Learning+Environments

**Learning Environments**
The learning environments for educators and learners will not be just face to face interactions anymore. The sharing of ideas and resources can come from anyone around the world. Educators will be connected through the different types of networking sites. It is important to support professional development in training teachers how to network if they want to model the lifelong learning skills that the students need. As the picture on the right demonstrates, people from anywhere can join the network and educators can work together on a global scale to improve the education of their students. To sustain our vision, educators will need to be connected to other educators in their community, nationally, and globally to ensure they are keeping up with the latest in education.

**The Personal Learning Environment (PLE)**
The personal learning environment describes the tools,communities and services that learners use to direct their own learning and pursue their lifelong educational goals. Learners draw a conclusion from the wide variety of resources that compose their PLE. Thus PLE emphasizes the importance of metacognition amongst the learners. They learn by selecting their resources carefully and then reflecting about the information obtained from them. Hence,the personal learning environment is based on the types of tools the learners use to find information. The environment that the learner develops is then used to develop their personal learning network.



The professional development of teachers will depend on the network they develop to learn from others from anywhere around the world

Personal Learning Networks
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Networking is now part of society. When social networking giants facebook and twitter started, they were first seen as social sites, the founders probably never imagined that people would use these sites for learning (Bellino, 2011). People can connect to anyone it seems, and instead of just socializing, we can learn from each other using personal learning networks. A personal learning network is "about connecting with the people, organizations, and resources that relate to your specific interests for the purpose of continuing your education" (2011). The network is based on the specific tools that are used to network. The video to the right emphasizes the importance of using social media to enhance learning through being connected. We must support the use of responsible networking for educators and their learners to instill the skills needed to ensure lifelong learning.