This paper analyzes how personal learning environments (PLEs) can support both the reflective and active dimensions of learning. It introduces the theoretical model of Artefact-Actor-Networks (AAN) as a way to balance reflection and networking. An AAN connects artifacts, actors, and the relationships between them semantically. The paper proposes an architectural approach for PLEs based on AANs, with two main components: an eportfolio organizer to support reflective learning, and an eportfolio management system to build eportfolios for assessment within formal education.
1. Personal Learning Environments for Contemplation and Awareness: An
Architectural Approach
Mari Cruz García
words: 3959
Student nominated-criterion:
This paper will be judged on the extent to which it compiles and presents research evidence for the
value of personal learning environments and eportfolio platforms in support of reflective learning
1) Introduction
There is no single definition for a Personal Learning Environment, as it is a notion difficult to
conceptualise: Attwell (2007) highlights that it is not a software product, but a paradigm shift in the
way that we understand and use educational technologies. Wilson et al (2007) express its learner-
centred philosophy and the symmetry in the relationship between tutor-learner. Downes (2007)
describes a PLE as a portal to the world through which learners can create and explore according
to their own needs and therefore, “it is a tool that allows a learner (...) to engage in a distributed
environment consisting of a network of people, services and resources” (2007, p 24). Ravet and
Attwell (2007) provide a compelling metaphor about the nature of PLEs and eportfolios defining the
latter as the DNA and raison d'être of a PLE, without which “a PLE is nothing more than a glorified
LMS or VLE” (2007, p 4).
One of the most complete definitions of the term is provided by Educase (2009): “personal learning
environment (PLE) describes the tools, communities, and services that constitute the individual
educational platforms learners use to direct their own learning and pursue educational goals”. This
definition reifies the double nature of the PLE as a framework or plethora of services that
enable the creation and connection of meaning in the context of a community of enquiry.
Reinhard (2009) and Ravet (2007) have identified reflection and connection as the key functions of
a PLE. Web 2.0 technologies are software tools that allow individuals to gather and exchange
information in a network, as well as authoring and distributing multimedia content. The
popularisation of these technologies, along with the emerging theory of connectivism (Siemens
2005) – in which learning can rest in a community or network and a learner can improve their own
learning exponentially by connecting to a network - may lead to the temptation of considering PLEs
as some kind of read-write-share web 2.0 application.
Yet learning is a complex process. It involves two modes of thinking: one discursive, active and
rational, focused on the creation and sharing of knowledge, and the other reflective, insightful and
receptive, focused on the apprehension of knowledge (Levys 2007). A well designed PLE should
support both modes of thinking: active and reflective. Learning is the “result of sharing the world”,
as Downes suggests (2007, p.27), but also the result of contemplating the world.
2. This paper analyses how a PLE should address and support the two dimensions of learning,
reflective and active, linking them with the core functions of reflection and connection. This paper
introduces the theoretical model of the Artefact-Actor-Networks (AAN) as the Solomonic solution
that can best balance reflection and networking. This paper also describes the main characteristics
of an architectural approach based on the AAN model.
2) Two modes of thinking
Loy (1997) observes that “In the West and the East a distinction between types of thinking is
practically as old as philosophy itself” (quoted in Levy 2007, p 245). In the West, Josef Pieper
(1952) distinguishes two modes of thinking rooted in the medieval philosophy of Scholasticism:
“The medievals distinguished between the intellect as ratio and the intellect as intellectus .
Ratio is the power of discursive thought, of searching and re-searching, abstracting,
refining, and concluding ..., whereas intellectus refers to the ability of ‘simply looking’
(simplex intuitus ), to which the truth presents itself as a landscape presents itself to the
eye. The spiritual knowing power of the human mind, as the ancients understood it, is really
two things in one: ratio and intellectus : all knowing involves both” (quoted in Levy 2007, p
241).
Ratio and Intellectus, the discursive and intuitive modes of the human mind, are also implicit in
Immanuel Kant's notions of Vernunft and Verstand (Levy 2007).
