I’m the kind of person who learns best from concrete examples. I had already informed myself about the nature of Personal Learning Environments before attending last week’s webinar, but seeing some sample PLE pages really motivated me to go create my own. I wasn’t the only one, judging by these blog posts.

A PLE is an AJAX start page that is dedicated to collecting resources related to your personal learning. This is a different spin on tools that have been available for awhile.

Presenter Marianne Lenox shared these variations using four different tools.
iGoogle
Netvibes
Pageflakes
Protopage

The ability to create multiple tabs or pages is key. Not only does it organize your feeds and other widgets around specific topics, it also reduces load time. A fully loaded page can be a resource hog, especially if you’re pulling in video feeds. There are hundreds of widgets to choose from and you can pull in a feed from any site with RSS. I created a page for “eLearning,” for “Competencies,” and one just for “FunStuff” where I indulged in the lava lamp, creeping tree frog and comics feed. Learning should be fun, right?

You can view the webinar archive for more information.