[It's turning into one of those days already. I managed to convey exactly the wrong thing to D'Arcy, the one person who actually gave me an answer! That wasn't my intent... I paraphrase part of the comment I left for him here in an effort to be clearer than I was at 3:30 this morning:

I intended [my mention of his PLE response in this post] as appreciation given that these aren’t easy things to explicate! The last paragraph [in this post] was the only point where I had [your response] in mind. The mention of your “etc” wasn’t a jab, it was just a note that these parts I/we/you take for granted are often the ones that most mystify newbies. There’s a whole lot packed into the “communities, etc” part of things. I wasn’t intending to reject your answer, I was saying “that’s good; I think there’s a lot more good stuff hidden in that other bit too.”]

I’m interested in your PLE. I’m not looking to package the idea up for export so an educator– particularly one who is new to teaching online and/or new to being a participant in social networks of peers and/or one who has grown up with their educational feet bound by the tight shoes of the LMS– can open up some magic box and suddenly be operating at the level of someone who has spent years honing their methods and building/whittling their tool set. But a model to get started with– as a few have attested to in the comments to my original post– is a valuable thing… and I know from my ongoing experience that there are always new specifics to be learned from those who know more than me.

Alan might have a hard time knowing what it means to describe such a thing as the PLE, but who wouldn’t love to have a few hours to watch over his shoulder and see how he does things in that personal environment of his? Why do I listen when Alan shares story telling tools or D’arcy talks about feed readers (or cameras) or Scott makes note of a tool for mashing up the information streams? Why do we (educational technology people) spend so much time and effort discussing our choice of tools and resources and the way we use them when we get together? I’m not talking here about the “air” or “the people,” but about specific choices. The world isn’t just full of abstract tools and vague people, it’s full of flickr and zooomr and Google Reader and BlogBridge and blonde telecasters and at least 50 storytelling tools. I wouldn’t dream of responding to Alan’s story about his guitar that “music’s not about the instrument” because I know that he knows that. At some higher level, music is not the instrument, photography is not the camera, and networks are people… but at the everyday operational level, and certainly at the level that we can hope to help teach others and get them started on a path to individuality, they are exactly about those things.

Nancy White has referred to the concept of “learning over the shoulder” and this is what I am attempting to facilitate– a way for people new to all of this to learn over the shoulder of their more experienced colleagues. I’m trying to help people who see the web as a passive source of information start to see the power in participation in a social network and in investing some time in learning some proficiencies in doing so.

D’Arcy notes that a PLE is “organic, dynamic, responsive, and intensely, individually unique.” Sure it is. But not at the beginning. At the beginning it takes a group of tools and resources, an initial selection of people to connect to, and some basic ideas of what the heck they do with all of it. And even D’Arcy’s refined, crafted, personal PLE has in it specific things employed using specific techniques that anyone who wants to educate would be crazy not to want to know about.

I find it odd that educators, of all people, would work so hard in service of the notion that teaching others is impossible. All a PLE is, to my way of understanding, is a particular, personal selection of tools, contacts, and methods. Many of us are still at a stage in our evolution that we can learn much from knowing what tools others use, how they use them, and who they make contact with.

Yes, I’m frustrated at the irony that I am trying to bring the discussion of the PLE down to the practical level but being rebuffed largely due to objections to some higher-level abstraction that I’m really not that interested in. But I refuse to give up– not least because of comments by people like Shannon and Chris, who make it clear that those who are learning about the ideas I put under the rubric of “PLE” (I class myself in that group still– I remain intensely interested in how other educators are creating, using, and maintaining their learning networks… if I weren’t, I wouldn’t be in the job I am) can benefit from the discussions and models. And let’s remember that there are a lot of people out there who are essentially using nothing at all right now! I’m constantly meeting with educators who are just learning about social bookmarking, feed reading, wiki editing, etc. They want to know how to get started… those who have been doing it a while want to know how to get better… and those who are “experts” want to know what their peers are up to.

So, I ask again– what does your PLE look like? What tools do you favor? What tips, tricks and advice can you give others on using them? Who and what do you follow? What information resources are your favorite? D’Arcy took a good shot at it, though he left the most interesting areas out with a very telling “etc” that kind of demonstrates the assumptions people who are “into it” make that mystify those who are still learning about all this stuff. Your choices are personal and idiosyncratic. It’s not an easy question. That’s why it’s so valuable to answer it.