Give PLEs a chance

This is my penultimate post in the series reviewing the new book 'Connected Minds, Emerging Cultures'. This post features Graham Attwell's chapter on the social impact of personal learning environments (PLEs). Graham, as director of the Wales based independent research agency Pontydysgu (Bridge to Learning) is deeply embroiled in the study of emerging learning technologies. In his chapter, he concentrates on learning in the workplace, and predicts that PLEs will have:

a profound effect in systems for teaching and learning, on pedagogic approaches to learning, and on knowledge development and sharing (p 120).

Graham Attwell shows how industrial models of education and training fail to address the needs of contemporary society, and argues that it is the PLE concept, with all its associated content generation and sharing tools, that will provide solutions. He argues that most learning takes place informally outside the boundaries of traditional school environment:

Learning is taking place through engagement in social networking, both by young people of school age and by older people in work. Furthermore, learning takes place in multiple contexts, in work, in the community, and in the home as well as in the school, yet our schooling systems remain wedded to attainment against a narrow curriculum of formal knowledge. Informal learning is hardly acknowledged, less still fostered and facilitated (p 125-6).

Attwell makes some compelling arguments for change in the school system, calling on teachers to revisit the concept of learning. For him, the PLE is the weapon of choice for those who want to survive and thrive in the shifting sands of a challenging and volatile world of work. It's another cracking read for all those who are interested in how learning technologies, education and training will prosper in the coming decade.

(Image source: replacement-software.co.uk)