Personal Directed Learning is where individuals organise and manage their own personal or professional learning.  This may be an activity they take upon themselves by choice, or guided by learning professionals.

Using social media

Here are examples of how social media can be used for PDL.

• Individuals can read (and comment on) a range of internal and external blogs, as well as write their own blogs for general reflection on what they have read or heard about in order to make sense of things
• Individuals can listen to (internal and external) informational and instructional podcasts, or create their own  for philosophising, providing opinion, or to record updates about their own activities
• Individuals can read a range of (internal and external) RSS feeds in a RSS reader to keep them continuously up to date with what is happening in their area of personal or professional interest, as well as for inspiration
• Individuals can use a micro-blogging service to keep up to date with activities, ideas and resources from others in their network (internal or external); to hear from thought leaders and to get inspiration, to share their own activities, ideas and resources with others in their network, and to ask questions and get immediate replies from those in their network - a performance support tool
  • A few minutes on Twitter yields hours of exploration, Brave new world, 20 January 2010
• Individuals can locate and learn from user-generated presentations and videos on many different subjects
• Individuals can use social bookmarking sites to save, tag, share and easily find websites of personal or professional interest to them, as well as see what others with similar personal, professional or research interests are bookmarking.
• Individuals can set up personal workspace to link to and store their own personal or professional resources
• Individuals can join professional networks to learn from other like-minded people, ask questions and have discussions

Personal Learning Environments or Networks

This is a presentation, by Graham Attwell,  from a debate in Wolverhampton on “The VLE Undead:. But central to it is the idea that we are learning from multiple sources and in different contexts and that the challenge for the institution is to remain relevant.

How we Learn - the Challenge of the Personal Learning Environment

View more presentations from GrahamAttwell.

With the increasing availability of a range of social media tools, individuals have begun to organise their own Personal Directed Learning by making use of free, hosted social media tools to create their own Personal Learning Environment or Network (PWE) or (PLN).

To build a PLE/PLN you need

• a well-defined set of trusted sources - people and content

• a wide set of skills - including retrieving, scanning, evaluating, organising, analysing, presenting, collaborating and sharing information, as well as listening to, remembering and recording conversations and discussions

• a well-defined set of tools

The diagram (below) is of  a PLE/PLN and  shows how one user makes use of a large number of social media tools.

What are the pros and cons of a PLE or PLN?

Pros

• This solution best meets the needs of a self-organising, informal learner, i.e. one who doesn't want to be told what to do or be "taught", but prefers to be a free-range learner.
• Individuals can decide the best ways/tools to address their own and their group's learning needs

Cons

• Not everyone is competent or confident to put together and configure their own PLE/PLN
• Not everyone is a self-organising learner; there are many who still like to be told what to do, i.e. be "taught". 
• The sophistication of the tools with their different look-and-feel, navigation, etc may be too overwhelming

Skills required of a personal directed learner

Although many people are natural, informal, self-organised learners, some will need to help to acquire a range of skills to manage their own  own personal learning and work collaboratively with others.   Here are some of the new knowledge and skills they will need to acquire:

• to become self-managed learners: to identify their own problems and find the most appropriate solutions to those problems. 

• to understand the answer to a job performance or learning problem is not always a course, but there are also times when it may be the most  appropriate solution.

• to become aware  that they are already learning informally  - whether they realise it or not .. and that there are tools to support  them.

• to understand the value and importance of collaboration - sharing knowledge and resources

• to understand what tools are available to them for personal and collaborative learning

• to use the tools effectively to create their own personal or professional learning environment

• to use the tools appropriately in a professional and organisational context

In a nutshell, many people will need to "learn how to learn".

Other skills

Kirsten Olson, author of Wounded by School, describes twelve critical "habitudes" of learners in the new economy in New learners for the new economy.  New learners ...

1. Are highly adaptive
2. Ask great questions
3. Are curious about everything
4. Have a broad knowledge base that they are always expanding.
5. Are good at seeing patterns
6. Are team players who share what they know willingly and generously
7. Are a glass-half-full resource managers
8. Understand that every contact matters
9. Know that hierarchy doesn't matter
10. Are choiceful about how they socialize
11. Own mistakes and are error alchemists
12. See learning as pleasure

Reading

• Personal, Self-Directed Learning Reading List

More

Also see the new section of this website

• The Smart Learner