From his posting , Stephen Downes sounds like he didn't really enjoy giving his talk on personal learning environments here in Boston yesterday, what with all that having to connect with "corporate e-learning industry types". can understand that, but if I were Stephen I wouldn't give up, because his perspectives really are valuable in the context of work-based learning and there's a great deal of good thinking and practice that has arisen from a more educational context but which has real practical application in corporations. I In fact, I'd go so far as to say that

I've just completed the third in a series of 3 articles for Inside Learning Technologies magazine .  The series looks at three different ways of creating a social learning environment - for free or at low cost: Tags: Social learning environment 0160; The first two appeared in the November and December editions, the third will appear in the Conference Edition in January - but you can preview it here. Part 1 - Using free public social media tools , October 2009

There's been quite a bit of discussion going on around Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and personal learning environments. Getting back, I've seen quite a few blog posts on the topic: Stephen Downes - Personal Learning I can talk about webs and networks and personal learnings and PLEs but there's a disconnect unless people see themselves as learners rather than teachers. Stephen seems a bit worried in his post that people in the corporate world don't get the concept. We talked about this briefly during a session with Tony O'Driscoll , Brent Schelenker , and Steven Downes at the eLearningGuild.

Personal Learning and Personal Learning Environments As part of the recent discussion on personal learning and personal learning environments, I went back to find my posts on these topics and on personal knowledge management and related. Personal Learning Environments and personal learning environments The future of learning is personal learning PKM and Personal Learning Personal Learning for Learning Professionals - Using Web 2.0 Tools for Personal Learning Improving

If you read some of the predictions for 2009  that were compiled by Lisa Neal Gualtieri at eLearn Magazine, you may have noticed that people foresee a resurgence of informal learning, especially in new, e-mediated forms.  While I agree that many people have developed some savvy with really cool tools, using those tools for learning is a different skill set.  But let’s be cautious.  At the top of the eLearn Mag list, Alison Rosset predicts “More technology, but not necessarily more sense about how to use it.” 

Today's post flows nicely from yesterday's post on one type of Personal Learning Environment, Alltop, a site where you are able to aggregate your blog interests in one area. The The difference today however is that I'm writing about my very OWN personal learning environment, a personal website, michaeleury.com , that I have published only in the last few days! OK, what is a personal For me it is a place where I park my ideas and knowledge, links and reading resources, it is a bit like a slice of my brain on the web! I've shown the site to a few friends and ex-colleagues

Donald Clark left the following comment on my posting about personal learning environments: "The term PLE is, in itself, suspect. Learning - well no, it's more about a two-way, working window - learning is at best a small part of it, a by product, not it's sole purpose. Environment - the PLE isn't the environment, the internet is." It seems that what Donald is describing is essentially a customised home page, an individualised Personalised - OK but stating the obvious. I

I've run across a few different posts talking about Personal Work and Learning Environments which I have tentatively started to call PWLE - pronounced p-whale. The reason why I think it's worth us talking about tools and maps and basically what is your PWLE (p-whale) is that it's helpful for us to figure out how to support our own personal work and learning. This is much like all the discussion Tom Haskins in PLEs are power tools and Cammy Bean in Be the Node tell us: So all the talk about tools and maps has struck me as odd. How do we quantify or control something

My role often tends to be that of interpreter - helping IT people understand HR/Learning specialists and vice versa. HR and Learning & Development see web 2.0 Learn the capabilities of the free tools like Ning, Wikispaces and Google docs. Perhaps even start your own learning This often means I'm involved in discussions about choosing and using software, particularly social software, often known as web 2.0 . tools in use around the world, connecting people and ideas, and want to make that happen inside their organisation.

There's some great discussion happening around the issues of control and resulting ownership of work product as we create personal work learning environments. Enterprises that love PLE's Cross battles Downes: is corporate learning corrupt? Stephen Downes Work PLEs internet futures and social relations Jay Cross - Nonsense from Stephen Blogging Inside or Outside the Corporate Firewall Stephen Downes Personal Work and Learning Environments (PWLE) - More Discussion Jay Cross - Semantics & the first place Personal Work and Learning Environments PLEs are power tools