Learning Environments for public education purposes will occur over a period of time after much experimentation. The first two levels seen below can, however, begin immediately to make a meaningful difference in our learners’ lives.

Learning Styles: How Individuals Learn

To effectively develop such an integrated digital Personal Learning Environment, a basic understanding of learning styles must be first explored. 

Learning styles are different ways that an individual can learn. To help an individual learner reach his or her full potential, it is important to determine which type of learning style seems more effective in his or her situation.  It's commonly believed that most people favor some particular method of interacting with, taking in, and processing stimuli or information. Educators have found and can differentiate between four major learning styles (VARK):

Visual Learners absorb skills and knowledge best by seeing and visualizing new learning materials. They would rather watch a demonstration in chemistry than read about it. These learners will like a stimulating and orderly environment. They will also like to use photographs, videos, slides, diagrams, charts, etc. They will, however, also probably enjoy reading.

Aural Learners absorb skills and knowledge best by listening to new learning materials. These learners do well with lectures; are usually excellent listeners; can learn concepts by listening to tapes, CD’s, etc.; can reproduce symbols, letters or words by hearing them; and can repeat or fulfill verbal instructions relatively easily. They embrace verbal instruction rather than written or visual directions and are also more comfortable expressing emotions orally.

Reading/writing Learners absorb skills and knowledge best by processing text. These learners are most comfortable reading text, print or digital, writing notes, and developing essays. When studying graphs, charts and diagrams, they convert them into words.

Kinesthetic (Dexterous) Learners absorb skills and knowledge best by doing and acting. They need to be involved in physical ways. They respond favorably to concrete objects rather than to abstract concepts. These learners like to perform experiments.

Multi-modal learners are individuals who have more than one strong learning style.

Preferred Learning Styles: When considering preferred learning styles, it is probably more helpful to think of learning as a range of styles that all learners possess to some degree.  The notion of a person having only one learning style is inappropriate. It best to think that a learner may possess a strength in a particular learning style.

Key Components of the BrightZone Personal Learning Environment

 eContent Publishing System:

Five distinct formats of eContent can be published within the BrightZone in an integrated fashion: news feeds, blogs, audio and video podcasts, and on-line radio and TV.

Safe Browser: The unique BrightZone Safe Browser empowers parents and instructors through its specialized safe features to establish a fully contained, protected, and supervised digital Personal Learning Environment where the learners can learn and communicate with others by exploring the world-wide-web at surf safe and educational websites only. The social networking in this self-contained and supervised environment will not be available to unapproved individuals.

Communication: The two primary systems for direct linear communication will be email and IM (Instant Messenger).

Safe Learning Community Components (Safe Social Networking & Collaborative Learning): This feature is comprised of those tools such as blogs and wiki’s that will allow individuals to connect and communicate with each other in a closed, institution monitored, and safe networked fashion.

BrightRays: This feature is an external motivation or rewards system similar to an airline frequent flyer program that will award engagement activity points for all learning related activities experienced within the BrightZone. Its design is to reward and hopefully motivate the learners to interact with the BrightBytes (digital learning snippets) and then later visit their schools’ eduBlogs.

Sync’d Brainstorming System: This system allows media cell phones to be used for mathematics communication in the creation and exchange of mathematical formulas, diagrams, and text between two or more learners.  The system solves the problem of providing the expressive power of mathematical notation on devices with limited input, output, and processing capabilities. The system also provides a turn-management protocol that supports mathematical dialogue between two or more learners who are geographically dispersed and thus cannot use gestures or glances for communication. The architecture of the system is extensible and can be adapted to heterogeneous and evolving hardware platforms.

BrightBuzz: This is an interactive synchronous discussion system. Learners within the BrightZone system minimally possess a partial profile document.  A user account may be attached to one or more client user accounts, giving that user access to institution data views, etc.  To preserve copyright and authorship integrity, user accounts are never deleted.

eContent Mastery Tutoring System: Integrated within the students’ BrightZone, this system serves as an optional virtual tutoring and eContent mastery system.  The system accelerates learning, locks information into long-term memory, and produces true eContent mastery. This system addresses the project’s goal of helping learners to master reasoning and problem-solving concepts. 

BrightBytes: These are 3-5 minute digital learning snippets or micro learning sessions that have been developed in an engaging format based upon either audio and/or video formats that will stimulate and/or motivate learners to then visit their institutions’ education blog (eduBlog) on computers at school, home, or community centers in order to become more engaged with their existing digital learning resources and/or activities.

eduBlogCasts: An eduBlogCast is the digital distribution methodology for deploying BrightBytes. The school’s eduBlog includes online journal entries, posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. This is the vehicle for directly linking the learners to their institutions’ existing digital learning resources and activities already developed as instructional materials. The BrightZone eduBlog also then becomes the online community where instructors, institutional administrators, parents/guardians, mentors, and tutors can observe, communicate, and supervise the learning activities of the learners while they are in their BrightZone.