PLEs represent conceptual artefacts
The organisers of Scope run great forums about current topics in educational research and practice. It's hosted by Simon Fraser University, my alma mater (BSc 1980). The recent forum about Personal Learning Environments was particularly excellent. These fora offer a terrific opportunity to think aloud. Participation is open and exploratory. Perspectives are diverse. Critiques are invariably constructive. Today, for example, Sylvia Curry linked the discussions about PLEs to the work of Bereiter & Scardamalia. I'd recommend Carl's "Education & Mind in the Knowledge Age" (2002). I wrote a rather long summary of it last year. Amongst other ideas, Carl refers to conceptual artefacts, which are representations of our knowledge and experiences. Whilst many take firm commitments to the truth of their view of the world, Bereiter promotes the idea that our perspectives are constructions that are malleable. (This actually follows from Karl Popper). It seems to me that a PLE, whether as platform or as self-organising approach, could help make that distinction between belief and artefact by affording an explicit representation (direct or by reference) to such artefacts. Even though I have written about both PLEs and Bereitier, it took Sylvia's post to actually bring them together for me. If there was a demonstration of the value of collaborative learning, this would be it. Oh, and this weblog is central to my own PLE :-)
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