How+does+a+PLE+work?

=How does a PLE/PLN work?=

The very term PLE implies that the way this works is going to work in different ways for different people. However, there are some common factors that determine how a PLE works for most people.

Let's look at this through different people's visual representations of their own PLE/PLN

We'll start with a digram showing how one person's PLN works :



Here's another diagram which stresses the importance specific tools (Twitter, a personal blog) have for one person:



A PLE/PLN can be envisioned in another way, by displaying a map of all of the actual links to people (through tools) that a person uses. D'Arcy Norman has tried to do this here:

As you can see, the diagram shows connections made to specific people that D'Arcy considers important in his PLN and it also shows how he connects to them (through blogs, etc.) - as he mentions in his comments about this diagram, and on this blog post about his PLE , it is not totally accurate. In particular, he mentions that Twitter is not well represented here.

This diagram by nessman shows the way that another person has envisaged how his PLE works:



What conclusions can we draw from the diagram above? That the author is very tech-literate is one.

The diagrams above show the PLE/PLN as being totally or mainly online, but of course, a person's PLE/PLN will probably include a lot of off-line connections and tools as well. Here's another diagram from another person ([]) who tries to show the importance of the non-virtual world:

As you can see, the importance of "outside" and everywhere is stressed, as is the fact that she uses paper-based to do lists and journals for learning too.