In an act of me-centeredness, I’m expanding my PLE to a PLU (Personal Learning Universe).
I thought of this as I worked seeding grass today and trudged 50 times past the “100-year” stone wall that I built. I was so inspired by conquering that challenge that I wrote an essay on what I learned from building the wall and I realized that the wall would always be part of my Personal Learning experience.
So anything and everything I have ever or will yet experience becomes a part of my PLU.
PLUperfect? Well, not in the sense of the 2. definition of “almost perfect.” That wouldn’t be any fun. But PLUperfect in the 1. definition of a grammatical combination of past tense and perfect (English-centric) that “is used to refer to an event that had continuing relevance to a past time” (Wikipedia). PLUperfect as in I had thought that I was a pretty open teacher but that was before PLENK 2010.
Tense? No, not me. I’m having a ball developing my PLE as part of my PLU. Wanted to share what I came up with using Symbaloo, a more visual homepage tool (Thanks for your interest in the forum, Chris Saeger). It’s a work in progress but you’ll see that I’ve added symbols for the course, the feeds (Thanks to another Chris, Chris Jobling, for the NetVibes tip & screencast), some fave blogs, Evernote for my notes, PLENK 101 Second Life Group SLurl and wiki, and even the PLENK 2010 Participants’ Map. Never thought I’d leave iGoogle but iSymbaloo is giving me a new lease on my PLE.
Virtually Foolproof 
Ah… so you are aware of the SL group. 🙂
I’m not sure about Symbaloo. I’m not very visual, so those types of visual organising tools generally don’t work for me. I don’t much like mindmaps either.
What’s the link to your Symbaloo? I’d like to check it out.
Yes, aware and excited about the SL group. I confess that I almost giggle every time I think of the group’s experiment with streaming PLENK 2010 Elluminate into PLENK 2010 SL. My friends would say that sounds like something I came up with but I unfortunately missed that meeting. I love participating in the Science Friday radio program from its site in SL so this could be really interesting and I always stream my classes in Second Life and work the UStream chat, too, so I’m used to being two places at one time.
Here’s the link to my Symbaloo — http://www.symbaloo.com/shared/AAAABC-dUaUAA41_kzpeBQ== I still learning so much — like how to find the link to share. Had no idea I could do that 😉
Simple test to see if this might work for you: Are you a filer or a piler? If you can file away and find things easily again, then probably no use for Symbaloo. If you need to see your stuff to have any hopes of finding it when you need it, then consider Symbaloo a virtual pile system. Works for me!
PS — Thanks for the comments on my blog. My first. I don’t want to forget how exciting it was to see those on my phone. Brings me one step closer to believing that this really open approach could work in my online courses.
Hi Cris,
I’m a filer, so I like to organise all my stuff. And I have a hell of lot more stuff than I could fit on a Symbaloo.
I think if you look around you will find a much friendlier URL for Symbaloo, like this one – http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/plenk2010
Yes, it’s nice to get comments. It’s hard to feel like you are “blogging in to the void”.
Rita Kopp has been going around adding comments in an effort to encourage bloggers. It’s an important strategy in this type of course. I notice Stephen is also posting quotes from, and links to, blog posts inside the Moodle forums to help bring the two worlds together.
Thanks so much for the Symbaloo link, Sean. It is helpful and especially good to learn about the Social Mention feed.
I’m going to be proactive about blogging and take the advice a sixth grade teacher-friend gives his students: “If you want comments, then you need to first give comments.” He teaches them to work the Web and make connections. Good advice for any new blogger.
“If you want comments, then you need to first give comments.”
Yes, thats my strategy too. And you very quickly find out who is friendly and who isn’t! 🙂
And I forgot to mention….
I love the idea of a Personal Learning Universe (PLU)!
I’m awake now. I was so brain dead last night. 🙂
Oh, that’s so cool to hear that you like the PLU, Sean. I can almost see a Second Life installation with a galaxy theme 😉
It can’t be easy being a global educator. That time-span continuum is tough.
The alert I received to your comment had you originally saying: “Oh, that’s so cool to hear that you live the PLU, Sean.”
I liked the original version, as I do try to “live” the PLU! 🙂
The cosmos is my home and my learning environment. There is so much I can learn from a cosmic perspective.
This looks useful. Is it really free?
Yes, definitely free, Mary. When I began mine, I had no idea how useful these can be for collaboration. Many are creating various Symbaloo “Web Mixes” on various topics and sharing them. Could work great for a teacher organizing Web resources for students — a common launch pad. Here’s another Symbaloo “Web Mix” created by a PLENKer. You can easily add it as a page to your own Symbaloo. Enjoy! Cris
http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/plenk2010
I should learn to trust my Freudian slips 😉
I’m a piler, keeping all my relevant stuff in my open browser tabs in Chrome. I file some stuff, lots and lots of data on my computer. I’ve used iGoogle, with no great results. I want to try NetVibes next, and maybe Symbaloo. I love the line from your sixth-grade teacher friend: “If you want comments, then you need to first give comments.” I am so fortunate to have been blessed with your comments on my blog. Glad I saw you in #PLENK2010 too.
I am working on my own online class and that kind of sharing is one of the core competencies. I have only recently begun to leave more comments. My stepping out period.
Glad you stepped out on my blog, Steve. A little encouragement keeps me going for weeks.
I’m a newbie at this and exploring blogging and Twitter for my PLE are two big goals for the course. Plus learning to integrate these into my online course if I see the value.
And, I, once a healthy skeptic, am hooked now. I’m enjoying always having a blog post that I’m writing in my mind (aside: makes me think of James Thurber whose wife would catch him thinking/writing in public and say “Dammit, Thurber, stop writing.”) And the teacher in me who loves to share is getting a kick out of sharing on Twitter.
Glad you liked the “Golden Rule of Blogging.” You’ve inspired me to create a few tips for newbie bloggers that I’ll share in my classes to help everyone get off to a good start.
If you like Symbaloo then you might like to use it as a resource management tool in your online course. I’m experimenting using a Symbaloo Webmix to scaffold for an online open course I’m going to begin soon and then for my university course in the Spring. I think it could make a great dashboard for helping organizing the content students are developing via blogging and tweeting as well as make class resources really handy. Here’s a sample for a copyright online open course — http://www.symbaloo.com/shared/AAAABHnFJ3cAA41_k0ZQOA== (click on link to add this page to see. Hmmm that may mean you need to create an account first). At this point I can only find where webmixes are created by individuals but I’m hoping there’s a group function I haven’t found or maybe that will be added.
Best of luck with your course. I think PLENK 2010 is a great place for us to learn about course design.