Personalised learning environments and networks

Last year I plotted my Personalised Learning Environment. This was the first time I had actually considered my learning environment in this way and I realised there was a large range of tools I used to support my learning. Here is what I produced:

This time I have been attempting to represent my Personalised Learning Network, which we have defined in our teaching group as "A physical or virtual network of people through which a person learns in a self-regulated manner by collecting, communicating, collaborating and creating within a community of their choosing" and this is what I have produced:

What I have tried to get across here is some of the ways I communicate, connect, collaborate and create with the people in my network. Those closer to the centre are more frequently contributing to my learning whilst those further away are less frequently involved but also contact with those in the outer circle is exclusively through technology of some kind. Whilst those in the inner circle include actual conversations in person! What I noticed when I displayed it in this way is that I learn an awful lot from my current students. The things I learn from students are often related to problem solving. As an example. today I was trying to update participation records for our online development programme and my records did not match the students in some cases because they had not accessed the programme via our VLE and had accidentally bypassed record-keeping. After some email exchanges I realised I was able to log in as the student and view what they could - this solved the problems almost immediately. So I have today learnt something about that particular programme. Interestingly, I was actually sitting with the student when we worked this out so it was face to face learning about a technology.

My online only network is largely through Twitter (@EllieJane1980). I came of Facebook around 5 years ago and so Twitter is my only contact with the social media world (I have a LinkedIn account but do not actively engage with the platform at this time). But I use Twitter daily to keep up to date on things - not necessarily to learn things. I probably post almost daily now but do not spend time on a daily basis reading posts from others. When I do I am normally looking for something quite targeted. This ranges from local information (trying to find out if my local Park & Ride was open) to following national news stories.