Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is a descriptive term for the growth and development that professionals need to be effective. Rather than (or perhaps in addition to) a traditional class in a formal educational institution, a PLE is much more informal and often, web-based.
My current PLE includes
- reading posts from approximately 175 blogs (education-related, technology-related, and just plain thought-provoking), writing to my own two blogs, and commenting on occasion,
- interacting daily with about 100 “edublogger-twits” on twitter
- dabbling with a number of different social networking tools, including ning and facebook,
- creating collaborative wikis and Google documents,
- backchannelling chats in scheduled and spontaneous webinars, webcasts, fireside chats, and ustream productions,
- sharing favorites via del.icio.us, flickr, slideshare and diigo
- listening to inspirational podcasts, and
- experimenting with a variety of web 2.0 tools for my own productivity and for student learning.
The key to my PLE is that it revolves around me and my needs - wow, that sounds so self-centered…and it is! I control my blog readings (and yes, I’ve learned to become comfortable with unread feeds in my aggregator) and I manage (usually!) my time for the amount, type and place of these interactions. These facets work for me - they are my unique monogram, 
but they are not designed to work for everyone. PLEs are meant to be personalized, individualized - not standardized. What works for me probably won’t work for you. I may differ from you in time priority, content interest, learning preference, and stage of development - among other things. It’s okay - in fact, that’s the way PLEs are suppose to be! So, if you don’t get twitter, that’s ok - it’s also ok if you don’t want to follow me or the others I follow. You may use blogs for personal reflection or to communicate to parents or for ruminations that invite conversations - it really is your call!
Stephen Downes’ Web 2.0 and Your own Learning and Development is well worth your 20 minutes. His triad of interaction, usability, and relevance along with guiding principles are excellent foundations for thinking about the ‘personal’ your PLE. The presentation is also a good reminder for some of us trying to make these tools work for others - most of them are quite flexible in their design and their value may be best derived from personal meaning.
So much for the ‘personal’ in Personal Learning Environment - next up is the ‘learning’! I’m off to twitter now! 
And a future post will focus on the “L” in my PLE….
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