The VLE vs. PLE debate document outlines a discussion on personal learning environments (PLEs) versus virtual learning environments (VLEs). It includes questions that were posed to experts in the field and short video responses from Stephen Downes, Gilly Salmon, and Joyce Seitzinger discussing their views. The experts discuss that while the VLE remains important for formal education, the PLE allows for more portability of learning and brings together both formal and informal learning experiences. However, many also note that VLEs are not completely dead as they still effectively serve institution-based education and have advantages like being centralized and secure.

1. The VLE vs. PLE debate
Gráinne Conole and Ricardo Torres Kompen
PLE Conference, Aveiro, 13th July 2012

2. The PLE and the VLE:
which is which???

3. Outline
• Format for the unkeynote
– Process pre-conference
– Downes on VLEs vs. PLEs
– For each question:
• Quotes
• Summary
• Audience discussion
• Videos
– Emergent themes
– Vote!!!
• Carry on the debate on
Cloudworks, FB and Twitter!

4. The process
• Questions, prompts on Twitter and FB
• Experts invited to provide short videos
• Space to aggregate resources and for discussion on Cloudworks
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/6391

5. Questions
1. What is your personal digital learning
environment and how do you use it?
2. What are the main obstacles for building and
maintaining a Personal Digital Learning
Environment?
3. How has your use of technologies changed in
the last five years?
4. What are your views on the PLE vs VLE
debate? Is the VLE really dead?

6. Stephen Downes - @oldaily

7. PLE
MOOCs Accredited
courses +
Informal Formal
Study guides Accredited
& resources courses
VLE

8. Tools
Pedagogy Context

9. 1. What is your personal digital learning
environment and how do you use it?
Antonella Esposito
Twitter: I like its nature of open asymmetric social
network, which enables me to continously find new
sources of knowledge and usually
pleasant interaction, pearls of wisdom or
a mere, precious LOL ;-) It took time to build a good
network, but I increasingly appreciate the value to be
connected in a web of conversations. Especially love
'intercepting' conferences and sharing links to
reports, blog posts and published articles. But
sometimes some great chats occur, despite the 140
characters.

10. 1. What is your personal digital learning
environment and how do you use it?
José Mota
I see the PLE not as a technological platform or a set
of tools, but as an ecosystem or an ecology
of people, tools and resources you interact with
online. It's very dynamic and keeps changing and
adapting according to my needs and interests.
Those I rely the most on are, currently, Google
Reader, Twitter, blog (Wordpress), Google+, Diigo
(synchronized with Delicious to use the Firefox add-
on), Gmail and Google Docs. I also use Scoop.it, but
mostly for teaching and am going to focus more on
Mendeley while writing my Phd.

11. 1. What is your personal digital learning
environment and how do you use it?
Martin Dougiamas
A collection of feeds that I generally check
daily, carefully selected to maximise the signal to
noise ratio.
The rest are larger projects that I give myself, to learn
this or that. They are usually hands on activities
where I construct something useful for others to see
and perhaps use.

12. 1. What is your personal digital learning
environment and how do you use it?
David Martin Blogging and Social Media? Try digital
learning in a corporate environment. Still very last
century!
David Hopkins (1) Twitter, LinkedIn, and own blog ...
(2) time ... (3) iPhone and iPad means I'm connected
all the time, which isn't always a good thing ... (4)
want to see a working PLE before I decide, but I
prefer the ability to bring the tools I want/need into
my learning environment instead of being forced to
used prescribed VLE ones (which aren't always the
best or technically capable). Hope this helps.

13. 1. What is your personal digital learning
environment and how do you use it?
Alastair Creelman I have a toolbox compiled on
Symbaloo that includes Twitter, Fb etc as well as RSS
feeds from news sites, blogs and search criteria via
Netvibes
Ebba Ossiannilsson Working on it all the
time, Netvibes is on; i wished I could have a simpler
one and I wish I could have better overview of my
resourses and my social networking/media
.

14. Gilly Salmon - @gillysalmon

15. Joyce Seitzinger - @catspyjamasnz

16. 2. Main obstacles for building and maintaining a
PLE?
Antonella Esposito
It comes to mind the necessary efforts for a
continuing engagement in building and maintaining a
PLE. Someone in a MOOC mentioned 'gardening' as a
compliant metaphor. Moreover, one has to iteratively
re-focus her own objectives in order to get the
most from this 'hanging out and moving around'.
However the most difficult thing it is grappling with
two opposite but productive behaviours: 'keep
control' and 'let the river run'. Serendipity and
intentionality.

17. 2. Main obstacles for building/maintaining a PLE?
José Mota
The first obvious difficulty would be, I guess, the lack
of enough technical proficiency and enough online
experience to develop an effective and rewarding PLE.
Understanding online culture, getting familiar with modes
of communication, developing enough technical skills to
be autonomous takes time and effort, that can, often, be
minimized with some modelling or guidance. Another
difficulty is keeping the participation level and being an
active and valuable contributor, so that your PLE isn't
just a black hole that sucks everything but from
where nothing comes out :-). Being active and sharing
knowledge, ideas, artifacts, questions, resources, experien
ces, etc. is a crucial part of one's PLE, but that is not
always easy to keep up continuously.

