• frequent 140 character snippets in Twitter

• daily reflection to accompany my “Photo A Day” in Flickr

• formal reports for coursework (does it ever end?) this time via Blackboard, but think I’ve used them all…and

• as noted by these few-and-far-between posts, decreased blogging

In these days of exponential change, it is not an alien concept to experience differences such as these. There’s much more thinking going on in my mind than I can produce in written form and I am fairly comfortable in that development, but there’s a constant nagging that I’m missing something…

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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….

Credit to Bella Lago for Self-p and Leo Reynolds for monogram on Flickr

Technorati Tags: PLE, web 2.0, twitter, Stephen Downes

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The premise of the book, Teach with Your Strengths, is that teachers need to discover their own innate talents and utilize them in their educator roles in the classroom. That makes sense to me! The authors go on to explain that knowing one’s strengths alone does not guarantee a great teacher, but that one must also consider skills, knowledge, and the development of strengths.

My concern with the emphasis of strengths is that the balance scales tip too away from the concept of realism. Positive attitudes and emotions are certainly desirable, though I didn’t find their claim of “this principle has altered several branches of psychology and created a new one: strengths psychology.” (Liesveld & Miller, 2005, p. 45) – at least not in the divisions of the American Psychological Association, though there is a reference to Positive Psychology in Wikipedia.

Optimism has been found to fight cancer, increase creativity (Pink, 2006, p. 225) and in general, provide a more productive atmosphere. But in my own optimism is caution as I fear too many will turn a blind eye to the reality which is often negative and downright ugly. I still advocate for a balance and that requires one to consider their weaknesses – sometimes that just means acknowledging them and accepting them, but often, it behooves one to seek improvement and change for those weaknesses.

Liesveld & Miller (2005, p. 53) claim that “working on weaknesses means that you keep doing, with dogged and pained determination, what you don’t – and can’t – do well. Even with all that effort, the best you can hope to become is mediocre.” Not only does that seem like a ‘cop out’ for dealing with reality and working towards improvement, but it then begs the question, if we don’t need to work on our weaknesses, why are we expecting students to do that in their day to day lives in our educational institutions? Do we hold a different standard for them?

Again, for emphasis, I’m not against examining and taking advantage of our strengths – those attributes will undoubtedly lead us to the best ‘fit’ in avocational, vocational, relational and personal pursuits. A closer look at our weaknesses does not have to lead to negativity – indeed, “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” (quote attributed to Winston Churchill). So, I only propose that we balance those strengths with the continual consideration of reality – because, after all, we will have to face it on a day-to-day basis. As our Professional Learning Communities continue to explore the relationships of strengths to teaching and learning, I’m sure I’ll grow with additional reflections and postings, as well!

Liesveld, R, & Miller, J (2005). Teach with your strengths.NY: Gallup Press.
Pink, D (2006). A whole new mind. NY: Riverhead Press.

Photo Credits: Partsnpieces’ Strength in Numbers at Flickr, Harshad Sharma’s Optimistic at Flickr, Scoobymoo’s Reality Tag at Flickr.

Technorati tags: StrengthsFinder, Teaching, Learning