I couldn't agree more. I think the importance of learner-learner interaction is often understate. Perhaps that is why the PLN - personal learning network makes more sense - because it is the network can help guide learning as well as supporting it.

This type of model means little to no learner-learner interaction in the designs - that makes for a pretty lonely learning experience.

I'm not sure personalization is all it is cracked up to be. Learners don't always know what they need in order to learn - personalization can cause silos

I think learner privacy played a big role here - HE institutions need a way for students to participate safely. I'm not sure that more open PLEs work for many students.

I'm challenged by the idea that this would just be an LMS by another name. If the learner doesn't own it (e.g. Domain of one's own), doesn't it suffer from the same control issues as the LMS?

I prefer to talk about PLNs (personal learning networks) rather than PLEs - as the environment misses perhaps the most important component - the people that make up the network!

Congrats. You totally deserve it!

This indication that it is only chronic or critically ill patients that care is an important one. We are a subset of the overall patient community.

I wonder if looking at some blogs of people in this situation might help with writing out more detailed scenarios. I think the depth of description is what will help with developing a deeper sense of empathy.

This is where I both agree and disagree. I think some technologies give opportunities for innovation and changes in pedagogies, and we cannot make a blanket statement that pedagogy should drive educational technology. Sometimes we need to play with technology for technology sake, so that we can innovate our teaching practices. Yes, we need to focus on educational practices, but we also need to leave a little space for playing and experimenting with technology to be part of the education process, not divorced from it. I think this absolute "practice comes first" is missing the point that sometimes new innovative technologies CAN improve practice, but until someone experiments with them and tries them out, one will not know that it can improve practice. So saying "educational practice" comes first is almost as bad as dismissing technology use because of the generation of the learner ... should should not be making that absolute statement - rather we should allow space for educational technology experimentation in our classrooms (and allow room for failure) as students will learn just as much from that experience as from the content of the course!

I'd do a little further here to, and talk about "student preferences" for learning ... since most student would prefer for learning to be easy, but in many cases learning isn't easy. It is the hard stuff that challenges us and helps us learn. Students generally don't prefer the "hard" stuff.

I think we need to delve deeper into this perception. One of the things that I find is that I need to give adults "permission to play" ... this is an aspect that younger people still have. So, they are not afraid to try new things, and they are not afraid that what they do might "break" it ... this is something that people who delved into technology 20-30 years ago fear ... in part because they don't free like they can play and they fear breaking it ... once you help them over those hurdles, usually they can learn tech just as easily as anyone else ... so I think that we should not just throw away the idea, but look into why the idea seem to resonate with so many people - what small aspect of truth exists within it that makes it seem like it is true?

Important here is that you can be a visitor in some areas and a resident in others. I may be an expert in one are of tech but a complete novice in another.

Even Prensky who coined the term 'digital native' has debunked it. And yet when I teach my students they still struggle with the fact that it isn't true.