Paper presented 20th Annual Online Learning Consortium International Conference, Lake Buena Vista, Florida

1. Maha Al-Freih, Nada Dabbagh,
Anastasia Kitsantas, and Helen Fake
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA
USA

4. PLEs
Institutional
Learning Platforms
• LMS
• Adaptive Systems
Social Media/Web 2.0
Tools
• Openness
• Wisdom of the crowd
• User-generated content
• Networking
• Personal experiences

5. Tools, communities, and services that constitute
the individual educational platforms learners use to
direct their own learning and pursue educational
goals
EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) (2009)
http://www.educause.edu/

7. PLEs are
built
bottom up
by
the student

8. SELF-REGULATED
LEARNING: 21ST CENTURY SKILLS:
• Goal setting
• Self-monitoring
• Self-evaluating
• Use of task
strategies
• Help seeking
• Time planning and
management
• Learning to learn
• Metacognition
• Ways of thinking
• Ways of working
• Tools for thinking
• Tools for working

9. Follow up on a quantitative study (N=87)
To understand the experience of selected
participants’ use of social media while
developing a PLE and whether they used SRL
skills in the process.

10. Case Study
Data Sources
• Interviews
Participants selection and Recruitment
• Information-rich cases (N=11)
• Email was sent out
• N=5

11. Participants Gender Age Occupation
Years of
experience
1 Male 26-35 Didn’t specify 6-10
2 Male 26-35
Instructional
Designer/Faculty
6-10
3 Female 46-55
Instructional
Designer/PhD
Candidate
21-25
4 Female 36-45
Other didn’t
specify
6-10
5 Female 36-45
Program
Manager
5 or less

12. “Currently completing Sloan-C certification in
Administrative Practices. Have used a
combination of nearly all tools listed”
“I attended a conference that used multiple
technologies to enhance the learning and
participation experience”
“Participated in the Change11 MOOC Course
length has been almost a year now.
Technologies that I used included blogging,
Facebook Group, Bb Collaborate, and RSS”

13. Do you keep track of your progress while
working on the PLE? _____Please explain.
Do you evaluate the quality of your PLE?
_____Please explain.
Do you think your PLE was successful? Why or
why not? Please explain.
What do you need to do to improve your PLE?
In your experience, what are the
benefits/disadvantages of using these social
media tools for your learning and development?

14. A hybrid method of thematic analysis
incorporating both a data-driven inductive
approach and a deductive a priori template of
codes (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006).
Fereday, J., & Muir-Cochrane, E. (2006). Demonstrating rigor using thematic analysis: A
hybrid approach of inductive and deductive coding and theme development. International Journal of
Qualitative Methods, 5.

15. SRL Processes
Goal
Setting
PD
Connection
Task
Strategies
Context/Task
dependent
Social vs.
Individual
tasks
Motivation
Intrinsic vs.
extrinsic
Self
Monitoring
Intentional vs.
unintentional
Self
Evaluation
Tools vs.
people

16. Inductive Themes
Barriers/Challe
nges
Privacy
concerns
Safety
concerns
Digital Identity
and Presence
Lurking vs.
active
participation
Learning
curve
(Growth)
Context
Formal vs.
informal
Social vs.
professional
Public vs.
Private

17. PLE development experience of the selected
participants in this study revealed that social
media specifically supported the following self
regulated learning processes:
• goal setting, task strategies, motivation, self-monitoring,
self-evaluation
• help-seeking and time management were not
explicitly supported
• these results slightly differ from the previous
study in which participants (N=87) perceived
self-evaluation and time management as being
less supported

18. More importantly, the results of this study
revealed important themes related to how social
media impacts self regulated learning processes
in PLE development
More research is also needed to examine what
type of guidance and pedagogical interventions
are needed to support formal PLE development
and ensure authentic and purposeful use of
social media for learning.

19. Thank you!
Maha.gmu@gmail.com