Lecture 6_Today I Learn, Today I Question!

As usual, lecture is action-packed, filled with new information, new ideas, new concepts that I never would have known existed had I not signed up for this class. About 3/4 of the class also take PXGT6111 so the combined effects of both classes, one on Friday afternoon and one on Saturday morning leave us, or at least me dazed, with adrenaline surges to get started on research on whatever it is we’d learned for the day, to work on our projects and assignments, to explore the new technologies introduced. but all these come accompanied by fear, or at least jitters, of “I don’t have enough time to explore all these”, “what if I can’t handle the new technologies?” “why is my thinking so shallow compared to others?'” These fears aside, I don’t think I would have given up on any of the two courses even with all the hard work involved. I feel that I’ve learned a lot, even though it’s only been 6 weeks since we started.
Today’s presentation is on PLE- Personalised Learning. Before the presentation by Pearl, Huey Zher asked everyone to post on Spectrum what PLE means to us. Since she has given us some articles to read(which we only had time to finish half), we had some idea what it is, but how to conceptualize something that is half learned? ARGHHHHH. We try our best to describe what we understand in our own ways. Dee gave the best summary of it, here it is, (copied and pasted for future reference ;P) “it is the learner's autonomy to create his/her own learning ground”
After Pearl’s presentation on PLE, which was simple and clear, we had a bit of discussion about whether we had, in our own ways, incorporated this concept into our lessons in school. It seems that most of us had, at some point or other, or even quite frequently for some though we had no idea what we had done was termed as PLE. These are some of the activities that we have carried out:

• movies shown to students – students create and present own plays
• journal writing
• students create and present powerpoint
• debates
• students create magazines for NIE projects in groups
• students watch movies (must have appropriate content) then write reviews and carry out discussion about the issue e.g racism
• post links to activities and information on Facebook Group for students to respond and take learning out of the classroom
• students look up a recipe of choice, practise at home then give a demonstration in class (ERT room)

If these activities are PLE then to some extent we have carried out PLE in our lessons. However, the number of teachers who actually use the PLE concept is far and few between. Some quote the lack of initiative due to heavy workload, lack of facilities, not being comfortable with technology. As long as all these concerns are not addressed, PLE will not be fully adapted by the teaching community.

To conclude, personalised learning means a learning environment where the main focus is on the students themself where they are expected to get the most out of what they want to learn and had learned. Students will be the one who are responsible for their learning most of the time but with teachers to facilitate and help.