2008年2月8日星期五

Dan Tries Problem-Based Learning: A Case Study

基于问题的学习：个案研究

Harold B. White, III, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry,University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, halwhite@udel.edu

哈罗德·B·怀特三世，特拉华州纽瓦克，特拉华大学生物与化学系，19716，邮箱

转载自怀特，H·B（1996），L·瑞琪琳（教育），《改善高校》第十五卷（第75-91页）。斯蒂尔沃特，OK：新的论坛新闻与高等教育中的专业与组织网络。

Abstract

摘要

Problem-based learning approaches to education often generate justifiable enthusiasm among faculty who have become frustrated with the limitations of traditional lecture-based education. However, faculty contemplating a change to a problem-based format rarely anticipate the many practical difficulties that can destroy one's enthusiasm and create chaos in the classroom. This case study, about the trials and tribulations of a fictional anthropology professor's attempts to alert faculty who are interested in trying the method to some of the unexpected challenges they might encounter.

基于问题的学习方法，在教育中往往会让一些教员产生不可避免的热情，即因受到传统文化基础上的教育限制而失败的教员。然而，教员在计划实施基于问题的教学的时候，很少考虑到实际困难，比如打击积极性、在教室中制造混乱。本案例是关于一个虚构的人类学家的尝试和灾难，以试图提醒那些有兴趣尝试该方法的教员，他们有可能遇到一些意想不到的挑战。

Institutional Change in Instruction

教学中的体制变化

Adopting a radically different approach to teaching and learning involves considerable risk. Faculty developers need to be aware of the challenges and provide support for their colleagues who pursue new directions. Successful experiences can vitalize individuals and catalyze institutional change in the educational environment; but failure can be deadening. For most faculty, problem-based learning is a radically different approach to instruction that requires encouragement and support.

采用完全不同的方法进行教与学会担上相当大的风险。技能开发者需要意识到这些挑战并未他们追求新方向的同事提供支持。对成功的体验可以激发个人的活力，可以催化教育环境中的体制变化；而失败可以削弱这些。对于大多数教员，基于问题的学习是一种完全不同的、需要鼓励和支持的教学方法。

Several years ago, guided by faculty from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, a joint Medical Scholars Program between the University of Delaware and Thomas Jefferson Medical College (Blacklow and Engel, 1991) introduced a few problem-based courses into the undergraduate curriculum for selected premedical students. Since then, with the help of workshops sponsored by the University's Center for Teaching Effectiveness and a grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education, problem-based learning has captured the imagination of both science and nonscience faculty (Groh, et al., 1996). Over 50 academic units have been represented among the 175 faculty and administrators attending the workshops. More than 30 have incorporated the approach into their courses across campus in the past two years. The interest continues to grow and the limits of the method are being explored on many fronts.

几年前，在新墨西哥大学医学院教员的指导下，在特拉华大学和托马斯杰斐逊医学院（Blacklow and Engel, 1991）之间的一项联合医学学者项目，为选修医学预科的本科学生引入了少量基于问题的课程。从那时起，在大学教学效果研究中心发起的研讨班，以及一笔来自国家科学基金会本科教育部门的赞助的帮助下，基于问题的学习已经激发起所有教员的想象力（Groh, et al., 1996）。超过五十个学术团体派出代表计有175名教员和行政人员，出席了该研讨班。在过去两年内，超过三十个团体将此方法融合进他们的大学课程。在各个应用领域，对他的兴趣日益增长，也都在探索该方法的极限。

What is Problem-Based Learning?

什么是基于问题的学习？

The distinction between problem-based learning and other forms of cooperative or active learning often are blurred because they share certain common features and hybrid approaches abound as instructors adapt methods for particular situations. However, an essential component of problem-based learning is that content is introduced in the context of complex real-world problems. In other words, the problem comes first (Boud, 1985; Boud and Feletti, 1991; Woods, 1985). This contrasts with prevalent teaching strategies where the concepts, presented in a lecture format, precede "end-of-the-chapter" problems. In problem-based learning, students working in small groups must identify what they know, and more importantly, what they don't know and must learn (learning issues) to solve a problem. These are prerequisites for understanding the problem and making decisions required by the problem. The nature of the problems preclude simple answers. Students must go beyond their textbooks to pursue knowledge in other resources in between their group meetings. The primary role of the instructor is to facilitate group process and learning, not to provide easy answers. With the change in format come different forms of assessment such as group examinations.

基于问题的学习与其他形式的合作或主动学习之间的区别并不总是很清晰，因为他们有一些共同特征，以及可供教师为特定情况而改变的很多通用办法。然而，基于问题的学习，一个基本组成部分是，在复杂的真实问题环境中介绍内容。换而言之，问题第一（Boud, 1985; Boud and Feletti, 1991; Woods, 1985）。与流行的教学策略相比，后者的概念以演讲的形式展示出来，远比“课本最后的”问题重要。在基于问题的学习当中，在小组中活动的学生必须弄清楚他们知道什么，而更重要的是，他们不知道什么，以及什么是必须学来（学习过程）解决问题的。这些都是理解问题并作出决定所必须的先决条件。问题的性质决定了不可能有简单的答案。学生必须超越其课本，追求他们小组会议中使用的其他资源里的知识。教师的作用是方便小组活动和学习，而不是提供一个简单答案。与这些方法上的改变带来的有不一样的评估方式，比如小组测试。

The model for problem-based learning comes from a few medical schools, notably McMaster (Barrows and Tamblyn, 1980), where, more than 25 years ago, they questioned how well traditional preclinical science courses trained physicians to be problem-solvers and life-long learners. Information-dense lectures presented by a series of content experts to large student audiences seemed disconnected from the practice of medicine that required integration of knowledge, decision making, working with others, and communicating with patients. The curricula of several medical schools now include problem-based, preclinical science courses. The effectiveness of the problem-based learning approach in the medical school environment has been debated, evaluated, and given qualified endorsement based on a limited number of studies (Albanese and Mitchell, 1993; Berkson, 1993; Vernon and Blake, 1993; Blake et al., 1995).

基于问题的学习模型来自于几所医学院，尤其是McMaster医学院（Barrows and Tamblyn, 1980），在哪里，25年以前，他们质疑传统临床科学课程训练出来的内科医生在成为一个问题解决者和终身学习者方面做得有多好。信息密集型讲座由一系列内容专家展示给大量学生观众，似乎使学生脱离了医学实践，而这，需要整合知识、做出决策、与人合作，以及与病人沟通。几所医学院现在的课程包括，基于问题的、临床科学课程。基于问题的学习方法在医学院环境中的效率已经过讨论、评估，并在有限研究的基础上给予了资格认证（Albanese and Mitchell, 1993; Berkson, 1993; Vernon and Blake, 1993; Blake et al., 1995）。

Why Problem-Based Learning?

为什么要基于问题的学习？

Many of the concerns that prompted the development of problem-based learning in medical schools are echoed today in undergraduate education. Content-laden lectures delivered to large enrollment classes typify science courses at most universities and many colleges. Professional organizations, government agencies, and others call for a change in how science is taught as well as what is taught (Czujko, 1994; Project Kaleidoscope, 1991; Tobias, 1990, 1992; Wingspread Conference, 1994). Problem-based learning addresses many of the concerns. Above all it encourages students to take charge of their education. It emphasizes critical thinking skills, understanding, learning how to learn, and working cooperatively with others. While problem-based learning is well known in medical education, it is almost unknown in the undergraduate curriculum.

关注的重点在于在医学院开发的基于问题的学习在今天的本科教育中得到响应。在大多数大学和许多学院，以内容为主的讲座向人数众多的班级传达典型科学课程。专业团体、政府机构，以及其他机构呼吁，在教授科学的方式上要和内容一样有所改变（Czujko, 1994; Project Kaleidoscope, 1991; Tobias, 1990, 1992; Wingspread Conference, 1994）。基于问题的学习可以面对许多关注。这些都鼓励学生对他们自己的学业负责。它强调批判性思维技能、理解、学习如何学习，以及与他人协作工作。在医学教育中，基于问题的学习以为大家所熟知，而在本科教育中却几乎没人知道。

At the University of Delaware problem-based learning has been introduced in a number of undergraduate courses across the curriculum, not just in the sciences. The conceptual principles apply in international relations (Burch, 1995) as well as art history (Parker-Miller, 1996). In order to keep faculty here and elsewhere informed of problem-based activities and resources, a PBL homepage has been created which contains a directory of University of Delaware courses that use problem-based learning, faculty contacts, some examples of syllabi and problems, and links to other national and international sites. The address is http://www.udel.edu/pbl/
在特拉华大学，基于问题的学习已经引入到一些本科普通课程当中，而不仅仅在科学课程当中。应用与国际关系的一些概念性原则（Burch, 1995）也可以作用于艺术史（Parker-Miller, 1996）。为了让教员在任何场合都得到基于问题的活动和资源，创建了一个PBL网页，包含得有特拉华大学使用基于问题的学习的课程目录、教员通讯录、一些大纲和问题的实例，以及链接到国内或国际其他网站的链接。地址是。

The Case.

个案

Because the use of problem-based learning is relatively new in the undergraduate setting, it is not known whether it achieves the desired long term objectives. Nevertheless, two-day workshops that demonstrate problem-based learning with students working in groups on actual problems frequently generates faculty enthusiasm resembling a religious conversion. They see the potential for the method. However, that enthusiasm must be tempered with the realization that many difficulties and challenges accompany the use of problem-based learning, particularly for the first time. For example, instructors usually must create their own problems without a full understanding of the important components and the time required. Frequently, there is a lack of support from colleagues who don't understand the method. Furthermore, most classrooms do not lend themselves to a problem-based learning format.

因为在本科教学的安排中，基于问题的学习相当新颖，目前还不知道是否能达到预期的长远目标。不过，为期两天的研讨会，表明了基于问题的学习中的学生在小组活动中，面对具体问题往往会产生类似宗教转变的能力热情。他们看到这种方法的潜力。然而，这种热情必须得到缓和，必须认识到伴随着基于问题的学习，特别是第一次使用，会有许多困难和挑战。举个例子，因为时间不够，教师经常必须在对重要内容没有完全理解的情况下创建问题。更多的是，得不到那些不能理解这种方法的同事的支持。此外，大多数教师也不适合基于问题的学习。

"Dan Tries Problem-Based Learning" that follows is an extended case intended to confront prospective users with the spectrum of issues one might encounter in a semester that one normally would not encounter using a lecture format in a traditional class. The intent of the case is not to discourage but to have prospective users reflect more deeply about what is involved. While the entire case has not been used at one time, segments of it have served effectively at conference sessions devoted to different aspects of problem-based learning. I hope that the case will be useful to faculty developers elsewhere who have faculty interested in trying problem-based learning. As with many cases based on actual events, the names and situations have been fictionalized.