18. 2. Main obstacles for building/maintaining a PLE?
Martin Dougiamas
Curating it. What do you need, and what do you not
need.
Alastair Creelman Time to create a coherent
structure, finding which tools fit where
Ebba Ossiannilsson
Universities the "desire and needs" of control

19. SteveWheeler - @timbuckteeth

20. IleneDawn Alexander - @IleneDawn

21. 3. Change in use of technologies in the last 5
years?
Antonella Esposito
I think you need a 'niche of co-evolution' (eg a MOOC) to
make sense of the current plethora of social media and
understand what it is worth for you doing with them. For
me since 2009 Cloudworks has worked as a niche, in which I
imitated others' digital behaviours, progressively acquired
self-confidence and finally tried to propose my
contributions, as content curator, occasional blogger or
tireless twitterer. To tell the truth, my current digital
behaviours have been shaped by attending Cloudworks for
about two years. Now I adopt different tools and
have different objectives, but I have experimented there the
type of online engagement that I currently undertake. The
nice thing is that there are still 'traces' of these early attempts.
These traces would deserve a more careful reflection...

22. 3. Change in use of technologies in the last 5
years?
José Mota
I cannot pin point major differences, apart from the tools and
services that come and go - some disappear, others become
obsolete, new ones are created, some of my interests and
needs change, etc. I guess I am using the technologies more or
less the same I did five years ago, for the purposes I stated
above.
Martin Dougiamas
It used to be mail, then iGoogle for years but now it's
Flipboard and Reeder on an iPad.

23. 3. Change in use of technologies in the last 5
years?
Philip Butler Hah! massively! (and I don't even like technology
that much but some of it is life-changing). ULCC have some
very interesting statistics showing how communications and
collaborative activity decrease in a VLE when it's a component
of a digital framework (ULCC Personalised Learning model).
It's moved to student arenas like the e-Portfolio which
challenges the 'social constructivist' design we talk of when
dealing with Moodle, etc.
Alastair Creelman I've moved to cloud services almost
completely, also more mobile thanks to iPhone and iPad

24. 3. Change in use of technologies in the last 5
years?
Ebba Ossiannilsson networking much more with friends and
colleagues from all over the world and even more informal
networking with colleagues. Contact here and now, faster and
more intense networking, easier with collaborative, building
on trust, The way you show with this small exercise is an
excellent example
Deeper and more close relation with people, Sharing and
connections are the key and use and reuse

25. Cristina Costa

26. Helen Keegan - @heloukee

27. 4. Is the VLE really dead?
Antonella Esposito
The VLE is alive and healthy, and in many cases keeps
on effectively serving institution-bounded
educational offerings. However, its importance in the
life of a learner is closely linked to the timespan of
the course/class/forum in which s/he is enrolled in.
A PLE affords data portability, it can become your
e-portfolio among the formal educational initiatives
and work tasks in which you take part.

28. 4. Is the VLE really dead?
José Mota
This would take a while to discuss :-), but the brief
answer is no, of course not. Formal education and
institutions have requirements that need to be met….
The idea of an open, distributed environment for
learning is not equally appealing for
everyone, especially when there are assignments and
grades and certifications involved. On the other
hand, the LMS provides a secure, centralized and
practical way for formal educational contexts, despite
its many shortcomings.

29. 4. Is the VLE really dead?
José Mota
…institutionally supported VLEs (which
are, in most cases, VLE 2.0, actually) that
provide an experience that, to some
extent, is similar to that of a PLE but with
some of the strong points of the LMS
(centralized, secure, managed by
institution, "all-in-one-place")…

30. 4. Is the VLE really dead?
José Mota
Currently, for formal education, my favourite set up is
using an LMS like Moodle for some core course
components (information, learning contract, some
base content and resources, some of the assessment,
support forum, elements that may require privacy
within the cohort, etc.) and than the students' PLEs
for searching, managing information, publishing their
work, cooperating/collaborating/communicating with
other relevant people outside the course, etc.,
making the most of what a networked learning
experience has to offer.

31. 4. Is the VLE really dead?
Martin Dougiamas
Not at all. An institution has to "be" somewhere on
the web. They are also rich sources of information
like any other web sites (a lot of my feeds are RSS
from Moodle, for example), and places to get
involved in collaborative projects.
Alastair Creelman 90% are not ready for PLE and it's
hard to define. VLE will live for many years to come as
a clear administrative tool. VLE may well shrink to
become a white dwarf (secure area for identity-
sensitive information and examination material). The
rest will be PLE.

32. 4. Is the VLE really dead?
David Cummings Btw, I think it's unhelpful to think in
Manichaean allegories. VLE vs PLE. It's like comparing
facebook to social media, ie platform vs concept.
Ebba Ossiannilsson As long as institutions cant leave
the control I think we unfortunately have to have the
VLE, I mean when people lock even OERs into a
locked VLE, something is wrong. The main thing is let
the learners take the control, and leave the control
needs and demands...I wish VLE was dead long time
ago, even worst is that still dept at universities create
their own which can’t communicate with anything
else...

33. ChahiraNouhira - @CosmoCat

34. JaneChallinor - @virtualleader

35. Themes
• Curation and filtration
• Digital literacy skills and
understanding the online
culture
• It takes time to appropriate
these tools into your
practice, need for learning by
doing
• Keeping up
• Participation
• Need for structured, guided
learning
pathways, open/distributed
learning environments not for

36. Themes
• Rich range of tools for finding
and managing information, and
communicating and
collaborating – each person
adapts and personalises
• Closed institutionally controlled
systems vs. portable, learner-
controlled tools
• An ecosystem or ecology or
people, resource and tools
online
• Blurring of boundaries between
the VLE and the PLE

37. Vote! http://twtpoll.com/ygdu01
Is the VLE dead, long live the PLE?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/preshaa/4603343169/

38. Crystal gazing
• Blurring of boundaries
• Mix of institutional and
cloud-based tools
• Spectrum of formal and
informal offerings
• More sophisticated
learning analytics tools
• Learning design tools to
guide practice