Schedule: 2009-09-10 (16:30 - 18:00)
Poster Presentations and Commercial Exhibition (Exhibition Hall)

Title: Developing a personal learning environments framework for language learning in higher education – negotiating between the needs of students, teachers and educational organization.
Authors: Ilona Laakkonen
Abstract: There is a relatively new interest in personal learning environments (PLEs) emerging in the e-learning domain. This interest is motivated by the increasing understanding of learning being a lifelong and -wide, personal process that exceeds the borders of individual courses and learning providers. The strength of the PLE concept is that it intends to bring together learning that takes place in a range of contexts: at home, in the workplace, within formal learning programmes or through personal interest. Created and developed by learners themselves, PLEs increase the learners’ control over their own learning processes and promote self-direction and self-learning, thus helping learners to establish their personal educational goals.

Making use of the social media tools and applications, PLEs merge the boundaries of informal and formal learning. Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis, blogs and social bookmarking, are often used by students in their spare time, but the potential of the tools is seldom put into use for language learning purposes. The social media applications hold a great potential for language learning, as they respect its interactive nature, open the classroom to the global internet community, enable creating and sharing content, and support meaningful communication and knowledge building.

Although PLEs are personal and private in the sense that they are created after the users’ individual goals and preferences, they are not to exist as isolated spaces but to connect to form a growing learning ecology that entails both private and social space. The combination of the evolving personal and social spaces within formal education naturally evokes questions concerning the relationship between private and institutional space, and the role and affordances of the teacher/tutor. It is clear that the increased learner autonomy and self-direction call for change in pedagogical practices – rather than an application, PLEs are a new approach to the use of learning technologies (Attwell 2007).

The poster presents a framework for an innovative solution that is intended to serve the needs of individual learners, support the teachers’ pedagogical goals and make use of the tools and solutions available at the educational institution in which they work. In addition, it will examine the issues of informal and formal language learning; private, social and institutional space; and affordances created for learners and tutors within the framework. The implementation and further development of the PLE model will start in autumn 2009 together with groups of students at the University of Jyväskylä Language Centre.
Keywords: personal learning environment, self-directed learning, pedagogical change, informal learning

Main topic: Pedagogical change in technology integration

Biodata: MA, PhD student (applied linguistics), researcher (The Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Jyväskylä). My research interests are in future learning environments and innovative practices, educational technology and multimodal language pedagogies.
Type of presentation Poster

Paper category (Other)

Target educational sector Higher education

Language of delivery English

EU-funded project No

Schedule:	2009-09-10 (16:30 - 18:00) Poster Presentations and Commercial Exhibition (Exhibition Hall)
Title:	Developing a personal learning environments framework for language learning in higher education – negotiating between the needs of students, teachers and educational organization.
Authors:	Ilona Laakkonen
Abstract:	There is a relatively new interest in personal learning environments (PLEs) emerging in the e-learning domain. This interest is motivated by the increasing understanding of learning being a lifelong and -wide, personal process that exceeds the borders of individual courses and learning providers. The strength of the PLE concept is that it intends to bring together learning that takes place in a range of contexts: at home, in the workplace, within formal learning programmes or through personal interest. Created and developed by learners themselves, PLEs increase the learners’ control over their own learning processes and promote self-direction and self-learning, thus helping learners to establish their personal educational goals. Making use of the social media tools and applications, PLEs merge the boundaries of informal and formal learning. Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis, blogs and social bookmarking, are often used by students in their spare time, but the potential of the tools is seldom put into use for language learning purposes. The social media applications hold a great potential for language learning, as they respect its interactive nature, open the classroom to the global internet community, enable creating and sharing content, and support meaningful communication and knowledge building. Although PLEs are personal and private in the sense that they are created after the users’ individual goals and preferences, they are not to exist as isolated spaces but to connect to form a growing learning ecology that entails both private and social space. The combination of the evolving personal and social spaces within formal education naturally evokes questions concerning the relationship between private and institutional space, and the role and affordances of the teacher/tutor. It is clear that the increased learner autonomy and self-direction call for change in pedagogical practices – rather than an application, PLEs are a new approach to the use of learning technologies (Attwell 2007). The poster presents a framework for an innovative solution that is intended to serve the needs of individual learners, support the teachers’ pedagogical goals and make use of the tools and solutions available at the educational institution in which they work. In addition, it will examine the issues of informal and formal language learning; private, social and institutional space; and affordances created for learners and tutors within the framework. The implementation and further development of the PLE model will start in autumn 2009 together with groups of students at the University of Jyväskylä Language Centre.
Keywords:	personal learning environment, self-directed learning, pedagogical change, informal learning
Main topic:	Pedagogical change in technology integration
Biodata:	MA, PhD student (applied linguistics), researcher (The Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Jyväskylä). My research interests are in future learning environments and innovative practices, educational technology and multimodal language pedagogies.
Type of presentation	Poster
Paper category	(Other)
Target educational sector	Higher education
Language of delivery	English
EU-funded project	No