One of the presentations from the recent PLE conference shows how you can go wrong in setting up your PLEs. While the objective of encouraging pre-service teachers (PSTs) to use online networking, it seems to me to be a mistake to make this a part of a course, and even more so to prescribe a specific technology (in this case, Twitter). After all, the whole point of a PLE is that it conforms to the person's own timelines, interests and technology choices. Now I admit, I'm a bit surprised that only 8 of the 151 PSTs had a Twitter account, but that should only reinforce the perception that herding them all onto Twitter is the wrong way to go. I would be encouraged, but from what I can tell the next interation of the project will compound the mistake "by embedding #pstn into the course, the assessment, and the course support structures." What a way to kill learner autonomy.
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