Over in the Bamboo Project this morning, Michele Martin has posted her interview with my colleagues, Jeff Nugent, Bud Deihl, and me. Michele did a nice job capturing the highlights of the 24-minute talk, but I thought I would add some reflections of a participant.
I “met” Michele through del.icio.us earlier this year. I no longer remember who, but someone in my network had tagged a blog post she had made about the social helix – a post that really resonated with me. A follow-on post about the turtle-level versus turbo-level of use was a tipping point for me to quit talking about blogging and start doing it. Through initial comments to Michele’s blog and subsequent emails, we found that we had many interests in common. I of course passed her blog on to my colleagues, and they soon became fans as well. Since all three of us are interactive, Michele soon found that she was interacting with each of us, and found our supportive learning journey interesting and compelling – so much so that last week she requested the podcast interview.
The learning environment in our Center is wonderful, and illustrative of the co-mingling now occurring between face-to-face and online learning environments. Under Jeff Nugent’s leadership, we three have some amazing productivity. As the primary technology consultants for some three-thousand faculty, we provide workshops, lead faculty learning communities, act as consultants, develop multimedia training videos, and basically have fun exploring together the wired world. Stephen Downes has talked about the continuum between the VLE’s – Virtual Learning Environment anchored by various LMS’s, and PLE’s – personal learning environments. Our threesome I think illustrates a third level – the Social Learning Environment, where VLEs and PLEs mix and are supported by rich personal exchanges.
Michele recognized that we three have something special. Sometimes we feel a bit isolated exploring the vast ranges of learning possibilities, but I know I am never alone in my quest. Thanks to the social medium, I have my close friends (physically) in this office and my close friends (virtually) in Pennsylvania…and Romania…and Uruguay..and…
[Photo Credits: Hale Popoki; Peasap – Flickr]
You guys were just an awesome group to talk to. I was disappointed that we had to end. We definitely need to do a series!