Eastern philosophies also recognise two forms of knowledge: vijnana and prajna, which can be
understood, respectively, as the equivalent of ratio and intellectus. The Buddhist tradition defines
them as:
“Vijnana is deliberative, analytical and predictable; intellectual, abstract and wordy;
concerned with parts and concepts ... Prajna, on the other hand, is immediate,
spontaneous, and unpredictable, akin to a flash of lightning … Prajna is holistic, often
paradoxical, and essentially incommunicable. Prajna is valued more highly than vijnana
which is described in a traditional Buddhist saying as 'the raft to be abandoned upon
reaching the other shore'” (Sumison 1994).
In modern pedagogy, Schön (1883, 1987) distinguishes two modes of knowing relevant to learning:
reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action (quoted in Reinhardt 2010, p 2 ). Reflection-on-action is
a contemplative process which starts when the actions has ended and cannot be changed. It is the
reflection when the learner is not involved in the action (usually after the event), and its conscious
nature relates to intellectus, the receptive dimension of learning. On the contrary, reflection-in-
action refers to ratio, the discursive thought required to apply the individual knowledge to control
an action. It is the ability of thinking what we are doing while we are doing it.
In Connectivism, learning is conceived as the creation of content in the context of a community of
practice1(Downes 2007). Yet this definition is only acknowledging the active dimension of learning,
reflection in action. Learning also involves a state of receptiveness for knowledge (Sumison 1994,
Krishnamurti 1974). Receptiveness should not be misunderstood as “consumption”, assuming that
the learner plays a passive role just engulfing and memorizing data. Receptiveness, the intuitive
and reflective dimension of learning - reflection-on-action-, means that the learner is actually aware
of what he/she knows, being able to connect concepts, actions and individuals into higher units of
meaning. The learner has acquired an insight, an awareness of the knowledge available within the
community of inquiry.
1‘Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how
to do it better as they interact regularly' .Wenger, E, (2006). Retrieved 16 April 2011. Http://www.ewenger.com/theory
3. What type of PLE design is able to support both reflective and active dimensions of learning? What
kind of social network is able to connect not only individuals and groups but meaning and
concepts?
3) Artefact-Actor-Networks
Downes defines a network as “a collection of connected entities, where a connection is something
that allows one entity to send a signal to another entity” (Downs, 2007, p 25).
Networks can be classified according to the entities – also called nodes - they connect. Social
networks, for instance, represent social structures by means of ties among individuals or groups
Nodes in a social network are called actors. Hence social networks are also known as Actor-
Networks. The connections or linkages among the actors can be used to interpret the social
behaviour of the individuals involved (Reinhardt et al 2009). Social networks represent a significant
element of a PLE framework because they allow learners to expose themselves to interactions with
peers and more knowledgeable ones (MKO) for a particular topic or discipline, a process that,
according to Vygotsky (1978, quoted in Reinhardt 2010, p 2) is essential for learners' mental
maturity and individuality.
Social networks can be a powerful platform for building communities of practice, but they do not
allow their members to link concepts and data semantically. These networks lack the necessary
tools for annotating and categorizing contents, so that members can tag the resources in
folksonomies2. Social networks as Actors-Networks do not allow users to create the online
metadata required to associate, classify and share the knowledge already in the network in a
mindful way. Let us think, for instance, of social sites such as Facebook, LinkID, Messenger or
Ning. Members in the networks that these sites support do not know the contents or resources that
other members are accessing and how these members interact with the contents. The possibilities
of constructing meaning are only limited to replicating the “good practices” or new knowledge
modelled through interactions.
Let us consider now web applications such as blogs, wikis or video-sharing websites. Networks
whose nodes are no longer individuals or groups, but contents, are called Artefact-Networks. Their
nodes are artefacts, which can be pictures, videos, blog entries, wiki articles or mp3 audio files.
Artefact-Networks try to establish semantic relationships between artefacts. They try to make
statements about the way artefacts are linked or used. Two artefacts are related when there exists
a semantic relation between them (Reinhardt et al 2009). Social bookmarking sites, such as
Del.icio.us, or blog-searching engines, such as Technorati, allow individuals to build Artefact-
networks. They link resources through their associated metadata, which have been added by
individuals via social bookmarking (social tagging).