《小丹尝试基于问题的学习》是一个扩展的案例，旨在让准用户面临学期中可能遇到的种种问题，而这些问题在使用讲座形式的传统班级中不会遇到。该案例并不是想打击，而是让准用户更深刻的反思涉及到一些什么。虽然整个案例并不曾发生过，但是可以将其一部分有效地应用于讨论任务，从而专注于基于问题学习的不同方面。我希望此案例对能力开发者或者那些对尝试基于问题学习感兴趣的人有用。预计于实际情况的许多案例一样，姓名和地点都是虚构的。

Acknowledgments

致谢

This work was supported in part by Grant DUE-9354606 entitled "Problem-Based Learning in Introductory Science Across Disciplines" from the National Science Foundation. I thank Deborah Allen, Barbara Duch, Susan Groh, Sheella Mierson, David Onn, and Barbara Williams, my co-Principal Investigators on this grant, whose diverse backgrounds and interests have combined to enrich a shared goal of improving undergraduate education. I also thank George Watson for setting up our PBL homepage.
本工作得到了来自国家科学委员会的名称为《基于问题的学习在跨学科的科学导论中的实践》的 DUE-9354606 号拨款的部分支持。我感谢这一大堆人，他们是我在这笔拨款中主要的合伙调查人。我们有着不同的背景和利益，走在一起是为了丰富共同目标——改善本科教育。我还要感谢乔治·华特森，他帮助我建立了我的PBL网页。

References

参考资料

Albanese, M. A. and Mitchell, S. (1993) Problem-based learning: a review of literature on its outcomes and implementation issues. Academic Medicine, 68, 52-81.

Barrows, H.S. and Tamblyn, R. M. (1980) Problem-Based Learning: An Approach to Medical Education. Springer Pub. Co., New York, NY.

Berkson, L. (1993) Problem-based learning: Have expectations been met? Academic Medicine, 68, 579-588 (October supplement).

Blake, J. M., Norman, G. R. and Smith, E. K. M. (1995) Report card from McMaster: student evaluation at a problem-based medical school. The Lancet, 345, 899-902.

Blacklow, R. S. and Engel, J. D. (1991) The University of Delaware/Jefferson Medical Scholars Program: An approach to educating physicians for academic leadership and practice. Delaware Medical Journal, 63, 303-307.

Boud, D. (Ed.) (1985) Problem-Based Learning for the Professions, Sydney. HERDSA

Boud, D. and Feletti, G. (Eds.) (1991)The Challenge of Problem-Based Learning. St Martin's Press, N. Y.

Burch, K. (1995) PBL and the lively classroom. About Teaching No. 47 p. 2 (Newsletter of the University of Delaware's Center for Teaching Effectiveness)

Czujko, R. (1994) Physics job market: a statistical overview. AAPT Announcer 24, 62.

Groh, S. E., Williams, B. A., Allen, D. E., Duch, B. J., Mierson, S. and White, H. B., III (1996) Institutional change in science education: a case study. In Student-Active Science: Models ofInnovation in College Science Teaching. (McNeal A. P. and D'Avanzo, C. Eds.) Saunders Publishers, Philadelphia, PA Submitted.

Parker-Miller, M. (1996)

Project Kaleidoscope (1991) What Works: Building Natural Science Communities. Volume One, Stamats Communications, Inc., Washington, D.C.

Tobias, S. (1990) They're Not Dumb, They're Different. Research Corporation, Tuscon, Arizona.

Tobias, S. (1992) Revitalizing Undergraduate Science. Research Corporation, Tuscon, Arizona.

Vernon, D. T. and Blake, R. L. (1993) Does problem-based learning work? A meta-analysis of evaluative research. Academic Medicine, 68, 550-563.

Wingspread Conference. (1994) Quality assurance in undergraduate education: what the public expects. ECS, Denver, Colorado.

Woods, D. (1985) Problem-based learning and problem-solving. In D. Boud (Ed.) Problem-Based Learning for the Professions, Sydney. HERDSA, 19-42.

Dan Tries Problem-Based Learning
小丹尝试基于问题的学习

Getting Started With Problem-Based Learning
开始基于问题的学习

Dan Sherman had spent his entire academic career of almost two decades in the anthropology department of a mid-sized university. Of all the courses he taught, Anthropology 255 Readings in Anthropology for the 25 to 30 sophomore anthropology majors, was his favorite. The course demanded hard work and emphasized thinking. Dan's lectures focused on basic themes in anthropology and the connections between various subdisciplines of anthropology. Students consistently rated the course highly. They liked Prof. Sherman's casual style, his enthusiasm for the subject, and his obvious interest in the personal development of each student.

佘曼丹在一所中等大学的人类学系度过了几乎二十年的学术生涯。他教的所有课程，人类学255号课程《阅读人类学》，面向25-30岁的大二人类学主修课程，曾经是他的最爱。该课程要求辛勤工作，强调思考。佘曼丹的讲座侧重于人类学基本主题，以及人类学各分支之间的联系。一直以来学生都给该课程很高的评价。他们喜欢佘教授的漫不经心风格，他的工作热情，以及对每个学生自我发展的显而易见的兴趣。

Despite the uniform praise he received from students and faculty, Dan always sensed he could do better. Too many of his former students, even honors students, had graduated with a superficial understanding or outright misunderstanding of fundamental concepts of anthropology that he had covered thoroughly in his course. To him many of these graduates seemed to lack the enthusiasm for continued learning that would carry them to successful careers. He believed that a truly excellent teacher could change this situation. Furthermore, he was beginning to worry whether his excellent teaching ratings reflected the student's appreciation of him rather than what he was teaching. Perhaps in frustration and partly out of curiosity, Dan decided a radically different approach was needed for his teaching. What harm could it do?

尽管他得到来自学生和同事的普遍赞誉，佘曼丹一直都认为还有改进的余地。太多以前结业的学生甚至优秀生，对人类学的基本概念都是非常肤浅的理解甚至完全错误，而这些概念，他在课堂上都曾深入讲解过。他认为这些毕业生缺乏持续学习的足够热情，而这种热情可以让他们实现事业的成功。他相信，一个真正优秀的老师，可以改变这一状况。此外，他还担心，学生对他的感激，是因为以往对他教学的优秀评价，而非他具体教了些什么。也许因为挫折和部分的好奇心，佘曼丹决定采用一种完全不同的教学方法。会有什么危害么？

Dan had read about problem-based learning as it was used in medical schools. It seemed that the pedagogical principles of that approach could apply anywhere, including anthropology. After discussing "PBL" with a few colleagues who had tried the approach in other disciplines, he took the plunge and revamped ANTH 255 completely. No longer did he lecture. Rather he used class time to move among groups of four or five students who were discussing classic articles in anthropology that he had carefully selected and assigned.

佘曼丹曾经了解过基于问题的学习在医学院中的应用。觉得这种方法的教学理念可以用于所有地方，包括人类学。与少部分在其他学科尝试过这种方法的同事讨论“PBL”之后，他决定冒险一试，完全重新编写了人类学255号课程。不再使用讲座式教学。上课的时候，四五个学生小组讨论由他仔细挑选和分配的人类学经典文章，他在小组间走动。

That happened a year ago. There were still bugs to work out. He knew that some things hadn't gone as planned and that there had been a lot of confusion initially until he and the students recognized what it was they needed to do. He had anticipated there would be some difficulties because students were not used to taking as much responsibility for their own learning and many students (and some of his colleagues) felt that, "If you don't lecture, you're not teaching." Now that he had a year of experience, he was all charged up to do it again, only better. His revised syllabus was ready and the schedule was set. He could hardly wait to get the course rosters so he could assign students to groups and get started.

这发生在一年以前。目前仍然有一些需要解决的漏洞。直到他和学生都意识到他们需要做些什么的时候，他才知道有些事情没有按计划进行，同时出现了很多混乱。他预先认为会有一些困难，因为学生并不愿意为自己的学习承担责任，很多学生（以及一部分同事）觉得“讲课讲课，不讲哪是上课。”现在他有了一年的经验，他将这些经验再次用于教学当中，只会做得更好。他已经修订好教学大纲，调整好课程安排表。他计划迫不及待地想得到课程花名册，这样他可以给学生分组，开始上课。

What decisions related to organization and process would you need to make if you were going to follow Dan's lead and give problem-based learning a try?
如果你打算跟随佘教授的脚步，开始尝试基于问题的学习，你打算在组织管理和过程实施方面做哪些决定？

Some of Dan's colleagues worry that Dan covers less material using PBL. How should Dan respond to those concerns?
佘教授的某些同事担心佘在PBL教学中涉及到的材料偏少。佘如何回应这些关心？

How did Dan's course change as a result of using problem-based learning? What didn't change?

通过基于问题的学习，佘教授的课程有了哪些改变？哪些没有改变？

Constructing Groups
学生分组

A total of 27 students had pre-registered for Dan Sherman's ANTH 255 Introduction to Anthropology class. He noted that three of them were not anthropology majors. This, he mused, was a common problem. Every year, it seemed, there were a few students who did not read the course description and registered for his course mistakenly thinking it would satisfy a general education requirement. If they show up at all, they would undoubtedly drop after the first class when they found out the course is required only for majors. For the remaining students, Dan had available SAT scores, GPA's, grades in the introductory anthropology courses, their race and gender. He proceeded to assign students to different groups with the objective of maximizing heterogeneity without making any group academically unbalanced. He was particularly pleased to see so many honors students registered. There were enough to have at least one, and sometimes two, in each group. After three hours of shifting and balancing, he felt he had made five well balanced but heterogeneous groups. The average GPA for all of the students combined was within a tenth of a point of the average GPA of the students in any one of the groups. Minority students were represented in each group. No identifiable type of student was concentrated in any particular group.

一共有27名学生预先登记选修佘曼丹的人类学第255号《人类学概论》课程。他注意到其中有三个人不是人类学专业的。他相信这是一个普遍存在的问题。几乎每年都有一些学生，不看课程简介就登记他的课，并错误的认为这门课可以满足通识教育的需求。当他们弄明白这一切，特别是发现这门课只是专业必修课，他们无疑会在第一堂课之后退出。对于余下的学生，佘曼丹提供平均分形式的SAT成绩，基于学生在人类学概论课上的表现、学生的种族和性别。他进而将学生尽量打散分到不同小组当中，避免出现学术上的不平衡。他非常高兴看到有很多优等生注册他的课。每个小组至少有一个优等生，有的小组有两个。经过三个小时的转换和平衡，他认为他得到了五个足够平衡而组成均匀的小组。小组全体学生的平均标准分，是小组内每一个学生的平均标准分的十分之一。少数民族学生分散到每一个小组。没有特定类型的学生集中在一个小组。

Later Dan began to wonder whether it was worth the effort. Was he fooling himself to think that he could take a few pieces of information about each student and be able to create groups that would function well for the whole semester? Maybe he should just assign students randomly or let students choose their own groups.

随后佘曼丹开始担心这份努力是否物有所值。他是否在欺骗自己，认为可以用少量几样信息，就能将每一个学生分到恰当的小组，还能保证整个学期运作良好？或者他仅仅只需随机指派学生，或者让学生自己选择自己的小组。

What are the advantages and disadvantages of forming groups the way Dan did? Should Dan let students form their own groups?
佘曼丹采用的组件小组的方式有什么好处和坏处？佘是否应该让学生自己组建自己的小组？

Are there types of information you would not have used or other information you would want to use in constructing groups?

