PLE for Me

Personal Learning Environments (PLE) helps learners take control of their own learning by creating a learning space tailored specifically to their needs. I can pull in any tools I need and use the best content as a e-portfolio (this is something you can present to potential employers as a vehicle to showcase what skills and ideas you can bring to their organisation). I’ve decided to use a WordPress blog. You can use other blogging websites but WordPress is free and open source – so the users with some skill can extend its capabilities. It’s also possible to create PLEs from other platforms such as Wikis.

I’ve recently added Delicious to my blog which I’m setting up as a Personal Learning Environment or PLE. I discovered Delicious a few years ago now and use it all the time to keep track of useful websites. It’s so handy when you move from one computer to another or when you get a new pc! I’m reaching the stage of ‘normalisation’ now (Stephen Bax) – it’s just part of my everyday practice to save things on Delicious. I’ve had a look at Diigo and it looks good. I will make a point of getting better acquainted with it. I’ve incorporated my Delicious link and Twitter feed into this blog in an effort to start making it more PLE. But a PLE isn’t a strict construct it can be designed and customized to a particular users needs. My PLE is going to be a place for personal reflecting on professional practice. The eventual aim will be to pull an e-portfolio out of it that I can use for promotional purposes.

I’m also quite enjoying blogging – self-publishing is a beautiful thing! I think I might go and make another blog.

I’m aiming to gradually transition the PLE into a fully fledged Personal Learning Network (PLN) over time. A PLN is an informal learning network that the learner builds up with other practitioners in their area of interest. The purpose of setting up these connections with other practitioners is learn new ideas that I may not have otherwise have thought of or known about.

Twitter Basics – YouTube

All that Twitters ain’t necessarily gold

I’ve been pretty slack with over the last month or two making posts to this blog. But the deadline for the Emerging Technologies presentation is fast approaching and there is nothing like a deadline to focus the mind! I’ve reevaluated the best way to use Twitter on the Endnote Libguide over the last few weeks and come to the conclusion that Twitter is not the right tool to use as a  Q & A archive or as an alternative to our current Endnote discussion group service.

There’s a couple of reasons why I’ve had to rethink this idea. Firstly, Twitter is limited to 140 characters per tweet making it difficult to answer technical questions that require a bit of background explanation. There is also the question of support – Twitter is a very instantaneous medium and someone would need to track it’s activity. However, it’s great for getting your message out there to a wide audience. I was looking at Shane Warne’s Twitter the other day in the aftermath of his run in with a cyclist. Shane’s celebrity status ensured the story got oxygen in the mainstream press and it was only really his version of events that were being presented. The cyclist is taking legal action and the matter is soon to be before the courts – but I digress…

The other major limitation with Twitter is that tweets are temporary – here today gone tomorrow. They disappear after a certain amount of time – hmmm. Not quite sure the circumstances under which they disappear though – but definitely something to be aware of. This has been explained as due to the volume of traffic. I think it’s all about instantaneous communication with Twitter and not archiving data. There’s no doubt much better tools to use for Q & A – ideas? Facebook? I have created a link to the Research Ambassadors FB page – some the ambassadors have good Endnote skills.

I’ve been having a look at how other organisations are using Twitter and found that they generally use it as a promotional tool to feed information out. And this is how we should be using Twitter on our Endnote page – to promote upcoming events or put out information that we want the VU Endnote community to know. I’ve also noted in the course of my research that everyone is using Facebook too. They both have different roles to play in promoting an organisations activities.

Community of Inquiry

I’ve decided to use the ideological framework described in the Community of Inquiry when applying Web 2.0 technology to the Endnote Libguide. I should state that I’m applying these ideas as guiding principles rather than hard rules to strictly follow. It’s a compass point to give direction to my decision making process. The model consists of three parts. The first part is a “cognitive presence” which relates to content. We will be putting content on the Libguide that will assist staff and students in all aspects of Endnote. The introduction of Web 2.0 technology aims to encourage particpants to interact with each other about particular issues (as well as us!). And this interaction will be reflected in the second part of this model – “social presence”. We will be moderating the answers that the participants tweet but this will allow anyone with some expertise to “teach” – not just us – this covers the third aspect which is “teaching presence”. The interaction that the Web 2.0 technology will facilitate needs to have a structure and focus. The only concern is the amount of support or facilitation that may be required

At this stage I think a tool like Facebook (I’ve included a link to the Research Ambassadors Facebook account) may be more applicable than Twitter in creating a real sense of an Endnote community. The ideal is to create a environment that is self-sustaining and doesn’t require constant (daily) mediation to be viable. May investigate further

Emergent Technologies

This is a place where I can keep track of projects I’m working on and any new ideas. One such project involves creating a LibGuide for Endnote. LibGuides allow the use of collaborative Web 2.0 technology. This presents me and my colleagues in the Library many opportunities to improve the service we provide. My Endnote LibGuide is currently a work in progress buy I have added a bit of functionality on the help page.

http://guides.library.vu.edu.au/admin.php

I’ve included a Twitter feed on the Help Tab. To send a message to this account you use @EndnoteVU and we’re going to use the code #EndnoteVU in the message so anyone can view the tweets (if they know the code). The idea is the tweets will be Q & A of issues that users have when working with Endnote. Overtime we build up a repository of knowledge. With a bit of luck we will establish a community of users who are able to help each other – that’s the aim.

I’ve also included a Delicious bookmark cloud. This will consist of any useful Endnote related links. All tagged depending on content. The aim with this is to share useful links with the wider Endnote community at VU. It can be used for storing, sharing and discovering bookmarks…wow…

But there is also Diigo which is worth a look -  it has extra functionality such as sticky notes that you can leave on a web page. I installed bookmarklets in my browser – just drop and drag it to get it in your browser toolbar. The sticky notes feature works well – I can see it being useful. I’ve also suddenly realized after all this time that Delicious also button you can place in your toolbar.