Since Artefact-Networks are able to establish semantic links around knowledge, it would be
tempting to define PLEs as Artefact-Networks adopting an architectural approach similar to a social
bookmarking site. Yet this architecture would not provide learners with the instant feedback and
communications that enhance the process of learning in a community of enquiry. If a PLE is a
mirror of the external world, “although one can spend a great deal of time in collecting and tagging
data, [in Artefact-networks] there is no tool providing the kind of instant feedback a mirror would”
(Ravelt 2007, p 5).
Artefact-Actor-Networks (AANs) are the theoretical model that can best balance the need of
receiving and interconnecting meaning (reflective dimension) with the requirements for feedback
and collaboration (active dimension). Artefact-Actor-Networks are consolidating multilayered social
2 Folksonomy can be understood in this context as “a decentralised, social approach to creating metadata for digital
resources. It is usually created by a group of individuals, typically the resource users, who add natural language
tags to online items, such as images, videos, bookmarks and text”. Folksonomy and taxonomy are not equivalent
terms, as the latter is the process, within subject-based classification, of arranging the terms given in a controlled
vocabulary into a hierarchy. UKOLN, University of Bath (n.d.). Retrieved: 17 April. Http:// www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-
focus/documents/...81/briefing-81-A5.doc
4. networks and artefact networks in an integrated network (Reinhardt et al 2009).While consolidated
social networks can only establish relations between actors, and consolidated artefact networks
can only establish relations between artefacts, Artefact-Actor-Networks contain semantic relations
between actors and artefacts. By combining social networks with artefact networks, AANs are able
to store information about “the ties between artefacts from multiple sources and the actors involved
in their creation, modification and linkage … They help to understand how communities are using
artefacts and which role these artefacts play for object-centred sociality .. . Artefact-Actor-Networks
are saving the semantic context and supply the storage of metadata from people and artefacts. In
other words, they deliver a great collection of data to connect social networks with person and
artefact networks” (Reinhardt et al 2009, p. 3).
Figure 1. Artefact-Actor-Networks
A semantic relation can be defined as “a relation which says something about the context of it”.
(Reinhardt et al 2009, p. 3). Artefact-Actor-Networks are able to establish three types of semantic
relations:
• Actor-Actor-Relations (ACT2 relation), which describe the nature of relationships between
involved persons. They characterise simple connections, friendships or kinships.
• Artefact-Artefact Relations (ART2 relation), which provide information on how artefacts are
connected. An artefact can reference other artefacts or a derivative of an artefact in an
earlier version. The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative3 or the SIOC Project4 are examples of
3 The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, or "DCMI", is an open organization engaged in the development of
interoperable metadata standards Dublic Core, http://dublincore.org/
4 The SIOC initiative (Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities) provides a Semantic Web ontology for
representing rich data from the Social Web in RDF. SIOC, http://sioc-project.org/
5. technical standards defining ART2 relations.
• Artefact-Actor Relations (AA relations), which provide information about the kind of
connectivity between artefacts and actors. They connect actors with their respective
artefacts, but they are also able to identify the set of actors which are semantically related
to an artefact.
Reinhardt (2010) states that PLEs built on the basis of the AAN Model can address both the
reflection and connection core functions because they can “store artefacts that result from
individual or communal learning activities and the relations between them” (p 6). A PLE which is
able to analyse and store semantic relations between artefacts, actors, and between actors and
artefacts encourage awareness, understanding it as the learner's ability of knowing which
individuals are connected to the same network, what they are doing, and how their own actions or
actions of others in the group can affect them (Reinhardt 2010).
4)An architectural approach based on the AAN Model.
The two main hindrances for the development of PLEs are the lack of:
• open elearning standards (Wilson et al 2005)
• a clear understanding of the different components involved in a PLE architecture (Ravet
2007).
This section outlines an architectural approach aimed to overcome both hindrances based on the
Artefact-Actor-Networks theoretical model.
4.1 PLE's components, hosting and ownership.
Reflection and networking are not the only functions of a PLE. Eportfolio and PLE are intrinsically
related concepts, as mentioned before. Eportfolios represent the instantiation of how a “framework”
or “plethora of services” can collect, connect and manage the capital developed by a reflective
learning individual, transforming it into evidence for a specific purpose. Capital can be understood
in this context as competences, knowledge and social networks (Ravet 2007).