在组建小组的时候，你打算用哪些类型的信息，不用哪些类型的信息？

The First Class
第一课

Dan knew that the first day of class was the most important of the whole semester. It set the tone for the whole semester. Consequently, he did not want to repeat last year's mistake of lecturing about the course for the whole period. That sent entirely the wrong message, yet he still wanted to communicate what the course was about and how it was likely to be different from any other course they had encountered. He had thought this all through and was ready.

佘教授知道整个学期第一堂课很重要。它为整个学期定下基调。因此他不想重复去年的错误——满堂灌。这样教的都是错误的信息，但是他仍然想向学生传达，这门课是关于什么的，这门课与他们遇到的其他课程有多大区别。他认为经历过这个并做好了准备。

It was raining when he arrived half an hour early for the 8 a.m. class. On the board he listed the students who were in each group. He arranged the tables and chairs in this new room specifically set up for PBL teaching. (It had been a mess last year in a traditional classroom where the students didn't have room to spread out their things.) The first student arrived ten minutes before class. Dan greeted her, handed her a syllabus, asked her name, and pointed to the table where her group would be. As more students came he repeated the personal greeting and also suggested that the students in each group get to know each other because they would be together for the rest of the semester and later that period each would have to stand up and introduce a fellow group member. Because this was the first meeting of the semester, Dan waited a few extra minutes for stragglers so they wouldn't be left out even though normally he started classes right on time.

早上八点钟上课，他提前一个半小时到达，当时正下着雨。在黑板上，他列出了每个小组的学生名单。他在这间专门为PBL教学而建立的新教室布置桌椅（去年在一个传统教室内一团糟，因为学生们没有空间铺开资料）。离上课还有十分钟，第一个学生到了。佘曼丹欢迎他的到来，给他一份大纲，询问他的姓名，告诉他他的小组在哪儿。随着越来越多的学生的到来，他不断重复着个人问候，并建议每个组的学生相互了解，因为他们将要在余下的一个学期合作，以及接下来这段时间每个人都要站起来介绍下一位小组伙伴。尽管佘曼丹平时上课很准时，但因为这是这个学期的第一次聚会，他为迟到的学生多等了几分钟，这样他们不会掉队。

At 8:10 five students were still missing. (They never showed up.) Unfortunately three were from one of his planned groups. All of the non anthropology majors showed up. It turned out they planned to become anthropology majors but had not yet processed their change-of-major form. In order that he would have functioning groups, he tentatively assigned all three to the group with the missing members. Under his breath he recited Robert Burns' line about the best laid plans of mice and men. Nevertheless he forged ahead with his plan and had each student stand up and introduce the next person. This proved to be a traumatic experience for several students. Lisa, for example, was very shy. Her whisper hardly could be heard above the whir of the ventilator fan in the room. Anna had been in this country only a few years and clearly was uncomfortable speaking publicly. Jason, on the other hand, enjoyed the lime light and introduced the next student with some ill-considered "joke" about his new friend from the ghetto. After what seemed like a very long 15 minutes, Dan explained the assignment for the rest of the period.

到八点一十仍然有五名学生没有来（他们后来再也没有出现过）。不幸的是，有三个人是同一个小组的。三个非主修人类学的都来了。原来他们打算转到人类学专业，但是也没有处理他们的转专业请求。为了让所有小组正常运作，他尝试性的把这三个人都安排到缺人的小组。他低声念叨着苏格兰诗人朋思（Robert Burns,1759-1796）的《致老鼠》中的名句“智者千虑，必有一失”。不过，他仍然按计划进行，让每个学生站起来介绍下一位。对少数学生而言这是一个很痛苦的经历。比如说，李莎，就非常害羞。在教室里面换气扇的呼呼声中，几乎无法听见他的耳语声。安娜才来这个国家短短几年，明显不适应公开谈话。另一方面，贾森则有些人来疯，在介绍下一位同学的来自犹太区的新朋友时，使用了一些考虑不周的“笑话”。经过似乎非常漫长的十五分钟，佘曼丹阐述了接下来的任务。

Should Dan have done anything differently?

佘曼丹是否应该做些不同的事情？

First Class Student Concerns
第一堂课学生所关心的

Dan had each group read the syllabus with the objective of making a list of at least five items - either suggestions for improving the syllabus or questions about the course that were not answered to their satisfaction in the syllabus. After a few minutes of silence, the chatter of each group began and continued until the end of the period. Dan moved from group to group listening to the discussion and answering questions, usually with other questions that pointed the discussion in the right direction. While he had no trouble fielding the questions from each group as he visited it, his attention was distracted once when he heard some hostile remarks from another group nearby.

佘曼丹要求每个小组阅读教学大纲，并为其中至少五项列出建议或问题——要么为改进教学大纲提出建议，要么就大纲中未令他们满意的地方提出问题。经过几分钟的安静之后，每个小组都开始出现交头接耳，并一直持续到这个活动结束。佘曼丹在小组之间走动，倾听讨论，回答问题——通常回答那些为讨论指明正确方向的问题。当他认为某个小组已经没有问题的时候，他的注意力就被附近其他小组充满敌意的言辞吸引过去了。

"This, like, sucks. Really, I mean, if this guy expects me to be here at eight every morning ready to participate in some geek discussion, he's gotta be crazy. My roommate had this kind of class last semester and said the prof didn't do anything. Like, he just used the group discussions to get out of teaching." (Another male student) "Yeah, and if this weren't a required course, I'd drop it now. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I'll be happy to get a 'C.' Don't plan on me to bust my butt in the library every weekend." June, one of Dan's outspoken academic advisees, responded, "But that's unfair, if my grade depends partly on you. Why did you come to college in the first place? Maybe you ought to drop!" Several students said they would rather choose their own groups.

“这，太，恶，心，了。真的，我的意思是，如果这家伙希望我每天早上八点按时来这儿参加一群疯子讨论，他一定是疯了。我的室友上学期参加过这种课程，他说教授什么事情都不做。同样，这家伙就想用小组讨论来逃避教书。”另一个男学生：“是的，如果这不是一门必修课，我现在就想走。我不知道你们怎么想，但我非常高兴能混个及格。不要指望让我立志在图书馆度过每一个周末。”朱恩，一位受佘曼丹指导选课的直率学生，回应道：“但这不公平，因为我的评分一定程度上取决与你。起初你为什么要来上大学？也许你应该退学！”少数学生表示他们宁愿自己选择小组。

At the end of class, Dan collected the lists from each group and returned through the rain to his office where he planned to read the lists and reflect on the first class.

下课之前，佘曼丹从每个小组收集建议和问题列表，并冒雨返回办公室，他打算在那里阅读这些列表并反思这堂课。

Was a critique of the syllabus a good group activity for the first day of class?

在第一堂课批判教学大纲是否是一个好的小组活动？

What might Dan have done to make the first class better?

佘曼丹应该怎样做才能让第一堂课更出色？

Were the comments he overheard legitimate student concerns? How should he deal with them?

他无意间听到的学生争论是否正常？他应该如何处理这些学生？

Picking up the Pieces

不让一个孩子掉队

About 9:30, Jeff, an honors student who had missed class, appeared at Dan's office. He wanted a syllabus and asked if he had missed anything. Dan worked hard to conceal his anger. He asked Jeff why he had missed class. Jeff said he thought nothing important ever happens during the first class. All the professor does is hand out the syllabus, waste time talking about what everybody could read, and then dismiss class early. He then added that he celebrated the end of vacation last night, had gotten in late, and decided to sleep in when he saw it was raining. Dan was amazed by this frankness but he could see Jeff might be a big problem. Groups depend on mutual responsibility. When someone like Jeff feels he doesn't have to show up or doesn't do an assignment, it creates friction within a group.

大约九点半，杰夫，一个缺了课的优等生，来到佘曼丹的办公室。他想要一份教学大纲，问有没有错过什么东西。佘曼丹很努力的掩饰住自己的愤怒。他问杰夫为什么要缺课。杰夫说，他认为在第一堂课不会发生什么重要事情的。所有教授干的都只是分发教学大纲而已，然后浪费时间来谈论每个人都能阅读的东西，然后早早放学。然后他补充道，昨天晚上他在庆祝休假结束，很晚才回家，早上又看到正在下雨，于是决定睡懒觉。佘曼丹很惊讶于他的坦率，但是他看到杰夫可能有一个大的问题。小组依赖于相互的责任。当有人像杰夫这样，觉得自己不必到场或者不必做功课，小组内部就会产生摩擦。

What should Dan say to Jeff?

佘曼丹应该对杰夫说些什么？

Preparing for the Second Class
准备第二堂课

The group responses to the syllabus revealed a general concern. Students wanted to know why so much of their grade (20%) was for "appa" - attendance, preparation, participation, and attitude. Why, they asked, should they be graded on such things which, with the exception of attendance, were subjective and seemed irrelevant to course content? Why wasn't there a textbook? How many absences would be allowed before it affected one's grade? Was it really necessary to spend a whole class period on how to use the library because everything was easily accessible by computer? What did he mean by a "learning issue?" One group felt it was unfair to have part of one's grade be dependent on the performance of other people in the group particularly if some people were satisfied with a "C" and others were willing to work for "A's." Wouldn't the students learn more if he would simply lecture about each article and tell them what was important? What would the tests be like? Why was ANTH 255 a required course but was not a prerequisite for any other course?

小组对教学大纲的反馈透露了普遍关注的问题。学生想要知道为什么他们如此大比重的评分（20%）依赖于“APPA”——出勤、准备、参与以及态度。他们问道，为什么他们的评分要取决于这些东西？——除了出勤其他的都很主观，并且似乎与课程内容无关。为什么没有一本课本？缺课多少次会被扣分？是否真的有必要花一整节课的时间来学如何使用图书馆？因为用计算机很容易找到所有东西。他的“学习问题”是什么意思？有一个小组觉得，一个人的评分部分取决于小组内其他人的表现，这样不公平，特别是，有人得个及格就很满意，而有人却是冲着优秀去学习的。如果他肯就每一篇文章做一个简单的讲座，并告诉他们哪些是重点，学生们是否会学的更多？采用什么形式的考试？为什么人类学第255号是一门必修课，但却不是其他任何一门课程的先决条件？

How should Prof. Sherman respond to these issues at the next class?

佘教授下堂课应当如何应对这些问题？

Problems with the Groups
小组的问题

Five weeks had passed. The class was reading the third article. By now Dan knew each student and each group well. Each group had developed a character of its own. In general, Dan thought the class was going well. Compared to the previous year, he was more directive and he thought it made things better. There was less confusion about the roles of the student and the instructor. After completing each article, he lead a discussion with the whole class that dealt with the article's significance. The students participated and made comments that showed a real depth of understanding. His major concerns at this point had nothing to do with content. Two of his five groups showed signs of tension. He had received e-mail messages from several students who wanted to talk with him privately.

