Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Personal Learning Environments (PLEs)

The other day I wrote about information overload. One of the first terms that comes to mind when I go back and read the first line from that post - "We all have much more information from many more sources than we have ever had before." - is duh. Information overload is likely to be quite apparent to us all. However, what is perhaps less apparent to many of us is how to deal with it. In this post I will start to explore more fully some of the ways to deal with information overload.

Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) have been receiving much attention over the last few years, especially with the growth of Web 2.0 tools. Michele Martin in her blog, The Bamboo Project, has a great post about PLEs in which she gives descriptions, issues and ideas about PLEs and details some of the tools she uses. Robin Good also has a great post about PLEs -
Personal Learning Environments: What They Are And How To Implement Them
. These two posts provide a good starting place for your learning about PLEs.

One of the key points to realize about PLEs is that by their very nature, they are personal. Consequently, each individual's PLE will likely be unique. I am in the process of updating my PLE to make the best use of many technological tools - those Web 2.0 tools I mentioned above. Once I have done that I will post my new PLE here. In the mean time, starting with my next post, I will be discussing some of those tools either individually or grouped by their primary function.

If you are interested in learning about a particular tool or group of tools please leave me a comment.

Friday, September 21, 2007

The Cure For Information Overload

We all have much more information from many more sources than we have ever had before. It matters little what industry or job function we are in; we are all facing information overload, and it is increasing moment by moment. The big question is, "How do we handle the information overload that we all experience?" Or perhaps better put, "How do we handle all the information available to us, without simply ignoring large amounts of information, so that we do not experience information overload?"


This challenge can be met in several different ways. Many of those ways are through using various Personal Knowledge Management or Personal Learning Environment tools. There are a multitude of tools available to help an individual capture and categorize the information available to them. Of course many of these tools are also available to organizations. However, for the purpose of this ongoing discussion over the coming days and weeks, we will focus on what an individual can do to manage his or her knowledge acquisition / learning.


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Thursday, September 20, 2007

First new post

Hello once again. This is my first blog post after an almost two year hiatus. I had found it difficult to keep up with the rigors of writing anything even remotely interesting or useful on any kind of regular basis. Also, I became so busy "working and doing" that I struggled to find opportunity to think and write.


I am still busy working and doing. Nevertheless, I have become acutely aware over the last few months of the real need to somehow fit in time to think and write. As a knowledge worker I feel it is critical that I take time to not only read widely, but to also reflect on what I have read as a means to convert the information I gain from reading into knowledge. Since my primary interest is in individual and organizational training and performance improvement, it is also useful for me to share that knowledge with others. Writing this blog presents me with a wonderful opportunity to do just that.


I named this blog "Edtec Student's Daily" because I started it while in my Master's program in Educational Technology at San Diego State University (SDSU). I used the spelling of "Edtec" rather than the more traditional spelling of "Edtech" because the Educational Technology department at SDSU uses Edtec. (I would strongly recommend their program to anyone interested in furthering their education.) I decided to keep the name afterwards because I hope to always be learning. Whether the frequency of my posts is daily, weekly, or even less frequent remains to be seen. However, I hope you will join me for the ride. Perhaps on occasion I will even come up with something interesting and useful.


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