Borrowing the terminology from Ravet (2007), the two main components of a personal enabled
learning management system are:
•Eportfolio organizer (or Personal learning space manager)
•Eportfolio management system (EMS)
While a PLE is a rather “ethereal” concept, Eportfolio organizer and Management System are
tangible software applications with clearly distinctive aims:
• EMS is a system/s used to manage (produce, consume and exploit) elements of
individuals' learning capital (knowledge, competences, social networks) for a specific
purpose and in a specific context: scaffolding learning, academic assessment, employment,
etc. An EMS is not a system that hosts eportfolios (a very common misconception), but a
system that manages and builds eportfolios.
• Eportfolio organizer, or personal learning manager, is a system/s used by individuals to
collect, organize, aggregate, connect and publish learning capital in order to support
reflective and active learning for personal and professional growth. ‘
6. Figure 2. PLE’s main components
The distinction between these two components makes' it easier to address questions such as how
ples/eportfolios can support formal and informal learning, ownership and, from a technical
perspective, how to manage and host the systems and the data integrity.
Since the purpose of EMS is to build eportfolios for specific purposes, it seems logical that they
include functions of both eportfolio and assessment management system in support of formal
learning within an institutional environment (i.e. education or employment). Learning capital is
organized in artefacts. The structure of the artefacts and the ACT2, ART2 and AA relations are
mainly decided by the institution. However, depending on the purpose of the eportfolio, there may
be a certain flexibility for negotiation between the learner and the institution.
EMS are database portfolio systems (Kimball 2005) in the sense that systems and databases
containing students’ work are usually hosted and maintained by the institution or a service provider.
The institution is accountable for the integrity of learners' works and, in exchange, it keeps the
ownership - totally or partially - of the work. Nevertheless, data ownership in database portfolio
systems is a complex issue, and the agreements adopted between learners and institution depend
very much on the type of assessment, the kind of learning capital, the institution or even the
education policy of the country (Attwell 2007b)
Personal learning managers, or eportfolio organizers (EO), are mainly used in support of informal
and life long learning. The learner has complete freedom to design the AAN, including the structure
of the artefacts and the ACT2, ART2 and AA relations. Eportfolio organizers are web portfolio
systems (Kimball 2005) as they transfer the responsibilities of hosting and managing the systems
to the learner. This last one is likewise responsible for the integrity of the stored data. Web-based
EOs offer a high flexibility in terms of ownership and interconnection of the learning, yet the price to
be paid is an inefficient management and inconvenient storage in comparison with database EMS
7. (Kimball 2005).
Both Eportfolio Management Systems and Eportfolio organizers exchange information with other
software platforms and web services, a dialogue that cannot be supported without the adoption of
a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Rich Internet Applications (RIA) technologies.
4.2 Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Rich Internet Applications
SOA is a manifold concept. For the scope of this paper, it can be defined as the architectural model
that supports interoperability between heterogeneous modules, known as services, through
standard interfaces and messaging protocols (Santanach et al 2007, Orchestra 2007).
SOA is based in the concept of loose coupling5, which means that the dependency between each
component of the system has been reduced to a minimum. Loose coupling therefore facilities
interoperability. PLEs based on a SOA model can be visualised as “a system of blocks or pieces
that fit together. Each piece is a box that carries out an activity within its limits and is invisible to the
other boxes. The boxes fit together in a heterogeneous system that has very few dependencies. It
is easy to reconfigure and rearrange the system and change the pieces in it “ (Santanach et al
2007, p3).
Rich Internet Applications (RIA) are web-based applications that function as traditional desktop
applications but requiring a web-browser (or client) for access. Unlike traditional applications,
software installation is not required unless for installing certain pluggins such as Activex, Java,
Flash or similar technologies. RIAs use functions from different sources which are integrated into
their own system via lightweight APIs6, without the need to implement the functions once again
(Reinhardt 2010).
5 The W3C Glossary defines coupling and loose coupling as:
“Coupling is the dependency between interacting systems. This dependency can be decomposed into real dependency and
artificial dependency:
• Real dependency is the set of features or services that a system consumes from other systems. The real dependency always
exists and cannot be reduced.