五个星期已经过去了。班上正在阅读第三篇文章。佘曼丹也已经熟悉了每一个学生每一个小组。每个小组都发展出自己独有的个性。什么都觉得，一般来说，这门课已经走上正轨了。与前一年相比，他管得更多一些，但他觉得这是好事。学生和教师在角色定位上的混乱少了。每读完一篇文章，他都会发起全班范围内的讨论，研究文章的中心思想。学生参与，并提出意见，意见才能真正显示学生的理解程度。他重点关注这一点而非内容本身。五个小组有两个显示出关系紧张的迹象。他收到几位学生的电子邮件，他们想同他私下谈谈。

As Dan had dreaded, Jeff continued to miss class about once a week. In the same group, Joan had missed four classes due to a broken leg. The remaining students resented Jeff because he disrupted the activities of the group. When he wasn't there he couldn't contribute and couldn't be assigned learning issues to look up. When he was there, other group members thought they wasted valuable time explaining what they had gone over the class before. This was especially annoying because Jeff was probably the brightest person in the group and easily could have helped the group considerably. One student asked if it were possible to kick someone out of the group or exclude someone from the group part of the midterm exam. Dan had to think about that.

正如他所担心的，杰夫继续缺课，大约每周一堂课。在同一个小组，小琼因为断腿缺了四节课。其余的学生很讨厌杰夫，因为他让小组难以展开活动。他不到课他就不能为小组做出贡献，也不能为他分配学习问题以供查阅。当他到课的时候，其他小组成员觉得他们浪费了大量时间来跟他解释他们在前面的课上做了些什么。可能杰夫是小组当中最活泼的人，非常愿意帮助别人，这让人特别烦。有学生问，是否有可能将某人从小组当中踢出去，或者在期中考试中将某人排除在小组之外。佘曼丹不得不考虑这个问题。

The other problem group included Jason, Anna, and Jamal. Anna was used to working hard and prepared thoroughly for each class. In most courses she quickly determined what the professor wanted, anticipated test questions, and was used to getting good grades. She claimed that "group assignments" were mostly her work and she complained that some of the students came to class without having read the assigned article. Those students expected the other students to tell them what was important. Jason jumped to conclusions, generated incorrect explanations that seemed plausible, dominated discussions, and didn't listen very well to alternate points of view. Jamal seemed to talk a lot but treated things rather superficially.

另一个问题小组涉及贾森、安娜、贾马尔三人。安娜一贯很努力，每堂课都做了充分准备。在大多数课程当中，他可以很快抓住教授的思想，预测考试题，也一直都能拿到好分数。他声称所谓的“小组功课”基本上都是他的功劳。他抱怨说有些学生没有预习指定的文章就来上课，这些学生指望其他同学告诉他们重点在哪里。贾森喜欢过早下结论，得出貌似正确的错误解释，还把持讨论，不认真倾听其他观点。贾马尔看似说的很多，但做起事来却不像看上去那么积极。

Characterize the situations in the two problem groups.
概括这两个问题小组的情况。

What could Dan have done to avoid these problems?
佘曼丹应该怎样做才能避免这些问题？

What should Dan do now?
佘曼丹现在应该做什么？

Planning the Midterm Examination
计划期中考试

Several students wanted to know, "What would be on the midterm?" Dan suggested that they look at last year's midterm at the back of their course reader. He said that their examination would be totally different from any examination they had ever had and that it would stress thinking, conceptualization, communication, and group processes.

一些学生想知道，“期中考试考些什么？”佘曼丹建议他们看看课本后面的去年期中考试题目。他说，这门课的考试完全不同于他们遇到过的其他任何考试，强调思考、概念化、交流和小组过程。

One week before the midterm examination he gave the students a new article to read. Most of the midterm would relate to this article. The groups could use any of the resources at their disposal to prepare for the examination. Resources could include other faculty in the university, students in other groups, books in the library, and the Internet. Their goal was to use the skills they had learned to understand the article thoroughly in the week they had before the examination.

期中考试前一周，他让学生阅读一篇新文章。期中考试大部分题目与这篇文章有关。小组可以动用任何资源来准备期中考试。资源包括学校里其他所有教师、其他小组的学生、图书馆的书籍，以及互联网。他们的目标是利用已学技能，在本周内深入理解这篇文章。

Such an examination could not be completed in a single one hour class period as Dan had painfully discovered last year. In order to allow for "unlimited" time for part 2, he scheduled the examination in the evening starting at 7 o'clock. The first part of the examination (50%) would have four questions to be done individually and handed in. The second part would take the last of the four questions, which was also the most difficult question from the first part, and open it up to group analysis and discussion. The question for the group part was especially important. It had to be sufficiently difficult that few, if any, students would be certain of the answer when they answered it individually in part one. On the other hand, it couldn't be too difficult or the synergistic benefits of group work would not be apparent.

佘曼丹去年痛苦的发现，这样一场考试是不可能再一个小时内完成的。为了给第二部分以足够的时间，他安排在晚上七点钟开始考试。考试的第一部分（50%）需要独立完成四道题目并当场交卷。第二部分需要通过小组分析讨论，完成另外四道题，这也是包括第一部分在内最难的部分。这些为小组设计的题目特别重要。它必须足够难，只有少数——如果还能有的话——学生能够在第一部分有把握独立得出答案。另一方面，它也不能太难，或者体现不出小组协作的效益。

Throughout the course Dan had stressed again and again to the students the importance of being able to define as precisely as possible what they didn't know but needed to know to understand an article. These were the learning issues that they had to pursue in the library and elsewhere in their efforts to comprehend each article. It was Dan's firm belief that no matter how well someone understood an article, there would be still more learning issues to pursue. This was true for him because every time he reread these articles he saw something new he hadn't appreciated before. To address this aspect of the course, the first question on the individual part of the examination asked every student to make a list of their remaining learning issues, ranked in order of importance, and justified with respect to their importance. Dan got a perverse pleasure out of asking this question for 20% of the examination grade because it permitted students to get credit for identifying what they didn't know. As he said to the students, "Knowing what you don't know, in a sense, means you know everything." Such knowledge was power because it focused one's learning where it had the most impact.

在整个教学过程中，佘曼丹一再强调，在那些为理解一篇文章而需要知道的东西当中，能够尽可能精确的定义出他们不知道的东西对于他们的重要性。这就是所谓的学习问题，他们必须在图书馆或者其他任何地方，都要努力做到充分理解每一篇文章。佘曼丹坚信，不管一个人对一篇文章理解得多么好，总会有更多的学习问题需要去解决。对他而言这就是事实，因为每次重读这些文章他总能看到一些他以前不曾领会的新东西。针对课程的这个方面，考试的个人部分的第一个题目，要求每个学生列出他们余下的学习问题列表，按照重要程度排序，并说明其重要的理由。佘曼丹有些不怀好意地将这道题设置了20%的分数，因为这可以让学生因为他们不知道什么而获得学分。正如他告诉学生的，“知道你们不知道，在某种意义上讲，意味着你们知道一切。”这种知识最具威力，因为它关注它最具影响力的领域，学习。

What issues did Dan's examination address that aren't normally addressed in a midterm examination?
佘曼丹的期中考试涉及到那个问题，是一般期中考试不会涉及的？

What problems might be anticipated with this type of examination?
这类考试能够预见到哪些问题？

Grading the Midterm Examination

期中考试评分

Dan thought the examination went really well. Everybody seemed to participate. Students debated issues back and forth. Nobody left early. In fact, the last group left at 10:40! Now while the students were off enjoying their Spring Break, Dan faced several days of grading.

佘曼丹认为，这次考试进行得很好。每个人似乎都参与进去了。学生们来回争论问题。没有人早退。事实上，最后一个小组在十点四十才离开！现在，学生们正在享受他们的春假，而佘曼丹需要花上数天时间评分。

For many years, Dan had rejected multiple choice and short answer examinations because he felt they didn't reveal how much the students really understood. But grading essay examinations was painful and time consuming. He concluded that there was no way to evaluate answers objectively. Some students seemed to understand but they couldn't communicate their understanding. Some students took paragraphs to explain what others could say in a sentence. How should he deal with peripheral misinformation or beautifully written wrong answers? How could he explain to a student why the "quality" of his answer was poor? Dan read and reread each answer, compared student answers, and finally assigned numerical grades to each answer. A real dilemma arose when Dan graded the group part of the examination. Jason's group had completely blown the second part of the examination. They got only 20 out of 50 points. Everybody's answer read the same and their group answer was almost the same as Jason's answer to that question on the individual part of the examination. Was it fair to add the grades from both parts of the examination? After all there was an element of chance here and why should everyone in a group be penalized? Most of all Dan was concerned about Anna. She had done rather well on the individual part of the examination but, when the group part was added to her grade, she was in the bottom 25% of the class. He knew this would upset her totally. Furthermore it didn't reflect what she had learned in the course or the contributions she had made to the group.

多年以来，佘曼丹一直坚持拒绝在考试中使用多选题和简答题，因为他觉得这些题目不能体现出学生的理解程度。但是对考试作文的评分既痛苦也耗时。他总结说，改作文的时候没有办法客观的评估答案。某些学生似乎理解了，但是他们不能表达他们的理解。某些学生用上一段话来解释别人一句话就能说明白的东西。他应当如何处理肤浅的错误信息或者优美的错误答案？他应当如何向一个学生解释为什么他的“答案”质量很差？佘曼丹反复阅读每一份答卷，比较学生的答案，最后为每一份答案给出一个分值。当佘曼丹批改小组试卷时，一个两难局面出现了。贾森小组完全毁掉了他们的第二卷。他们仅得了50分里的20分。每个人的答案都是一样的，而且他们的小组答案几乎和贾森个人部分试卷的答案完全一样。两部分考试成绩相加得到总成绩是否公平？毕竟这里有一丝机会，为什么小组里的每一个人都要受到处罚？最主要的是，佘曼丹很担心安娜。他在个人部分完成得很好，但一旦把小组分加到他的成绩中，他就处在班上后四分之一当中。他知道这肯定会让安娜心烦意乱。而且，这个分数并不能反映出他在这门课中学到了什么，或者他为小组所做的贡献。

Jeff's group revealed another pattern. After discussing the group problem, they couldn't come to agreement and so they decided to hand in individual answers. Although there were similarities, each student's answer on the group part was distinct. Jeff in fact had done very well - the best in the group. Apparently he couldn't communicate or couldn't convince his group of the correctness of his answers. Considering Jeff's frequent absences, it didn't seem fair that he got one of the highest scores in the class.

杰夫小组则显示出另外一种情况。经过对小组问题的讨论，他们无法达成一致，因此他们觉得上交个人部分答案。虽然有些相似，但每个学生的小组部分答案都很独特。事实上杰夫做得最好——小组中最好的。显然，他无法表明，或者无法说服他的小组相信他的答案是正确的。考虑到杰夫的频繁缺课，他得到班上最高分似乎不公平。

Did the midterm examination test what Dan wanted it to test?

佘曼丹想通过这次期中考试测试什么？

Why did Anna do better on the individual part of the examination?

