“PLEs [Personal Learning Environments] empower students to take charge of their own learning, prompting them to select tools and resources to create, organize and package learning content to learn effectively and efficiently...PLEs are inherently self-directed placing the responsibility for organizing learning on the individual.”²

Learning Intention

Formal learning is learning that takes places in a specific institution that is highly structured, like a college classroom. Informal learning takes places in the hands of the learner. Some scholars suggest that learning is most effective when formal and informal learning are connected.3 More than ever, social media is structuring informal learning for individuals and communities.

Overview

Students are already learning and being socialized outside of the formal classroom through social technologies. Educators can use social technology as a way to personalize education and have students produce knowledge. Today’s technology “is participatory and collaborative, enabling connection globally with multiple social spheres, there is an increasing gap between the formalized interactions that occur in educational establishments and the modes of learning, socialization, and communication that youth experience and engage in.”¹

Examples¹

• Image Curation: Students can take a field trip (museum, industry site, etc.) and upload images of exhibits to Flickr. Giving students choices about what to post and curate on Flickr helps them connect their learning in ways that are most relevant to their interests.

• Wiki Information Guide: Students can work collaboratively to produce an information guide using wiki. Allow groups to choose the topic they find personally meaningful to research and how the research is presented.

• Reflective Blogs: Students can write reflective blog entries to stimulus questions. Students get to work at their own pace, and express their own ideas, not just report on the ideas of others.

• Social Media: Students can create a LinkedIn profile and share information relevant to the course. This also allows them to comment on other classmates posts, building their online digital profiles and knowledge in content areas.⁵

• TED Talks: Students can watch a set of TED Talks on a certain theme or subject area and write a blog post summarizing their learning.

Considerations

• Facilitate: Teachers should view themselves as facilitators encouraging self-direction and autonomy by providing options while supplying overall structure to the course.¹

• Utility: Have students generate content that has value beyond the grade and post this content on social media or personal blogs.

• Privacy: FERPA guidelines aim to protect student identity, and faculty are legally obligated to follow them. When possible, use tools that remain behind the institutional firewall (such as Canvas). Third-party tools are allowed, but students should be allowed to use a pseudonym on any work that is publicly accessible to protect their identity.

• Permanent Fingerprint: Public-facing work can be powerful networking tools, and this can either be beneficial or detrimental. As young students are experimenting with their opinions and identities, it may not be to their benefit to have those ideas publicly accessible as part of their permanent online identity. Consider encouraging students to use pseudonyms or restrictive privacy settings on work that could be controversial or experimental.

References

1. McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M.J. (2010). Personalised and self-regulated learning in the Web 2.0 era: International exemplars of innovative pedagogy using social software. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26(1), 28-43. Available at: http://etec.ctlt.ubc.ca/510wiki/images/5/54/49023651.pdf

2. Dabbagh, N., & Kitsantas, A. (2012). Personal Learning Environments, social media, and self-regulated learning: A natural formula for connecting formal and informal learning. Science Direct 15(1), 3-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.20011.06.002

3. Hall, R. (2009). Towards a Fusion of Formal and Informal Learning Environments: The Impact of the Read/Write Web. Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 7(1), 29-40.

4. Staton, M. (2019). Creating Lifelong Learners through Open Educational Practices. Innovative Teaching Showcase. Published online by the Center for Instructional Innovation and Assessment, Western Washington University.