eBlog by Tore Hoel

it is a positioning game - vendors need to be cool and label their products with the last trendy buzz words, hoping not to alienate their regular customers. So LMS is out, and the British equivalent VLE is also disputed. It is PLE now, Personal Learning Environment.

Blogging and ePortfolios! It’s learning now offer students and employee to integrate their ePortfolios with standard blogging functionality. This makes our VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) just as much a PLE (Personal Learning Environment. I might have to move my blog again…

So says John Arthur Berg of it’s learning. So put a blog and some ePortfolio tools in front of your LMS, and you have a PLE. John Arthur even gives a link to the Wikpedia definition of a PLE, being systems that

help learners take control of and manage their own learning. This includes providing support for learners to
* set their own learning goals
* manage their learning; managing both content and process
* communicate with others in the process of learning
and thereby achieve learning goals.

Well, I have to be fair; it is not about bashing the LMS vendors. They have to adjust to the market. If their customers become aware of the growing criticism against the management nature of the LMS, they have to use other words for their product. VLE sounds then better, for the time being. And the the PLE is rising on the horizon.

However, I think it will be increasingly more difficult to lump all LMS together and criticise them as a whole. We see that at least the Norwegian LMS are adjusting to the needs of the teachers and learners, and are growing into very different tools compared to their international competitors… So let us just encourage their ability to be open to the new buzz words - as long as they are grounded in good pedagogy. And I think PLE is.

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