为什么安娜在个人部分考试做得比较好？

Are the patterns on the group part of the midterm related to the difficulties within the groups prior to the examination?

期中考试的小组部分出现的局面是否与考试之前的小组里的困难有关？

Grading Students and the Professor

评定学生与教授

The final examination followed the format of the midterm examination except that Dan asked each group to analyze and interpret results from an article they had not seen before but which related to several conceptual themes followed through the course. He had told them to expect such a question. The students performed very well and their grades reflected that. Seventy-two percent of his class got A's or B's. That compared with only 45% in the previous year. Dan struggled with this apparent grade inflation and so did his chairman. Had he lowered his standards? Did he need to raise his standards? Would it be fair to students who had taken the course previously but had suffered because he had not handled group process issues very well? Would his colleagues think he was getting soft and had confused content issues with process issues?

期末考试沿用期中考试的形式，只是佘曼丹给每个小组一篇他们之前没看过的文章，其中涉及完成该课程需要的几个概念上的主题，要求他们分析并作出解释。他曾告诉过他们会有这样一道题。学生们表现得非常好，他们的分数也表现了这一点。班上72%的学生得到优或者良。与之相比上一年只有45%. 佘曼丹很反感这种明显的分数增长，系主任也是如此。他是否降低了标准？他是否需要提高标准？因为之前他没有很好地处理小组过程问题，这对以前选修这门课但受到影响的学生公平么？他的同事们是否会认为他已经变软弱，并已混淆内容问题和过程问题？

Two weeks after the end of the semester, the chairman, who had noticed the increase in the student's grades, called Dan into his office. He wanted Dan to explain why the grades this year were out of line with the grades he had given in previous years. In addition, he showed Dan an anonymous letter written by a student who complained that Prof. Sherman expected students to learn on their own and to spend too much time in the library tracking down obscure facts. The student also said that the grades were totally subjective and didn't reflect what each student knew or had learned in the course.

学期结束后两个星期，系主任注意到学生分数的大幅提高，把佘曼丹叫到他办公室。他希望佘曼丹解释为什么这一年的分数比他上一年提交的分数高出一大截。另外，他向佘曼丹出事了一封学生写的匿名信，信中抱怨佘教授希望学生在课余时间也要学习，同时花了太多的时间在图书馆调查一些晦涩的论据。该学生还说，这次的评分完全是主观的，并没有反应每个学生在课程中掌握或学到的东西。

Were the chairman's concerns about the higher grades Dan gave this year legitimate?
系主任对佘曼丹所给的较高分数的关注是否合法？

How should Dan respond to the chairman's questions and the student's letter?

佘曼丹应当如何应对系主任的问题和学生的来信？

Student Evaluations
评价学生

Dan compared the student responses this year to those of the last year, when he first used problem-based learning, and to earlier years when the course had a predominantly lecture format. While the evaluations improved over the previous year and were generally good, they were not as good as when he had lectured. This troubled him because it seemed that the course in its current format was superior to the earlier format. If this were a general phenomena reflecting some reluctance by students to take responsibility for their learning, would other faculty really want to jeopardize their ratings in a change to a problem-based approach? Considering the midterm fiasco and the group component of each student's grade, Dan could understand why the students felt uncertain about what grade they would get in the course, and he wondered whether that concern influenced their responses to other questions.

佘曼丹比较了今年和去年他第一次使用基于问题的学习时学生的反应，以及早些年该课程主要采用讲座形式时候学生的反应。虽然评价方式在去年的基础上作了改进，也取得了好成绩，但并没有采用讲座形式的成绩好。这很困扰他，因为看上去这门课现在的教学形式要优于以前的教学形式。如果某些学生厌恶为自身的学习承担责任，这是一个普遍现象的话，那么其他教员是否愿意因为改变到基于问题的教学方法，而危害到自身的评价？考虑到期中考试的惨败，以及每个学生分数中的小组因素，佘曼丹可以理解为什么学生觉得在这门课中他们无法肯定自己能得到什么分数，他很想知道这种不肯定是否影响到他们对其他问题的答复。

Should Dan return to a lecture format the next time he teaches ANTH-255?
佘曼丹在下一次教授人类学第255号课程的时候，是否应该回到讲座形式？

Comments, suggestions, or requests to ud-pbl@udel.edu.
所有评论、建议或要求，请致函……

"http://www.udel.edu/pbl/dancase3.html"
Last updated July 12, 1997.最后更新1997-07-12
Copyright To Improve the Academy, 1996.

版权：改善高校，1996

Reprinted from White, H. B. (1996). L. Richlin (Ed), To Improve the Academy Vol. 15 (pp. 75 - 91). Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press and the Professional and Organizational Network in Higher Education.
转载自怀特，H·B（1996），L·瑞琪琳（教育），《改善高校》第十五卷（第75-91页）。斯蒂尔沃特，OK：新的论坛新闻与高等教育中的专业与组织网络。

http://www.udel.edu/pbl/dancase3.html

2008年1月30日星期三

The present and future of Personal Learning Environments (PLE)

个人学习环境（PLE）的现在与未来

This post is recast from an assignment I completed about four months ago in a Masters Degree course entitled Innovative Practice and Emerging ICT, in which I investigated what PLEs are meant to be and where they might be going. It was originally part of a class wiki.

这篇文章是我从四个月前完成的一份硕士研究生课程作业重写而来，原来题目是《信息与通信技术的创新实践与发展》在文章中我调查PLE的意义和趋势。它是课程维基的原始部分。

Introduction

导言

A definition for the term Personal Learning Environment (PLE), remains elusive. Conception about what should constitute a PLE depends on the perspective of the commentator. For example, the priorities for a PLE are different for a tertiary student, a university administrator, an instructor, a working professional, or an adult who persues an eclectic path of lifelong learning. Metaphorically, an individual may engage in a learning process that is either more acquisitional or participatory (Sfard, 1998). There are inconsistencies across these positions about what a PLE should do. But whether constructively and defensively, interest in PLE appears to be growing.

关于个人学习环境（PLE）的定义，至今仍未明确。关于由什么构成PLE的概念，完全取决于定义者的视角。比如，PLE的优先级就和大专生、大学行政人员、教师、专家或者一个追求终生学习的折衷道路的成年人，就完全不同。隐喻，个体在参与到学习过程当中，不是有所收获就是得到参与（Sfard，1998）。关于PLE应该发挥什么作用，各家看法不一致。但对于PLE的建设性和防守性的兴趣都在增长。

At the time of writing this introduction (August 2006), no particular product or service exists that can definitively be categorised as a PLE, although some prototypical work is in progress. An inclusive, authoritative account about PLEs does not yet exist. Only a handful of articles have appeared in the academic and public press about PLEs since the term gained currency in 2004. This article has been compiled after tracking recent conversations in the blogosphere and following social bookmarks.

在写这份导言的时候（2006年8月），还没有可以明确称为PLE的产品存在，虽然有些原型工作正在进展当中。一个关于PLE的具有包容性、权威性的报告尚不存在。自从2004年开始出现PLE这个词汇以来，只有学术界和新闻出版界有极少数文章提及。本文是在参考blogosphere中的对话及相关社会书签后完成的。

Towards a Definition

定义

The following definition is intended to introduce the general nature of PLEs:

以下定义试图介绍PLE的一般性质：

a Personal Learning Environment is a facility for an individual to access, aggregate, configure and manipulate digital artefacts of their ongoing learning experiences.
个人学习环境是一个工具集，可以令个体在其进行学习体验过程中访问、聚集、配置和操控数字化产品。

This definition captures the following salient aspects, which seem to be common across all current viewpoints:

该定义抓住了以下几个突出方面，他们在当前所有观点中均有涉及：

PLEs are effectively controlled by the individual, thus decoupled from institutional portals like university Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) or workplace Learning Management Systems (LMS) for which the design goals are in response to institutional requirements.
PLE通过个体进行有效控制，因此从依照体制要求而设计的大学虚拟学习环境（VLE）或者工作场所的学习管理系统（LMS）等传统门户中脱离出来。
The artefacts operated upon through PLEs include the digital resources and references with which individuals wish to engage presently and perhaps recall in the future. Resources include not only static text and media but also dynamic services and their artefacts, such as instant messaging, online forum and weblog conversations. Whereas an ePortfolio contains actual assets for the purpose of reflection, assessment or self-promotion, the PLE includes a broader repository that also includes links and commentary for all three purposes.
这些通过PLE处理的数字化产品，包括个体希望当前使用的、打算将来在使用的数字化资源和引文。资源不仅仅包括静态文本和媒体，也包括动态服务及其相关产品，比如，实时聊天、在线论坛以及博客留言讨论。电子档案袋具有便于反思、评估或自我促进的具体优点，但PLE具有更广泛的环境，可以包含前面三个目的的连接和评论。
The primary goal of a PLE for an individual is to bring all the disparate artefacts of interest for learning under a single operating roof. The presumption is that there are many artefacts, organising them is time-consuming and it's easy to forget about or lose them. PLEs are meant to simplify managing these artefacts, creating meaning through aggregation, linking and metadata tagging (eg comments, keywords).
对于个人，PLE的首要目的是就是将因为学习而感兴趣的所有不相干的东西聚拢到同一个操作平台中去。可以肯定，有很多种东西，要将其组织起来很费时间，也很容易遗忘或丢失。PLE意味着简化对这些东西的管理，通过聚合、链接和元数据标签（比如注释、关键词）为其创建意义。
A PLE integrates with the digital services to which the individual currently subscribes. These could be the university VLE, the workplace LMS or a collection of so-called Web 2.0 services like social bookmarking or photo sharing.
PLE使这种数字化服务与个人当前订阅的其他服务成为一体。可能是大学VLE，工作场所的LMS，或者一些所谓的web2.0服务，比如社会化书签或者照片共享服务。
A PLE spans the various learning experiences to which an individual subscribes throughout life. High school students may begin to operate their own PLE, hooking it into their school's VLE. Upon university entrance, it could be connected to the university VLE. If entering professional practice, the individual could then link the PLE to workplace learning and professional development facilities. All the while, the individual may wish to link selectively to an evolving parade of Web 2.0 services which are found to be useful for enabling personal growth and learning.
PLE覆盖个人赞同的多种学习体验，伴随终身。高中生可以开始经营他们自己的PLE，挂接到他们学校的VLE上。进入大学以后，也可以连接到大学的VLE。进入专业实践以后，个体可以将其PLE与工作场所的学习与专业发展平台相挂钩。在进行这些的同时，个体可能希望有选择性的链接到一个不断演化的web2.0服务序列当中去，而这些服务被认为是对个人的成长和学习是有益的。

This diagram shows how PLEs are situated at the intersection of VLEs, Web 2.0 and an expanded view of ePortfolios.

该图像显示了PLE是如何位于VLE、web2.0和扩展的电子档案袋的交集的。

Driving Forces

动力

How a PLE might ultimately be deployed is bracketed by the forces driving its evolution and the barriers to acceptance.

