Content Aggregation and Knowledge Sharing in a Personal Learning Environment: Serendipity in Open Online Networks
|
| Title | Content Aggregation and Knowledge Sharing in a Personal Learning Environment: Serendipity in Open Online Networks |
| Authors | |
| Abstract | Web 2.0 tools and emerging technologies offer learners an abundance of information and resources. This brings more flexibility and choices for learners to better control their learning and benefit from the various available learning materials in different forms. This has resulted in new learning practices and environments in higher education which are more open, flexible, and student-centered. Personal Learning Environment (PLE) is such a technology-mediated and learner-controlled learning environment. This paper describes PLE as a set of learner-defined tools and services in the ecology of Web 2.0 used by participants in three open online courses. The aim of the study was to find out how participants create and utilize their PLEs for searching, aggregating, creating and sharing content and learning resources, and being engaged in online learning networks and communities. A particular interest was to explore how serendipity, as a by-product of these open online encounters, can occur. Data were gathered through an online survey, semi-structured interviews, and online artifacts. The findings suggest the serendipitous nature of content aggregation in a PLE and provide evidence of serendipity as a valuable and unexpected source for learning. |
| Publisher | assel university press GmbH |
| Date | 2013-01-28 |
| Source | 1863-0383 |
| Rights | The submitting author warrants that the submission is original and that she/he is the author of the submission together with the named co-authors; to the extend the submission incorporates text passages, figures, data or other material from the work of others, the submitting author has obtained any necessary permission. Articles in this journal are published under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY What does this mean?). This is to get more legal certainty about what readers can do with published articles, and thus a wider dissemination and archiving, which in turn makes publishing with this journal more valuable for you, the authors. This journal has been awarded the SPARC Europe Seal for Open Access Journals (What´s this?) |