• Artificial dependency is the set of factors that a system has to comply with in order to consume the features or services
provided by other systems. Typical artificial dependency factors are language dependency, platform dependency, API
dependency, etc. Artificial dependency always exists, but it or its cost can be reduced.
Loose coupling describes the configuration in which artificial dependency has been reduced to the minimum”. W3C
Glossary. Retrieved 19/04/2011: http://www.w3.org/TR/ws-gloss/
6 API (Application Programming Interface) is “a language and message format used by an application program to communicate
with the operating system or some other control program such as a database management system (DBMS) or communications
protocol”. PC Magazine. Retrieved: 22 April 2011.
http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=application+programming+interface&i=37856
,00.asp
8. Figure 3. An Architectural Approach based on the SOA Model
9.
10. The flexibility of SOA and the vast range of RIA technologies can enrich the Artefact-Actor (AA)
semantic relations in Artefact-Actor-Networks by allowing learners to select and arrange different
types of contents and data representations. The way of doing so is through widgets7. These are
small embeddable applications that are usually executed within runtime containers such as an html
page or desktop applications (Taraghi et al 2010). Widgets can respond to users' actions
enhancing the interactivity of RIAs. Most of the social sites and content-authoring web applications,
such as Wordpress, Drupal, Ning, Elgg or iGoogle, support the use of widgets for embedding
contents from other platforms or for data visualization purposes. However, merely embedding
content widgets in a web platform does not allow learners to link either artefacts stored in different
platforms or users logged in different social networks.
In order to enhance learners' awareness, Reinhardt (2010) proposes to build widget-based
awareness dashboards able to make statements about ACT2, ART2 and AA semantic relations
rather than “copying and pasting” content from other sources.
4.3 A widget-based dashboard for awareness
One of the current tendencies with regard to the development of PLEs is to design personal
learning managers and eportfolio management systems as widget-based customizable websites
or desktop applications (Taraghi et al 2010, Reinhardt 2010). The personal learning manager can
be fully customized by the learner, while the EMS usually includes some compulsory content
widgets prescribed by the institution.
There is not a definitive emerging tendency about which software development kits 8 (SDKs) can
best support the development of widgets which can be embedded into PLEs. Taraghi et al (2010)
propose JavaFX as the leading scripting language to build PLEs as a “mashup of different widgets”
(p 27 ) for html websites and mobile phones apps. JavaFx introduced the feature of “drag-to-install”
which allows users to drag widgets in or out of the PLE's dashboard or browser window.
Reinhardt (2010) mentions Adobe Flex 4 Framework9 and the MVC framework Mate10 as open
source SKDs for building a widget-based awareness dashboard that support learners' individual
awareness and reflection needs. Reinhardt describes a prototype of dashboard - named
AAANalyzer- developed in Flex, Mate and php, which support reflection-on-action for individuals in
a learning community. The AANalyzer implements a meta-layer, which is characteristic of the AAN
model that contains aggregators for actors and groups of actors and artefacts.
Either designed as a desktop application or web platform, the graphical user interface (GUI) is the
7 The W3C defines widgets as: “full-fledged client-side applications that are authored using Web standards. They are typically
downloaded and installed on a client machine or device where they typically run as stand-alone applications outside of a Web
browser. Examples range from simple clocks, stock tickers, news casters, games and weather forecasters, to complex applications
that pull data from multiple sources to be "mashed-up" and presented to a user in some interesting and useful way.”. W3C (n.d.)
Retrieved: 21 April 2011. http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets/
8 A software development kit (SDK or "devkit") can be described in general terms as “ a set of development tools that allows for
the creation of applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system,
video game console, operating system, or similar platform” . Wikipedia . Retrieved: 21 April 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_development_kit. I have preferred to use the term SDK instead of scripting
languages (although some of the examples quoted are, in the end, scripting languages), as the concept of SDK
encompasses the whole framework for which a scripting language is developed.