PLE最终将如何部署，取决于它自身演化的动力以及认可的障碍。

The structure, features and policies of most VLE implementations tend to perpetuate the traditional instructivist models of education. The primary purpose of the systems is to organise course content for transmission to enrolled students. Only some VLEs provide shared file areas and collaborative facilities like chat and discussion forums. In universities, VLEs often act as secure gateways to digital indexes and research journals. Unless students manually copy materials out of the VLE walled garden, all traces of their learning experience through the VLE are lost once they complete their studies.

绝大多数VLE实施过程中的结构、特征以及政策倾向于延续传统的教育教学模式。系统的主要目的是为选课的学生传输课程内容而组织课程内容。只有某些VLE提供文件共享区域和协作措施，比如聊天室和论坛。在大学里，VLE常常被当作通向数字化索引和研究期刊的安全接口。学生只能手工复制VLE围墙花园以外的资料，一旦他们完成学习，通过VLE对他们学习体验的所有记录都将丢失。

The notion of a PLE arose in response to the technical and policy constraints imposed by institutionalised VLEs and LMSs in both educational and workplace settings, which are perceived to impede personal learning choices. University administrators view access to external web services as a risk to the institution rather than an affordance for learners and faculty. Hence, they prefer the more limited view of PLEs as a configurable extension to a VLE, especially when they continue to see themselves as the monopoly technology service providers for their learning community (eg online enrolment, email addresses).

PLE的观念出现在教育场所和工作环境里的制度化VLE和LMS的技术和政策方面的强制约束的响应，这种约束被认为是对个人学习选择的阻碍。大学行政人员将访问外部网络服务视作对制度的危害，而非学生和教员的？？？。因此，他们宁愿将PLE看作VLE的一个有诸多限制的可配置扩展，特别是在他们继续把自己看作他们的学习社区（比如在线入学、邮件地址）的垄断性技术服务提供商的时候。

In North America the commercial vendors of VLEs dominate. There are unconfirmed media reports that the VLEs supplied by Blackboard Inc. serve over two thirds of all universities in Australia and New Zealand. On the other hand, in Europe more sites use inhouse and open source implementations (Vuorikari, 2003).

在北美，商业VLE公司占主导。有未经证实的媒体报道，blackboard公司提供的VLE占到了澳大利亚和新西兰大学的三分之二。另一方面，欧洲更多网站使用内部的和开源的解决方案（Vuorikari，2003）

In January 2006, Blackboard Inc., the leading commercial vendor of academic VLEs, was granted US patent 6,988,138 on "Internet-based education support system and methods", even though there is evidently a long history of virtual learning environments. It does not appear that the patent, if enforced, has any direct bearing on the emergence of PLEs, although the patent action may foster a backlash against VLEs.

在2006年元月，Blackboard公司，学术VLE的领导性商业提供者，共获得“基于互联网的教育支持系统和方法”方面的美国专利698,8138件，即使这很明显涉及到虚拟学习环境的历史。这并不看得出，这些专利，如果强制的话，能够对PLE的出现起到任何直接影响，虽然这些专利行动可能会引起反VLE势力的高涨。

Interestingly, some faculties have implemented and manage their own VLEs which are more dynamic, more concerned with learning experiences and are publicly-licensed products (eg .LRN, Moodle, Plone, Drupal, Sakai). These allow custom extensions, which may pave the way for the development of open APIs for connection by PLEs.

有意思的是，某些院系已经实施和部署了他们自己的更加灵活、更加关注学习体验的VLE，并且都是公开授权产品（比如 .LRN, Moodle, Plone, Drupal, Sakai ）。这些产品允许定制扩展，这为开发连接到PLE的开放API铺平了道路。

Enlightened educational practice has increasingly embraced student-centred learning. This includes the assignment of tasks with an open, constructivist foundation, where students push learning forward through active collaboration, problem-solving, investigation and discovery, creating meaning on their own terms. Where the Web serves as an avenue of inquiry, it seems natural that part of the student-centredness should be in the choice and configuration of tools for action. This is the space for a PLE.

开明的教育实践逐渐拥抱以学生为中心的学习。这包括以建构主义为理论基础的开放式任务的功课，让学生通过积极协作、解决问题、调查与发现、用他们自己的话语创建知识，从而在学习中进步。在这里，网页服务成为调查的渠道，是以学生为中心的必不可少的一部分，应该存在于为行动而选择和配置的工具之中。这就是一个PLE的空间。

So far, discussion about PLEs has emanated primarily from academic circles, who recognise that there are learning opportunities with some Web 2.0 services.

到目前为止，有关PLE的讨论主要来自学术界，他们认识到，某些web2.0服务能够为他们的学习带来机会。

The use of ePortfolio (electronic portfolio) software and services is well established in many higher education jurisdictions, with administrators having set policies for their use (primarily for assessment). If PLEs are viewed simply as an extension of ePortfolios, then acceptance of them may be more assured.

电子档案袋软件和服务，已经很好的使用在许多高等教育管理机构当中，行政人员为他们的使用（主要是用于评估）制定政策。如果PLE仅仅被看作是电子档案袋的一个扩展，那么他们接受起来会更放心。

Adults who engage in relatively unstructured inquiry or informal learning, for reasons of professional or skills development or general interest, could benefit from tools and techniques to organise their endeavours. At this stage, there is little anecdotal evidence of interest in this area. However, the possibilities may simply not be widely known yet.

处于专业或技能开发或者一般兴趣，成年人从事相对松散的查询或非正式学习，可以通过努力从工具和技术中获得利益。在这个阶段这个领域的兴趣，有一个小小的八卦证据。然而，这种可能性很简单的还未广为人知。

For each online service, an individual's identity must be provided for each session. On one's regular personal computer, identity retention alleviates the problem by availing cookies and field prefills, including passwords. But this advantage is lost when using multiple computers. So organising one's personal learning through a variety of web-based services involves managing multiple login names and passwords. A PLE could alleviate the daily problem of login identification by storing and safeguarding the data for automatic application. This problem could also be eased by developments in Identity 2.0, an evolving standards-based scheme in which an individual's single, unique, verifiable web identity claim could be applied to securely grant access to multiple web services.

对于每一个在线服务的每一次任务，个人都必须提供身份。如果某人经常使用某台计算机，利用cookies和外部预先填充功能保存身份和密码缓解了这个问题。但是，当使用多台计算机的时候这种优势便丧失了。所以，通过多个基于网页的服务组织某人的个人学习，会导致管理多个登录名和密码的问题。PLE可以通过存储和维护自动应用程序的数据，从而缓解登录确认的问题。这个问题也可以通过正在发展中的Identity2.0进行缓解，一个不断发展的，基于标准的方案——个人的单人的、唯一的、可验证的网上身份声明，可以用于安全的访问多个网页服务。

Software development companies are keen to make their product or service a nexus of attention. Whilst some learners may persist with the DIY approach to organising the scattered pieces of their learning environment, companies would rather see a PLE promoted as a particular product or service which solve the problem of that messiness. This applies not just to software for personal computers, but also for mobile PDAs.

软件开发公司乐于他们自己的产品或者服务受到关注。当某些学习者坚持采用自己动手的方式组织管理他们学习环境的各个零散部分的时候，商业公司更愿意看到PLE作为一个特定产品或服务，来解决这种混乱局面。不仅仅是用于个人计算机的软件，也可以用于移动PDA。

Developments to Date

发展

A WebTop is a new class of web-served applications enabling single-screen one-click preconfigured access to other web services which can be nominated by the user, for example photo sharing (eg FlickR), online calendar, weblogs, integrated feed aggregator, online word processor (eg Google Writely), shared spreadsheet (eg Google Spreadsheet), shared whiteboard (eg GE Imagination Cubed), social bookmarking (eg del.icio.us, Furl) and consolidated productivity services (eg Zoho). So far they are primarily aimed at business users, but many of their features match what is prescribed for a PLE. Examples include YouOS, 30Boxes and NetVibes.

网络桌面是一类新型的网页服务应用，在同一屏幕内，点击一次预先设置好的配置，就可以进入用户指定的其他网页服务，如照片共享（如Flickr）、在线日历、网络日志、整合型订阅源阅读软件、在线文字处理软件（如Google Docs）、共享电子表格（如Google Spreadsheet）、共享白板（如GE Imagination Cubed）、社会化书签（比如del.icio.us、Furl）以及综合办公服务（如Zoho）。到目前为止这些都主要是针对企业用户，但是其中许多特征与PLE要求相符。网络桌面的实例包括YouOs、30Boxes和NetVibes。

A Mashup is like a WebTop, but the web services are combined much more tightly so that data from one is used to access information in another. A simple example is the integration of weblog with an embedded online calendar. In a more advanced, customised example, data from a particular Google Spreadsheet could be fed into Google Earth. A PLE could be implemented as a mashup.

混搭，类似于网络桌面，但是这种网络服务结合得更紧密，使得一个服务的数据可以是另一个服务访问的信息。将网络日志和嵌入式在线日历聚合在一起就是一个简单例子。在另一个更高级、用户定制程度更高的例子当中，一个特定Google电子表格的数据可以注入到Google Earth。PLE可以以混搭的形式实现。

The open source Mozilla FireFox browser has been extended by Flock to create a WebTop which integrates your browser with your weblog and other web services.

Flock将开源的Mozilla FireFox 浏览器扩展成一个网络桌面，将你的网络日志和其它网络服务整合进你的浏览器当中。

Some edubloggers have expressed the view that PLEs exist already in an ad hoc manner. Through their weblogs, they reflect on their own work and experiences and link to others. Through mashing into their weblog templates, they can directly open their own social bookmarks, images and other web services to which they subscribe. They use publicly-accessible server space to store and share files.

一些教育博客表达了这样一个看法，即PLE已经以一种特定的方式存在着。他们通过网络日志，反思自己的工作和体验，并链接到其他人。通过嵌入到他们日志模板的应用，他们可以直接打开他们自己的社会书签、图像和他们订阅的其他网页服务。他们使用可以公开访问的网络空间存储并分享这些文件。

If an individual has enough server space available, with the right software facilities in place, plone or Drupal could be installed and employed as a PLE. These are content management systems (CMS) which handle many types of content including a wiki. Third-party modules may be added (eg KNotes weblog). This wiki entry about Personal Learning Environments is presented by a customised implementation of plone.

