Here’s my PLE!
I was going to edit this because when I wrote it it was more like a stream of consciousness and after my presentation I had some more thoughts to it or better ways of getting across what I was really trying too. But I decided to just leave it as is.
Alanna Schuh’s Personal Learning Environment
For my personal learning environment I found that I separate my learning into sections. Once I figured that out it still took me a great deal of time to figure out how to actually format my learning environment. I tend to separate things into their own little section and then let them trickle together after they’ve been sectioned. Deciding to use a coffee cup and have the layers represent my different layers for learning just fell into place afterwards.
The cup/plate acts as my foundation, which was what has shaped the way that I initially started out learning and what continues to reshape or direct the ways in which I learn. Because of all that I put my family and friends. Regardless of a physical learning environment they, sometimes it’s a physical place like my parent’s house, they are what molded me and how I learn currently.
The bottom layer is very close to home and is when I say personal learning environment I mean whatever place I consider to be my home. When I’m in my home I learn best when I’m comfortable and comforted, that usually requires me to be in my pjs or wrapped in a blanket. I also find it very relaxing and invigorating to have plants around me. I included Skype because that’s how I keep connected to my family. When I’m at home learning I spend a good amount of time on Tumblr or I at least have the page brought up to use. But in my personal learning environment I like to be surrounded by things that keep me calm and with things that keep me interested.
The middle layer is my academic environment. I gave it its own layer because as a graduate student the vast majority of my time is dedicated to my studies. Even though the majority of what I use in this environment can go into any of the layers, I gave it its own section because when I have to do school related things I tend to shift my mindset into ‘school mode’. The images I used were just Microsoft, Chrome, U of O, email and a calendar because those are what I end up using just about every single day. They make up my virtual environment.
The top layer is what I consider to be my surface level. It’s comprised of things that I do to relax and get informed about topics that interest me. While some of these items could probably go in the bottom layer, I decided to give them their own layer because they’re more social than how I set up my physical learning environment. These forms of social media allow me to interact and participate with what is going on in to her places of the world.
I have slight variations of where and how I learn but I tend to incorporate aspects of each regardless of which environment I am in. For example, when doing things for my academic environment I almost always have music playing in the background.