Education Week - May 22, 2013 - Special Report - S32

S32

EDUCATION WEEK: DIGITAL CURRICULA > www.edweek.org/go/digital-report

MAY 22, 2013

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Customized Spaces
Widening
‘PERSONAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS’
EMERGING AS K-12 TREND TO WATCH
By Katie Ash

t’s clear that more and more schools are
aiming to prepare students for a global
marketplace that requires networked
learning experiences, an understanding
of digital citizenship, and a way to navigate and organize a stream of information
and resources from a variety of different
sources—all characteristics emphasized
in a “personal learning environment,” an educational approach the New Media Consortium’s
2012 K-12 Horizon report listed as a key ed-tech
trend to watch.
What’s less clear is what exactly a personal learning environment is. Its relatively new and flexible
structure can make what’s known as a ple hard to
pin down for many people, even though the use of
the term, and approaches associated with it, are
being embraced by a growing number of schools.
While ples are commonly created using specific
technologies and tools, such as online-resource organizers like Symbaloo or EverNote, the model is
not wedded to a specific technology but rather to
a process that aims to visualize and organize the
influx of information and resources that students
are confronted with daily. It is essentially an educational response to the overload of information in
the digital age.
Ples consist of a wide range of connections with

both digital and nondigital resources. They blur
the lines between formal and informal learning.
And precisely because they are individualized to
the needs and interests of the learner, each one can
look completely different.
“It’s really about melding together your own
personal learning space with all these different resources,” said Wendy Drexler, the director of online
development in the office of continuing education
at Brown University.
But this approach can be a tough sell in schools,
where the concept isn’t likely to be seen in its fullfledged form, said Ms. Drexler. “What I see more of
happening is people taking bits and pieces ... and
integrating it,” she said.
Ms. Drexler conducted research on ples with
a group of 7th graders at the 1,150-student P.K.
Yonge Developmental Research School in Gainesville, Fla. in 2010 using Symbaloo with the help of
the students’ science teacher Randy Hollinger.
Symbaloo is a free service that allows users
to bookmark Web pages, videos, and other resources and digital tools onto one page where
each tile represents a different link. The company, which was founded in the Netherlands
but has offices in California, has created Symbalooedu to cater to the needs of educators—one of

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This sort of learning actually helps students organize themselves
in a very busy world. Before, when students were working, they would get lost
in the hubbub of everything that happens online. ”

RAND HOLLINGER

Science Teacher, Technology Engineering Science Leadership Academy, Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.

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Education Week - May 22, 2013 - Special Report

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - May 22, 2013 - Special Report