Week 2

This week we went beyond the introduction of the course and now into learning more about ourselves, and how we learn in a digital context. As I mentioned before, I always have felt that I am a native user of technology, as applications in the digital world come fairly easily to me, but I also consider myself as someone that does not really, truly, rely on technology. I felt that if I didn’t have access to it, I would be fine. Once again, the resources we looked at this week made me rethink my initial thought, and I was proved wrong!

Gibbons, S. (CC) 2014.

The first step was to understand what a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is and to examine our own. I understand it as being all of the tools a person uses consistently while working online or with digital resources. There are also many, many different categories that these resources fit into, as you can see in my lovely PLE diagram : ). Before I made this diagram on the Gliffy tool I thought there couldn’t possibly be many online applications I use, since I was so convinced that I would be able to go without all of this technology EASILY…my mistake! Turns out when I actually sat down and starting listing out the applications that I use on a daily basis, there are quite a few. 

Next we learned exactly what a Personal Learning Network (PLN) is. I found that the video that was provided by our instructor made it very clear. A PLN is how we use tools to engage, interact and communicate with other people online. SO, an individual’s PLN would be a sub-group within their PLE. Make sense? There are a number of websites I personally use to communicate with people, and I have never really considered them all that educational, but now I am thinking they are. If I want people’s opinions on certain things I will post a question on Facebook, and I often use the responses to make an informed decision. Or, on Facebook (I use Facebook quite often as you will notice!) I will create a group chat for the classes where I have a group assignment, then members can easily communicate with each other about ideas and meeting times. I could probably come up with lots more examples, but long story short, I can’t imagine getting rid of my account. How else would I ask classmates for help!?!

When thinking 5 to 10 years down the road from now, nothing is for certain. One thing that I do hope is that I have graduated from Brock University and learned lots from this course : ). I am assuming I will no longer be in school so having access to the internet and being able to utilize all that is has to offer will be very important! I hope to be aware of (and be able to use!) more search tools as well as FREE applications to create. They could always come in useful! I want to be able to search it order to keep myself connected to global issues as a way of learning. I plan on building my PLE by, first of all, paying more attention to tools used around me, and asking more questions to find out what tools other have already found very useful.

Gibbons, S. (CC) 2014.

Speaking of useful tools! Another tool that we were introduced to this week was Wordle. It is extremely easy to use and SO visually appealing. I had seen different collages of words portrayed like this in the past but I honestly never had an idea of how it was done, I guess I thought it was going to be difficult, because I never looked into it any further. It is a really intuitive tool and allows you to change the direction of text, the colours, etc.

Week 2, and I am already feeling so much more knowledgeable!

TTFN