Wharton Module Six

Nathaniel Wharton
EDG6931

For this week, I would like to state that “I believe in the power of Personal Learning Environments”. At first, I was very skeptical due to the “openness” of this learning process. However, I have discovered that this “openness” that originally turned me against this process has opened my mind to how learning should be conducted. This class has transformed my entire vision of teaching and learning in the 21st century.

Teaching and learning in the 21st century will be driven by technological access and student driven learning practices. The traditional barriers of time and distance have been demolished with the advent of the internet. With the access of information at an all time high, we would be foolish not to tap into this resource to advance the education of our students.

Personal Learning Environments thrive by providing an opportunity for all to advance knowledge and learning. In advancing this information, students are exposed to more relevant content in a stimulating and thought provoking environment.
Along with finding more information, more easily; we are able to organize this information through various web tools. After evaluating various web tools, I found Symbaloo to be the most beneficial in organize my favorite sites. Symbaloo provides a dashboard of information, which provides its users the simplicity of clicking a “link box” and it automatically will load your favorite sites. This site serves as a type of aggregator by bringing the information and topics to you as a learner. This streamlines the learning process and minimizes the continual need to browse for topics of interest.

In this particular assignment, I used my dashboard to organize personal items (like Twitter and Facebook), interest (Energy Saving Practices), and my topic of research (Wine Making). I have found my personal learning environment to be extremely helpful in my hobby of Wine Making. This ranged from sharing recipes to getting “help” regarding various problems, and I have found the entire process to be very educational. The most beneficial contacts I have made were within wine making forums. The responses from fellow vintners were rapid, accurate, and thought provoking.

The panel of experts on various sites ranged from “home brew” wine makers to industrial wine makers. This blend of professionals was fantastic, because it provides a form of differentiation to match the level of the wine maker. Personally, I find myself as a novice in the wine world. This was brought to my attention when I read forums about preserving wine.
I am fairly new to the wine making process, and was able to connect with many professionals to improve my overall practice. Not only was this interesting from a personal standpoint, but it was also very beneficial from a vintner’s perspective. I was able to post any question I had regarding the process, and it was answered quickly with an answer or suggestions. Along with contacting people, I also was able to read other user’s post regarding their questions and problems. This allowed me an insight to a deeper understanding of the problems I may encounter and more importantly, how to solve them.

What I liked most about the personal learning environment is that I controlled my learning. I was able to control what I wanted to research on a particular day, and find solutions. I had total control of my learning environment. This control included collaboration and the ability to delve as deep or as shallow into a particular topic as I saw fit. Personally, I learned more from the “spin off” conversations that started through my discussions with various experts. They often mentioned a term, abbreviation, or procedure upon which I was unaware. This generated a sense of inquiry in my mind to further understand the topic. That is when it clicked: Personal Learning Environments generate inquiry, problem solving, deeper content understanding, and research based motivations within each learner.

This is a tool that I will be sure to apply to my current sixth grade learning environment. I feel this would greatly benefit the students within the sixth grade science curriculum.