Much of the discussion in the first week of the #PLENK2010 course was devoted to the (often quite subtle) distinctions between the Personal Learning Environment and the Personal Learning Network which it supports (and which is itself part of the personal environment).
But there is also some (deliberate?) ambiguity within each of the PLE(orN) concepts which I think may be more significant.
By a PLE we may mean that part of the personal (digital) environment which supports learning, ie the Personal Environment for Learning (PEL). This includes tools for aggregating and filtering input from various sources and I think has got a lot of attention in the dicsussions so far. But PLE might also refer to a shared environment open to many, which supports personal (self-directed) learning, ie an Environment for Personal Learning (EPL).
Perhaps it would be worth considering what features of a public resource or network are most useful for the pruposes of facilitating personal learning. These might include modularization of content; varying levels of support, refinement, and sophistication; and ways of guiding the student (who does not yet “know” the content) towards the most appropriate choices.
Any other ideas?(or good examples out there?)
(I actually posted the above as a discussion topic at the end of week 1 so am reproducing it here mainly for my own future reference)