Ple

The Personal Learning Environments Reference Model Project
The idea of Personal Learning Environments was first discussed in 2001 in [[Media:olivierandliber2001.doc | this unpublished paper]] by Olivier and Liber (it was an invited paper for the SSGRR-2002W International conference on Infrastructure for e-Business, e-Education, e-Science, and e-Medicine on the Internet, L'Aquila, Italy, January 2002 but was eventually withdrawn as neither author was able to attend). In the following years, and as experience was gained in the use of VLEs, the concerns raised in this paper became increasigly widepread, eventually resulting in CETIS being commissioned by the JISC Distributed eLearning Programme to propose a reference model and prototype software to elaborate the concept of PLE. The project ran from August 2005 to the end of July 2006, and this site contains links to its outputs.

Aims

 * 1) 	Define the scope of the term Personal Learning Environment, including distinguishing it from the term Personalized Learning Environment.
 * 2) 	Propose a list of user requirements for any system to be included within this definition
 * 3) 	Identify the technical requirements for such a system, addressing different implementation scenarios (client or server based, client-server or peer-to-peer) and addressing issues of integration into the eLearning Framework
 * 4) 	Produce a reference model and specification for a Personal Learning Environment that will elaborate on how the PLE can work within a service oriented framework:
 * 5) 	Evaluate potential technologies that can act as plug-in platforms for personal learning environments.
 * 6) 	Implement a reference pilot implementation of a personal environment using the Eclipse RCP
 * 7) 	Integrate the CETIS Enterprise Web Services toolkit as a plug-in as an example of the integration of web-service toolkits
 * 8) 	Develop a web-service interface that enables information to be exchanged between two concurrent applications based on Chandler
 * 9) 	Make the software developed as a open-source project on SourceForge

Outcomes
The PLE report (web) The prototype PLEX desktop application The prototype PLEW server application A Special Edition of the Interactive Learning Environments Journal

Sustainability

 * 1) The PLE Sustainability Statement

Events

 * 1) The PLE experts meeting, collection of links to workshop papers on delicious
 * 2) The PLE workshop

Other Workshops

 * 1) Staff awareness workshop, University of Bolton, June 21st 2006
 * 2) Staff awareness workshop, University of Manchester, July 12th 2006
 * 3) Workshop on using next-generation technologies, ALT-C 2006
 * 4) Workshop for practitioners on PLEs, blog.ac.uk conference, London, 2nd June 2006
 * 5) JISC Capital Programme User-owned Technologies projects start up meeting, Birmingham, 23rd April 2007

Publications and Presentations

 * Johnson, M; Brierley, C (2007) "Personal Technologies as Masks: issues of Persona and Identity in Professional Practice and Learner Development" TenCompetence Workshop, Manchester
 * Milligan C.D, Beauvoir P., Johnson M.W, Sharples P, Wilson S., & Liber O. (2006) Developing a Reference Model to Describe the Personal Learning Environment. In Innovative Approaches for Learning and Knowledge Sharing; First European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2006 Crete, Greece, October 1-4, 2006 Proceedings pp 506-511. Berlin/Heidelberg, Springer
 * Johnson, M.W "Towards a Reference Model for the Personal Learning Environment" - Ascilite Conference, Sydney, Australia 2007
 * Wilson, S, Beauvoir, P, Milligan, C, Sharples, P, Johnson, M.W. & Liber, O. (2006) "Challenging the dominant design of educational systems" - ECTEL Conference, Crete, 2006
 * Johnson, M.W, Beauvoir, P, Milligan, C, Sharples, P, Wilson, S. & Liber, O. (2006) "Mapping the Future: The Personal Learning Environment Reference Model and Emerging Technology" - ALT-C 2006, Heriot-Watt University, (research paper)
 * Johnson, M.W (2006) "Critical Realism, Cybernetics and the Dissemination of Praxis" - International Association of Critical Realism conference, Tromso, Norway, August 2006
 * Wilson, S. "eLearning 2.0", presentation to Institutional Web Managers Workshop, Bath, June 2006
 * Wilson, S. "PLEs and the net generation", presentation to Alt-SURF Spring Conference, Leiden, Netherlands, 2006
 * Wilson, S. "Architecture of virtual spaces and the future of VLEs" - presentation to ITS Learning focus group, Oslo, Norway, 2006
 * Liber, O. (2005) Challenges for Institutions in Adapting to the Global Information Infrastructure: presentation at the UCIS/UKOLN/CETIS workshop "Initiatives & Innovation: Managing Disruptive Technologies", U. Warwick
 * Liber, O. (2005) Personal Learning Environments: Shifting the locus of control: presentation at Higher Education Academy workshop "Open Source VLEs", U. York

Links

 * PLEs on Wikipedia
 * PLE Blog