Blind alleys indeed. We all have PLEs, some are more efficient and effective than others. For most of us they are principally wetware; the processes and taxonomies and structures in our minds that organise what we know and what we learn.

The PLE concept aims at externalising some of these, makes them more explicit, more shareable, helps us to understand how and perhaps why we organise things one way rather than another.

Undoubtedly it would be nice to have this collection of tools in a box, coupled with a neat definition, it would be, commercially attractive certainly, and, in a sense, this is what Microsoft has been trying to do for years.

But I wonder whether the whole idea is not a gloriously well meaning attempt to shoot ourselves in the foot. We are still trying to create the perfect learning environment, but we dropped the V of a few years ago, and substituted a P. But the idea is still the same, the all encompassing solution. However, "Small pieces, loosely connected" ought to mean just that. No box, just the bits _you_ need, the connections _you_ need. As Graham says there is no such thing as THE Personal Learning Environment. That said though, we may be talking about a series of boxes, and they are still boxes, still limiting, however much we create a variety of them. The question is, are they necessary?

This seems to me to connect to Will Richardson, Web-logged, 30th May "We are static, not fluid". Allowing our students to play a "meaningful, important role" means allowing not just for open content , but also to leave them an open choice as regards the tools they want to use. We seem to need the box, need a definition, need closure. I wonder whether the generation we sit and stare at, scratching our heads, really needs that box, or any kind of box, or if any of us do. They, apparently, already have their PLEs and they are finding ways to communicate between them.

Though much of the research agenda Graham outlines above is necessary and would be useful, perhaps the research agenda should also focus on the ways they are doing this.The E-learning Queen's post of May 30th, ....was there something in the air that day (have a look at Leigh Blackall later at 4 am 31st May)....makes some interesting reflections about the so-called Net Generation. What seems vital to me to focus on is not so much the question of how they put together their PLEs etc but how they use them; their expertise seems often to centre on their own very highly-centred concerns, all well and good up to a point, but not very compatible with the monolith that is most public education, or perhaps with even wider social concerns. Maybe, blinded by their expertise, we are focussing too much on the technological end, and omitting other more important issues, repeating once again the errors of the first years of "e-learning". For example, as the E-Learning Queen points out "it probably would not be a bad idea to start putting a renewed emphasis on ethics and ethical behavior".

Lastly, it seems interesting, to me at least, that I am using the facile rhetorical device of we/they. This in future years may come to be known as the "Prensky trap". :) It is easy to classify the generation currently in school, so differently knowledgeable about their technological world (at least this side of the digital divide) as "other", as "distinct". It is also deeply divisive and I suspect it won't help us solve anything in the long run. The fact is we aren't really so different, and we all already have Personal Learning Environments; for example in the project Graham mentions, workers in SMEs have Personal Learning Environments that make extensive use of Google, they don't call them PLEs, they arent mostly even aware of them, but they have them, and as Susan and Leigh Blackall, say the key is perhaps to focus on how to make them aware of them, make them aware of themeselves as learners, help them use the available tools better. How to teach people how to learn, how to develop their autonomy, is the burning issue. If we can do this they will develop their own combinations of tools, and there will be no need for the boxes. Perhaps the real interest in the PLE concept is in its implicit recognition of how learning really takes place, rather than particular combinations of tools that may be proposed. And that is perhaps what we should think about, what we should highlight, in order to avoid simply reproducing the VLE under another guise.