JISC

The Manchester Personal Learning Environment (the PLE) is an environment that supports a social constructivist approach to learning, particularly for peer-assisted learning in groups, possibly with the presence of a teacher. The development of the PLE has been part-funded under the U & I Benefits Realisation Programme.

In its realisation, the PLE consists of a social networking ‘substrate’ combined with re-purposable multi-user / multi-media spaces to help support distributed learning activities. The system benefits from many advanced computer science techniques that are combined to create a highly usable system.

In this seminar/workshop Mark van Harmelen will discuss the educational foundations of the PLE, demonstrate the PLE’s capabilities, and discuss the shape of future PLE development. The anticipation is that a new demo release of the PLE will be available for the seminar/workshop, and that this will be usable during the session by participants with wireless-connected laptops.

Mark will discuss forthcoming user trials, and how learners and teachers can become involved in that activity from late April 2009.

The seminar/workshop will also provide a forum for some general discussion around the idea of a PLE, and how such systems can be leveraged in providing educational experiences.

As an ongoing JISC-funded project, the PLE’s future development is proceeding together with the construction of Library 2.0 systems. Consequently Mark will touch on the future integration of the PLE with library facilities for search, discovery and the curation of user-generated content, including learner and researcher discussions that form around library resources.

Mark van Harmelen