Models For Designing Your Personal Learning Environment (2024)

With all of the interest and hype surrounding AI, this is an excellent time to bring up something very human. How can we improve the strategies, tools, and technologies we use to learn from each other’s expertise and experience. It may be time for a personal learning environment (PLE) refresh.

Your PLE is your environment of tools, services, and resources that allow you to engage in self-directed learning. Through your PLE, you can learn, share, collaborate, and connect with others of similar interests. The fascinating aspect is that everyone’s PLE is as unique as each individual. An essential element of a PLE is personal control. Self-directed learning allows people to take ownership of the skills, knowledge, and connections they acquire.

Helping Learners Create a Personal Learning Environment

If you are an avid learner, you likely built an evolving PLE years ago. However, not everyone thinks about self-managed learning. You can initiate a program at work to help employees create their own personal learning environments. In fact, a robust personal learning environment can partially replace conventional courses. It has the potential to help workers stay up-to-date in their field, strengthen their social connections, and bring fresh ideas into the workplace. Here’s an example of an easy-to-build website where a user can curate their resources: How to Quickly Create a Learning Resource Website.

Organic Design Versus Planned Design

Perhaps your personal learning environment, like mine, emerged organically. For example, you used social media and bookmarking tools to share the gems you collected. All of this probably occurred without much planning. At least it did for me.

But what if you wanted to consciously design and build the most effective personal learning environment that would meet all of your needs? What if you wanted to help others create a learning environment to develop skills and share expertise? Then, having a model for building a PLE would be valuable.

Advantages of Using a Model

There are advantages to relying on a model for building a personal learning environment.

1. Having a model narrows down your options, which can be good when starting out. There is so much information floating around it can feel like you’re grasping at straws.
2. Second, using a model gives you direction. For example, if the model you choose calls for collecting, you know to look for a curation tool.
3. Finally, using a model makes the process more systematic. With a model, it’s clear what you have and what gaps you need to close.

How To Use a Model

When you find a model that you resonate with below, use it as is or modify it to suit your needs. Then, think about the tools, services, and resources you can use to fulfill each part of the model. Do some research, experiment with tools, apps, and strategies. Then, connect with people who have similar interests. Adopt the approach so it becomes part of your learning flow. Start simply and add new pieces as needed. This approach can help others design their PLE also.

For example, I used to bookmark websites with articles of interest in my browser. Accessing the bookmarks took a lot of work, as I had so many. Then, I switched to an RSS aggregator to create my own magazine of feeds organized by topic. This type of service would fall under the “Collecting” or “Gathering” part of the models below. Now, there are AI-powered bookmark managers, search engines, and curation tools to the process even easier.

Below are five models for creating a personal learning environment. The models were developed quite a few years ago, when learning designers and educators were amazed at the potential of self-directed learning. I think they stand the test of time, but it’s always helpful to modernize it if needed.

Model #1: Generic

The characteristics of a PLE were described by Milligan and others in a way that I think can be used as a model (I modified it slightly). The authors wrote that the PLE uses tools that would allow the learner to:

• Learn with other people: manage and create relationships, forming connections between contacts that are not part of a formal learning network.
• Control their learning resources: allow them to structure, share, and annotate resources they find or have been given.
• Manage the activities they participate in: provide opportunities for them to create as well as join activities that bring together people and resources.
• Integrate their learning: allow them to integrate learning from different institutions and sources, re-using evidence of competency and making links between formal and informal learning. (Milligan et al., 2006).

Model #2: Collecting-Reflecting-Connecting-Publishing

This PLE model created by Jeremy Hiebert takes into account learning in the past, present and future. It consists of:

• Collecting: aggregating, storing, organizing and filtering contacts, artifacts and information
• Reflecting: reviewing, connecting concepts, synthesizing, blogging, working in private/public groups
• Connecting: people and information, group-forming, shared goals and interests (and information)
• Publishing: select, modify, combine and publish; e-portfolios, blogs, etc.

See a (dated) diagram of the Collecting-Reflecting-Connecting-Publishing Model.

Model #3: The Seek, Sense, Share Framework

This framework developed by Harold Jarche is based on the concept of Personal Knowledge Mastery (PKM), a way to direct one’s own professional development in the context of a network of connections.

• Seeking involves searching and exploring and staying current in your field. Building a network of trusted people and resources is important here.
• Sensing is how we make sense of things. We personalize information by reflecting and putting it into practice. We learn by doing.
• Sharing involves the exchange of resources and ideas with our personal network. It may include collaboration and shared experiences.

Read more about the Seek > Sense > Share Framework.

Model #4: The Four C’s Model

In this model, created by Chris Sessums, the blog is the personal learning space that serves as an activity hub and is informed by the individual (node) and collective activities (network). The model consists of these activities:

• Collect: gather articles, tools, data, images and resources
• Communicate: share ideas, convey information, ask questions, reflect, respond, comment and clarify
• Create: generate ideas, research, write, bring content into being
• Collaborate: synthesize, working with peers, engaging one another

Model #5: Gathering-Processing-Acting

I’ve always liked Michele Martin’s model because it includes the cognitive steps of processing and taking action. It goes like this:

• Gathering: collecting information from blogs, search engines, bookmarks, journals, contacts
• Processing: blogging, note taking, sketching, bookmarking, repurposing
• Acting on Learning: doing experiments, trying things out on clients (with permission)

See the diagram of this model and imagine some of the tools in an updated version.

References:

1. Cenka, B.A.N., Santoso, H.B., Janus, K. “Personal learning environment toward lifelong learning: an ontology-driven conceptual model.”Interactive Learning Environments, Sept 14, 2022.
2. Chatti, M., Jarke, M., & Specht, M. “The 3P Learning Model.” Educational Technology & Society, 13 (4), 74–85, 2010.
3. Milligan, C, Phillip B., Johnson, M., Sharples, P., Wilson, S. & Liber, O. “Developing a Reference Model to Describe the Personal Learning Environment” in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 4227, 506-511, 2006.

For an academic look at PLEs, see Personal learning Environments based on Web 2.0 services in higher education.

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