如果个人有足够可用的服务器空间，在适当的地方使用正确的软件工具的话，那么plone或者Drupal可以作为PLE而安装部署。这些都是内容管理系统（CMS），可以处理许多类型的内容，包括维基。可以增加第三方模块（比如KNotes 网络日志）。有关个人学习环境的维基条目由plone用户提供。

From late 2005 at Bolton University in the UK, A JISC-funded and CETIS-sponsored team are designing a reference model for a PLE. Through the project they will define the scope, review the theory, come up with scenarios (use cases), look for and document patterns, and define some specifications. All the while, the programming part of the team build some prototype software to see if it all makes sense. This prototype is called PLEX. Their project wiki offers the most comprehensive consideration about PLEs currently available. (Milligan, 2005)

自2005年底起，在英国博尔顿大学，一个由英国联系信息系统委员会（JISC）资助、教育技术互用性标准中心（CETIS）赞助的团队正在设计一个PLE的参考模型。通过这个项目，他们定义了范围、审查了理论，提出了方案（使用情况），建立了文档模型，并确定了一些规格。自始至终，该团队的程序组建立了一些原型软件，检查这些是否合理。该原型被称作PLEX。其项目维基对于当前可用的PLE提供了最全面的思考。（Milligan，2005）

The concept of an ePortfolio emerged from the paper-based folio used by design students for over half a century. By the mid-1990s, students began uploading examples of their work and linking them statically to their home pages, creating webfolios. Database-driven server-side applications (and the tools to build them) matured by the end of the millennium. By 2002, there was feverish activity to create ePortfolios as personalised learning content management systems. (Batson, 2002) Whether developed in-house or by software vendors, many higher education institutions began to implement them. Most ePortfolios are intended for document management, retrieval and presentation. (EduTools, 2006). Products offer various features for organisation, annotation, document linking, reflection, collaboration, formatting, goal setting, reporting, import/export and communication. Some are components of VLEs (eg Blackboard ePortfolio). Importantly, almost all ePortfolio products are licensed by institutions rather than individuals. Therefore, they are neither portable nor interoperable.

电子档案袋概念的出现，来自于使用了超过半个世纪的、为学生设计的、基于纸张的对开文件夹。1990年代中期开始，学生们开始上传他们功课范例并静态链接到他们的主页上，由此创造了网上文件夹。到了千禧年底，数据库驱动的服务器端应用程序（以及创建它们的响应工具）成熟。2002年开始，有尝鲜者创建电子档案袋作为个人学习内容管理系统（Batson，2002）。不管是由企业内部还是有软件开发商开发，许多高等教育机构开始部署电子档案袋。多数电子档案袋都是起到文档管理检索与展示的功能（EduTools，2006）。产品为组织、注解、文档的链接、反思、组合、格式化、全局设置、报告、导入/导出以及交流提供了各种功能。其中某些是VLE（如Blackboard 电子档案袋）的组件。重要的是，几乎所有电子档案袋产品都是由专业机构开发，而非个人。因此，他们既不是便携式，也不可彼此协作。

Barriers

障碍

In the absence of a new product or service, only those who are tech-savvey with a willingness to tinker will consider integrating their learning world through a wiki or a weblog. Whilst this is much easier than it used to be, thanks to templated software, it is unlikely that a large percentage of people will take this up.

在缺乏新产品或服务的时候，只有那些勇于尝试的、具有技术头脑的人，才会考虑利用维基或者网络日志将其学习世界整合起来。由于有模板化软件，现在这比以前要容易，但仍然不大可能有很高比例的人这样做。

For PLE software and services to be useful for students who must deal with a VLE, VLEs must provide the capability to interoperate. This requires that VLEs make secure software gateways (eg. APIs) available. It is unlikely that commercial VLEs are willing to distribute their control of the learning environment and provide flexibility, preferring instead to keep users within their proprietary range. In March 2006, Blackboard Inc. announced plans (Blackboard Beyond Initiative) to create network to connect users and alumni of their worldwide implementations, including proprietary social networking, personalisation, file sharing and ePortfolio presentation. It is in their commercial interest to cast their proprietary net as far and wide as possible.

要想PLE软件或者服务对学生有用，他就必须使用能够提供互操作功能的VLE。这就要求VLE提供安全的软件接口（如API）。商业VLE不大可能放开对学习环境的控制，变得更加灵活，他们更愿意将用户限制在他们的专利权范围内。在2006年3月，Blackboard公司宣布（Blackboard超越倡议书）计划在世界范围内创建连接用户和校友的网络，包括专有的社会网络、个性化、文件共享和电子档案袋介绍。到目前为止他们的商业兴趣在于尽可能广泛的投入到他们的专有网络当中。

On the other hand, such gateways for open source VLEs could appear and be implemented subject to institutional approval. But standardisation (aside from RSS feeds from within the VLE environment) is improbable, with each VLE having its own processing and storage idiosyncrasies. So the market will rely on developers providing separate plug-ins for each VLE, to mash into the learner's PLE. The prospect of a lot of moving parts seems unassailable.

另一方面，这些用于开源VLE的接口的出现和实施容易得到机构批准。但是很难做到标准化（不仅仅是来自VLE环境内部的RSS订阅源），因为每一套VLE都由他自己特色的处理过程和存储方式。因此市场需要依赖于开发者为每一套VLE提供专门的插件，从而混搭进学习者的PLE。想要有大量通用组件的愿望基本上是不可能实现的。

The issue of intellectual property and the management of digital rights looms large. Copies of research papers from subscribed journals may be located in a walled VLE for access by a particular cohort. But does subsequently peeling them into or referencing them from a PLE stretch the licence too far? These issues need to be addressed.

知识产权和数码版权管理问题很严重。在有访问限制的VLE内部，期刊中研究论文的副本只有特定人群才可以访问。但是接下来PLE对资料进行的剥离或参考使得这种授权能延伸多远？这些问题需要加以解决。

People fear putting all their eggs in one basket. Users must be able to export their PLE repository in some generic format for safekeeping, especially if the PLE is a web service.

人们害怕风险集中。出于安全起见，用户必须可以以某种常规格式导出他们的PLE数据，特别是如果该PLE是一个网页服务。

PLEs may be seen as an extension of ePortfolios, but the latter are rarely used beyond school. The perception of ePortfolios as merely a presentation layer for stored digital assets must be stretched if PLEs are to be seen as their natural successor.

PLE可以被看作是电子档案袋的扩展，但是后者很少在学校以外的场合使用。电子档案袋仅仅是可存储的数字化资产的一个表象，如果PLE被看作他们的自然继承者，那么这种观念必须被扩展。

Future Potential

潜力

Because developments about PLEs are at such an embryonic stage, it would not be prudent to predict with too much conviction what will happen. Many published forecasts of technology adoption draw a line from current work as if the technology is determined to succeed (eg EDUCAUSE & New Media Consortium, 2006). But the barriers are significant, not least due to the lack of a clear vision of what a PLE should do.

因为PLE的开发还处于萌芽阶段，还不能准确的预测将会发生什么。许多已发表的技术性预测采用与当前工作划清界限的办法，好像这样一来技术就一定会成功一样（比如EDUCAUSE与新媒体联盟，2006）。虽然道路是艰辛的，但至少不会缺少PLE应该做什么的清晰目标。

The success of PLEs (those which are independent of commercial VLEs) will depend on:

PLE的成功（都是独立的商业VLE）取决于：

the ease with which they can be implemented and used by learners
易于部署、易于学习者的使用
interoperability
互操作性好
the confidence that learners and institutional administrators have with them.
学习者和行政人员对他们的信心。

While some prescribe a vision for learning which promotes pedagogies consistent with social constructivism (Dalsgaard 2006), getting there is quite another matter. As with any paradigm shift, the biggest barrier to technological revolution lies in the political and commercial inertia of the status quo. Many commentators believe it can only occur through grass-roots effort which will bootstrap a new market. (This is what occurred with ePortfolios.)

虽然有一些PLE为学习指明了方向，促使教学法与社会建构主义相一致（Dalsgaard 2006），但要真正做到又是另外一回事。与任何变化一样，技术革命的最大障碍来自于当下的政策和商业习惯。许多评论者相信，要形成一个全新的市场，只能通过草根阶层的努力（这也是电子档案袋身上发生的事情）。

In the next year we should see a consolidation of views about what constitutes a PLE. There are benefits to both web-served (ie. like webtops) and desktop solutions, so surely hybrids will appear.

在未来的一年里，我们应该看到，关于有哪些部分构成的PLE的看法将得到统一。网络服务（比如网络桌面等）和桌面解决方案都能获益，因此两者的混合体也一定会出现。

It is probable that within the next year pilot PLE projects will appear which will mash configurable access to Web 2.0 services into online ePortfolio-type environments. The next hurdle will be for higher education teachers to recommend that students obtain individual licences for these first-generation PLEs in conjuction with or as replacements to institutional ePortfolios. This shift will not be tivial, as there will be resistance to institutional policy change regarding the use of ePortfolios. Publicly-funded PLE projects will be more readily accepted.

很有可能在接下来的一年里，导航型PLE项目即将出现，它可以将可配置访问的web2.0服务混搭进在线电子档案袋类型的环境中。下一个障碍将是给高校教师推荐，学生从第一代PLE获得个人授权，从而结合或替换传统的电子档案袋。这种转变很关键，因为这将对电子档案袋的使用相关传统政策形成阻力。政府资助的PLE项目将更容易被接受。

This should kick-start efforts to create gateway APIs and plug-ins into open source VLEs, which can then be mashed in too. This development will be difficult and take considerable time. The success of this integration will be a determining factor in the viability of PLEs as a widely-used product. It will probably take at least three years for a PLE platform to become stable and a critical mass to have the confidence to take advantage of the technology.

应该努力为开源VLE创建接口API和插件，这些都可以混搭进PLE中。这些开发可能会很困难，很耗时间。整合成功与否将成为该PLE是否广泛使用的一个很重要因素。这将花费这些PLE平台至少三年时间，使其更稳定，让人开始有信心去利用这些技术。

References

参考

Batson, T. (2002). The Electronic Portfolio Boom: What's it All About?," Campus Technology. Accessed 31 Aug 2006 from http://www.campustechnology.com/article.asp?id=6984

Dalsgaard, C. (2006). Social software: E-learning beyond learning management systems, European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 12 July 2006. Accessed 31 Aug 2006 from http://www.eurodl.org/materials/contrib/2006/Christian_Dalsgaard.htm.

EDUCAUSE & New Media Consortium (2006). 2006 Horizon Report. Accessed 25 July 2006 from http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=CSD4387

EduTools. (2006). ePortfolio: EduTools ePortfolio Review. Accessed 31 Aug 2006 from http://www.edutools.info/static.jsp?pj=16&page=HOME

Milligan, C. (2005) Colin Milligan Weblog, elgg.net. Accessed 31 Aug 2006 from http://elgg.net/cdmilligan/weblog/3720.html

Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors of learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher, 27(2), 4-13.

van Harmelen, M. (2006). Personal Learning Environments. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT'06), IEEE.

Vuorikari, R. (2003). Virtual Learning Environments for European Schools, a Survey and Commentary", European SchoolNet, EUN Consortium, Brussels.

Vuorikari, R. (2005). Can personal digital knowledge artefacts' management and social networks enhance learning? European SchoolNet, EUN Consortium, Brussels. Accessed 31 Aug 2006 from http://elgg.net/riina/files/-1/1444/social_networks_learning_vuorikari_22_9_2005.pdf.

