Personal Learning Environments and Learning Management Systems; what are their roles in the Australian Vocational and Education system

There is a place for blended learning design that will cater for all learning styles. We can not expect that all of our students will learn just through a PLE or that offered through an LMS.

LMSs do not have to be intrusive in that they only feed the learner the content and objects the teacher believes they need. Students can be asked to bring their own content in by way of links to useful sites and other content they discover though tasks the teacher asks them to pursue.

Activities can be set that have to be achieved in the work place and a learning object can be an oportunity for a learner to experience a piece of plant or some operation in a virtual sense before being confronted with the real thing. Recently in Tasmania, Australia a young learner on work experience was killed using a fork lift. Maybe, if that learner had been given some virtual experiences before using the fork lift the injury may not have been as severe.

On the other extreme teachers should endeavour to get trade students to communicate using a PLE. Even if it does take the learner some years to break down their personal barriers to communicate their own learning and experiences in their chosen trade via a PLE. When all said and done the original "Mechanics Institutes" (the forerunner to formal vocational education and training in Australia)is where like minded trades people met on a weekly or monthly basis to socialise, exchange ideas and learn.

So teachers and designers need to be cognisant of their learner cohort and design accordingly, one size does not fit all. Let's move LMS's and PLE's together with other emerging Learning Technology forward as only some of the learning tools that can underpin and support learning so long as their use is designed with the learners preferred learning style/s, required learning activities and environments.