9 Flex Framework is defined by Adobe as “a is a highly productive, free, open source framework for building expressive mobile,
web, and desktop applications”. It supports features for high interactivity and rich data representation. Adobe. Retrieved: 21 April
2011. http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/
10 Mate is a tag-based, event-driven Flex framework. Mate framework has been created to make it easy to handle the events that
Flex applications created. Mate. Retrieved: 21 April 2011. http://mate.asfusion.com/
11. PLE component that allows learners to interact with artefacts and actors. The GUI is implemented
as a widget-based dashboard by means of the aforementioned SDKs.
In order to support reflective learning, a GUI design should include the following elements:
Figure 4. Elements of a GUI for reflective learning
1) Navigation bar (sidebar): It is designed “as a navigation element as well as information
element” (Taraghi et al 2010, p 28). The navigation bar categories are decided either by the
institution or the learner, depending on the PLE's purpose, and show information about the
artefacts, actors, groups and projects (main learning activities) taking place in the
community of practice.
2) Widget area: It contains the different widgets available in the personal enabled
environment. This area is usually structured by columns (Taraghi et al 2010, Reinhardt
2010)
3) Widgets: .They can be easily installed or deleted by means of the “drag-to-install”
feature, and they can be resized, maximized and minimized according to the learners'
need.
Reflective learning is supported by 6 types of widgets that establish semantic relations
12. between artefacts (content, knowledge, competences) and the actors using them
(Reinhardt 2010):
•Project Widget: Projects can be described as the learning activities that link actors
(participants) and artefacts in a community of practice. The Project Widget contains
information related to the project administration for a particular project, such as project
logo, start date, end date, artefacts involved in a project, etc. It also contains a collection
of the project’s tags that ensure the relation between artefacts and the project. A click on
each tag displays the corresponding artefacts within the Artefact Widget.
•Keyword Cloud Widget: It presents a word-cloud for the project, which contains all
keywords of all artefacts of the project and all keywords of artefacts that contains at
least one project's tag. The keyword cloud displays its content in alphabetic order
highlighting the most popular keywords with increased size.
•Members Widget: It shows all the actors participating in a given project displaying
their name and pictures. No information is given for anonymous participants (i.e. people
using the artefacts or project tags but not registered as actors in the system or network).
The click on a member displays the information in the Person Widget for that member.
•Artefacts Widget: It represents a collection of artefacts that were previously selected
in other widgets, for instance, from the Project Widget, the Person Widget or the
Keyword Cloud Widget. If a keyword is selected within the Person Widget, then all
artefacts that the selected actor interacts with (for all the projects in which the actor
takes part) are shown in the Artefacts Widget. Moreover, the actors interacting with an
artefact are displayed and linked to the appropriate Person Widget, provided the
participants are registered in the system or network.
•Person Widget: It shows all the information related to a participant. In addition to
name and picture, it contains information about the participant's location and project
memberships. The Person Widget also shows person-related key words (from artefacts
the person interacted with) in keyword cloud style.
4)Personal dashboard area: If the Widget area is designed to promote receptiveness for
knowledge, the personal dashboard area supports the creation of new artefacts to be
aggregated to projects and shared among the participants. The learner can personalize this
area including widgets for content creation (blogs, wikis, video sharing, etc).
13. Figure 5. Widget-based dashboard
5)Conclusion
Personal Learning Environments represent a powerful framework for balancing the two forms of
thought of the human mind in the context of formal education. PLE should not be just designed as
the integration of content-authoring tools with social networking sites. They should follow the
theoretical model of the Artefact-Actor-Networks so that learners can connect and reflect on
knowledge, making sense of what it has been learned and how their actions can affect others.
SOA, RIAs and widget-based dashboards represent the key architectural features in order to
establish semantic relations between artefacts, actors, and artefacts and actors located in different
networks. Widgets should not just be used to embed contents from different sources but to show
the contents as artefacts linking them with the projects or learning activities in which they are used,
and with the actors or participants that interact with those artefacts.
The main hindrance for the development of widget-based dashboards able to achieve the former is
the lack of open standards for defining semantic connections between elements from
heterogeneous networks. Metadata standards containing information about contents, users,
learning activities and the way that these three elements interact with each other, need to be
developed and widely adopted by the e-learning community, if we want PLEs to become truly
learning networks, rather than networks for learning (Downes 2007)
______________________________________________________________________
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