This time it's personal

Today turned out to be a Personal Learning Environments sort of day for me. Firstly, I read a cracking blog by D'Arcy Norman on PLEs which showed some nice diagrams and conceptual maps of his take on PLEs accompanied by some neat explanations. D'Arcy refreshingly takes a connectionist view that the connections to people are more important than the technologies that connect.

Secondly, I joined a new site which has been set up by Cristina Costa over at Learning Journey. It's a Ning site focused on Personal Learning Environments and Digifolios (read e-Portfolios) which as I write this post, already has 48 members. It looks very exciting and seems well worth joining in. The site hosts a workshop which will be delivered on 12 January. The blurb reads:

We live in an era of individual “personalization and customization”. The read and write web has helped develop a new concept - “do it yourself and your own way” . The phenomenon has had implications in our society at different levels - from the way people learn to the new, emerging jobs and employment needs. The workshop aims to help members become aware of the way the web can empower the individual not only to learn, but also to present what, how and with whom he/she learns.

The target audience for the workshop (which spans 6 weeks) is teachers and trainers who know a little about Web 2.0 tools and maybe are using them in real teaching situations. Join up here if you would like to take part.