Week 2 - My Personal Learning Environment

Hello Everyone,

This week we were asked to envision ourselves in 5-10 years and reflect on our PLE.  It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what I will be doing in 5-10 years but I have an idea of what I want to do based on my interests and passion for sport.  Ideally, I want to be working for a professional sports team in hockey or baseball because I excel in team environments.  As a current Sport Management student, I have a long path to achieve this vision, starting with graduating with my honours and gaining valuable experience along the way.

These experiences will provide me with the skills and connections to achieve my goal.  There is nothing more important in the sport industry than gaining experience, making connections, and learning from those connections first-hand.  My current environment for learning involves balancing school with an internship.  Overall, I think I could make more connections and get more involved in my environment.  As for my habits, I continue to work hard and give my best effort while gaining experience but I think that I could be more social in person and online to get my name out there.  It is important to get positive exposure because it can create opportunities.  In the past, I haven't had much of an online presence but I may have to change that.

Now moving on to the dicussion of PLE and PLN. After reading " What the Heck is a PLE and Why Do I want One?", it was easy to understand what a PLE is.  A PLE is a personal learning environment that is a system that learners manage and control.  PLE's are made up of Web 2.0 tools such as web based communities like this blog, along with social networks and wikis.  PLE's allow individuals to build their own preferred learning environment and after creating my own PLE, it includes creating, organizing, socializing, and career tools.

Most students need to use the tools in my creating, organizing, and socializing categories in University.  My career tools that I use are more specific to my career aspirations in sport.  After creating my PLE, I have realized that there is plenty of room to grow as a learner.

This week, I learned the importance of PLE's and PLN's.  These are two closely related terms however PLE enables the PLN.  PLN stands for Personal Learning Network and through the content being learned in your own PLE, one can make connections and learn from them.  Through your personal learning tools, you can connect to individuals with the same interests and gain knowledge that they possess. Through Connectivism shown in "Networked Student" video, you can make connections with others and strengthen your learning process.  You are able to learn from the online sharing that the Web has to offer.

Lastly, this week we learned how to use a Word Cloud which is a unique tool that can bring words to life.  Here is my Word Cloud from my blog last week:

Word Cloud has the ability to focus on the key words used in my previous blog.  These words include Positive, Digital, Footprint, Professional, and Netiquette.  It gives a visual which is a nice change from my written blog.

I hope you enjoyed reading this week's blog!

Mark