I like Dave’s points. I see the ‘personal’ in PLE not being me owning the knowledge, but me controlling what I select, how I interact and how I learn. Me being able to put all the pieces of the jigsaw (of which I share many pieces with others) together in my own way. And like Dave, I’m also very focussed on how this can work for ALL students in a formal learning environment. How can we successfully scaffold people into developing and maintaining their own PLE/N – and make this accessible for all?

At our university, we use PebblePad, referred to by PebbleLearning a personal learning system. I often see people’s reactions to PebblePad as a love-hate relationship – you are either bowled over by how empowering students find it, or think that a university system shouldn’t be doing this, as there are many web applications which can do the same – or better – for free. The ‘real ownership’ argument. I see both sides, and we were very aware of the arguments when we made our choice. While we wholeheartedly agreed with the concepts that skipvia (and others) relate about the importance of empowering people to develop their own PLE, we were just as concerned with how we got them there.

Here’s the way I see it. Some people come to university with their PLE already in place. They use a range of tools to find information, keep up with developments in their field, collect and annotate resources, communicate and collaborate with colleagues and publish and share their own ideas and resources. FANTASTIC! When others come in with confidence in their professional background, an inclination towards exploring multiple technologies and no concerns about the sensitivity of issues they want to discuss…FANTASTIC. Bring on the open PLE. But…

What of the student who is just starting to explore their ideas about their profession, doesn’t feel confident questioning some things in an open environment or revealing some of their uncertainties about their own abilities? Or the student who is willing and able to share some sensitive information with a class member or academic, but not with the world? In these (and other) cases, I’ve always felt access to a completely private environment, where the user has total control of what is shared, with whom and for how long, is preferable. Now that doesn’t mean that they will be there forever, but it’s a ‘safe’ place to explore and be open about your own ideas, and to have public and private communications, all in the one place. It’s just another choice – and when did we ever argue against that? For example, I combine the two, using PebblePad as my private space, and a range of web applications for my public space. It works for me. It’s just another part of my personal PLE.

And that’s why we went ahead with PebblePad…so that we could cater for all students. While we promote personal learning regardless of tools, we’d like to also provide that safe environment for those students (and academics) who value, for whatever reason, a private space and want to have more control over their work – to share an individual blog post with just one, a few, with all colleagues or the world. We hope that over time, and with support, confidence grows and more and more students move towards an open environment as their PLNs grow. But for some, maybe a public and private space will always be desirable.

But yes, this isn’t unproblematic. The university is providing the tools. And when it comes to ownership, well, it does raise questions.

I’m looking forward to this course, as it will challenge me to reexamine our choices, and how we can best support students in their learning. I’d love to hear how others in #PLENK2010 feel about this - is an open PLE for everyone, all of the time? Is there a place for students to choose and integrate a more private, ’practice’ environment or do you feel it’s just the university trying to artifically control personal learning?