Deliberations

Since submitting the assignment detailed in this post about Personal Learning Environments, these updates:

I discovered WidgetBox, only just released but running hot. Some in the PLE space are already touting it as a personal solution, as it allows Moodle users to add their personal webservices to their MoodleBlogs, which can then be ported elsewhere when study is complete.
On behalf of the CETIS team at University of Bolton, Scott Wilson presented a short paper entitled Towards a Reference Model for the Personal Learning Environment at the ASCILITE conference in Sydney. The paper, and in particular the talk which I attended (the black-shirted tech support person at the back of the room), was a thorough disappointment. Perhaps the paper had been relegated from "full" to "short" status, I don't know. Scott began by asking how many had heard about PLEs--only a handful put up their hand. He then proceeded not to talk about PLEs at all! He used his fifteen minutes to cynically, and without prepared material, give his audience a lecture about critical theory and the powerplay that has left his team's work unrecognised in the past. I don't know what his problem was, but he obviously isn't interested in promoting his work and all the effort his team has put into the notion of PLEs.