Web Links

链接

All web links are current at 31 Aug 2006 (see document source to view all URIs)

所有链接均为2006年8月31日链接（阅读文档源代码可查看所有链接）

To follow current conversations about PLEs, start with the following del.icio.us tags:

本文中有关PLE的资料，在美味书签中的标签：

PLE (user rlubensky): http://del.icio.us/rlubensky/PLE
PLE_Workshop_2006: http://del.icio.us/tag/PLE_Workshop_2006

Also these tags about PLEs from Technorati:

以及Technorati中与PLE有关的标签

http://www.technorati.com/tag/Personal%20Learning%20Environments
http://www.technorati.com/tag/PLE?language=en

Posted by rlubensky on 18 December 2006 at 8:28 AM
发表于2006年十二月18日早上8:28

http://members.optusnet.com.au/rlubensky/2006/12/present-and-future-of-personal-learning.html

2008年1月27日星期日

My Personal Learning Environment

我的个人学习环境

Lately I've been fascinated by the concept of personal learning environments. As an instructional designer and trainer, I've spent a lot of time trying to develop learning experiences for other people. But through my own personal experiences with Web 2.0 tools, as well as my ongoing belief in constructivist theories of learning, I've come to believe that the future of staff development lies in our ability to go beyond structured training to facilitating informal processes and learning experiences that occur on a daily basis. While there may always be a place for very structured "event-based" learning, I think that we can get more "bang for our buck" if we think about how to help staff use a variety of tools to construct their own learning experiences.

最近我对个人学习环境这个概念非常着迷。作为一名教学设计者和培训师，我花费大量时间尝试为其他人发展学习经验。但是通过我使用Web2.0工具的亲身经历，以及我对建构主义学习理论的一贯信任，我相信，员工培训的将来在于我们具有超越结构化训练，达到促进每天都能发生的非正式学习过程和学习体验的能力。虽然永远都是结构化的“基于事件的”学习，但我想，如果我们考虑如何帮助员工使用各种工具构建他们自己的学习体验，我们可以事半功倍。

To get an idea of what I mean by a personal learning environment (or PLE) , here's a working definition from Ron Lubensky who has written a nice summary on the concept:

要了解我所说的个人学习环境（PLE）的具体含义，可以看Ron Lubensky给出的通用定义，他就这个概念写过一份很好的总结：

a Personal Learning Environment is a facility for an individual to access, aggregate, configure and manipulate digital artifacts of their ongoing learning experiences.
个人学习环境是让个人为其不断的学习体验获取、聚合、配置和控制数码制品的工具。

In other words, a PLE is a combination of the formal and informal tools and processes we use to gather information, reflect on it and do something with it, which is essentially what we mean when we talk about learning.

换而言之，PLE就是我们用以收集信息的正式和非正式工具集合，利用它反思，利用它做事，当我们谈及学习的时候我们指的就是它。

Note that I mention that informal learning is a big part of the PLE. By some estimates, 75-80% of on-the-job learning is done informally--that is, outside of a classroom-based (physical or virtual), highly structured learning situation. With the growth of the Internet and a variety of second generation web tools, the ability to construct a personal learning environment that emphasizes and leverages informal learning has really exploded.

注意，我提到非正式学习占到PLE的很大部分。根据某些统计，75%-80%的在职学习都是非正式的——即，在教室（物理的或者虚拟的）高度结构化学习解决方案之外进行的。随着互联网的发展，大量第二代网页工具的出现，构建强调充分利用非正式学习的个人学习环境的能力也得到爆发式增长。

So all of this stuff has been going around in my head and I thought that it made sense for me to look at my own Personal Learning Environment. Inspired by Ray Sims' mindmap of his PLE, I first constructed my own

因此，所有这些内容在我头脑里激荡，我想，我拥有自己的个人学习环境是有意义的。受这篇文章启发，我开始构建我自己的。

(NOTE--Several months after publishing this post, I've redone my Mindmap using Mindomo as I had many requests for a better view of the map than what I was previously able to share. To see the full map, go here)

（注意——这份帖子发表数月之后，我利用Mindomo重画了我的心智图，因为对于这幅图，与之前相比，在很多方面都有更好的看法可供分享。在这里查看完整图形。）

中文版：
http://www.mindomo.com/view?m=dd5a0944c736cb81c4686690e6800c0a

I divided it into three areas:

我将其分成三个区域：

Gathering Information
收集信息
Processing Information
处理信息
Acting on the Learning
对学习的作用

I want to talk about each in more detail below.

下面我将逐一详谈。

You'll see that I use a variety of tools and processes for each phase of learning, most of them web-based. For me, it's been the growth of these kinds of tools that has given me the ability to create a personal learning environment and in the past year, I've seen a real explosion in my own growth as a result.

你将看到我在学习的各个阶段使用各种工具和过程，绝大多数都是基于网页的。对我而言，这些工具给予我的创建个人学习环境的能力不断增强，并且在过去的一年里，我明显感觉到这种增强发生了质的飞跃。

Gathering Information

收集信息

With Feedraider, I monitor a ton of blogs in different areas (technology, nonprofit, business, education/learning). Often, those blogs will take me to other blogs where I either sign up for a feed or bookmark a post into my de.licio.us account (another key information-gathering tool). I also use Feedraider to keep on top of online versions of print materials (like Wired, Business Week, etc.), online journals, and to monitor RSS feeds for del.icio.us and technorati tags that I've set up in my account and for my Ning groups (although I forgot to include a few of these in my mindmap, I realize). These are the materials that I sort of "graze" through. I have no particular objective in mind and will tend to just click through to things that interest me.

利用Feedraider，我关注大量不同领域（技术、慈善、商业、教育/学习）的网络日志。很多时候，这些日志会把我引到其他日志，对于这些新的日志，我要么添加订阅源，要么在我的美味书签账户（另一个很关键的信息收集工具）中添加一个书签。同时，我也利用Feedraider实时跟踪传统媒体（比如《连线》、《商业周刊》等）的在线版本、在线期刊，以及关注我的美味书签的RSS订阅源和technorati 账户的标签以及我的Ning小组（我知道，我忘了把这个加入到我的心智图中）。对于这些素材，我就像吃草一样，没有特定的目标。反正只需点击鼠标，为什么不感兴趣呢？

When I have a specific learning objective in mind, then I use things like Google or a search of del.icio.us or technorati tags. I will often activate my network of contacts at that point, too. Again, I find that technology has enhanced this networking ability in a couple of ways. First, my network is much broader than it used to be. Through tools like LinkedIn, blogging and listservs, the number of people I "know" and from whom I can get information has really grown. The technology has facilitated the ways I can get information, too. In addition to using blogs and lists to communicate, I also use Skype and GoogleChat for making contact. And of course I still have phone (landline and cell) and personal contact as additional ways to connect.

当我有明确的学习目标的时候，我会利用Google或者美味书签或者technorati标签这类工具。同时我也常常会启用我的人际关系网。再一次，我发现技术以多种方式增强了关系网的能力。首先，我的关系网比以往更加广泛。通过LinkedIn、网络日志、邮件列表之类的工具，我“认识”的人和我能从他那儿获取知识的人的数量都大大增多。技术也为我获取信息提供了便利。除了使用网络日志和邮件列表进行沟通，我还使用Skype和Google Chat与他人保持接触。当然，我仍然使用电话（固话和手机）以及私下交往作为额外的联系方式。

One thing I noticed is that I tend to read a lot when I'm doing research--not just because the web obviously has more reading material than anything, but also because I'm a reader. This is why I put Amazon in my PLE. A loyal customer since 1995, I've actually had to force myself to stay away as my bookshelves are already groaning with purchases from them.

我注意到一件事情，我在做研究的时候往往会阅读大量资料——不仅仅是因为网页比其他媒体拥有更多资料，也是因为我喜欢阅读。这就是为什么我将Amazon放进我的PLE的原因。从1995年开始，我就是Amazon的忠实客户，现在我已经要强迫自己不再从Amazon买书，因为我的书架已经不堪重负。

I do use video and podcasts if I find something really good, but for the most part, this is definitely a reading process for me. Which is kind of interesting given that I have a broadband connection and there's a ton of multimedia available.

如果我找到什么真的好东西的话，我也是用视频和语音日志，但绝大多数情况下，我肯定是在阅读文字。我有宽带连接，网上有无数多媒体材料，这很有趣。

Processing Information

处理信息

As I'm gathering information, I also need to process it. When I'm reading online materials, I've started using Diigo to highlight and take notes. This is a switch from my previous practice of using Google Notebooks, but it's working a lot better for me. I need to interact with material as I'm absorbing it in order to make it my own.

与收集信息一样，我也需要处理信息。我在阅读在线素材的时候，我用Diigo做标注、做笔记。我以前用Google记事本，现在转到Diigo了，它更加适合我。我在吸收素材的时候需要与素材进行互动，以便能将其转化成我自己的。

I've also been using my Tumblr "microblog" to keep track of things that I find. There's a handy bookmarklet in my Firefox Toolbar that allows me to quickly add and annotate info into it and it's been very useful for me to start using microblogging to pull things together for later processing. I also like it for collecting quotes that catch my interest.

我也使用我的Tumblr微型日志关注我发现的东西。在我的Firefox工具条上有一个很趁手的书签按钮，可以让我快速添加书签和注解信息到Tumblr，它对于我利用微型日志聚合信息为随后的处理做准备也非常有用。我也喜欢用它来收集令我感兴趣的引文。

Another tool that I've come to rely on is my bubbl.us account (my PLE mindmap was created there). I'm definitely a mindmapping kind of gal and I'm finding that I like using this tool as opposed to my old standby, paper and pen. Sometimes I have issues with being able to print or export, but since I'm usually at my computer, I live with working onscreen to review.

我信赖的另一个工具是我的bubble.us账户（我的PLE心智图就是在这里创建的）。我绝对是一个动则心智图的女子，我发现我很喜欢用这个工具，而非备用的笔和纸。有时候不能打印或输出，但自从我常常利用我自己的计算机工作，我就一直都在屏幕上做检查。

Writing is a key way that I make sense of my world, so I have several "hard copy" journals that I keep. I like to use Moleskins and blank art journals for that kind of work and I have them in several sizes, including a tiny one that I keep in my purse for when random ideas or connections occur. I HATE lines in a journal, so I try always to get the kind that have blank pages.

写作是我理解周围世界的重要途径，因此我准备了好几个硬壳笔记本。我喜欢用Moleskine牌的和空白艺术笔记本，我有好几种尺寸的，包括一个掌中型的——可以放在我的钱包里，记下突发而来的灵感和关联。我讨厌笔记本里的行间线，因此我总是用空白笔记本。

This blog is another way I process. Sometimes I put up some fairly raw thoughts (this being one of them), but I find that the feeling of having an "audience" makes me less likely to do that all the time, so I might write first in my journal to start making sense and then post here when it gets closer to being semi-articulate.

昂落日只是我处理信息的另一个途径。有时候我会放一些相当原始的思路（这就是其中之一），但我发现出于对读者负责的感觉让我不大可能一直这样做，因此我会先在我的笔记本里理顺，等差不多说清楚了再贴到这里来。

Finally, I have Wikispaces. I've been using it in two ways. First, as a re-organizing strategy that allows me to take information that I've gathered and re-purpose it into some other ways that make sense to me. For example, I've been working on a "Best of Bamboo" project where I'm re-organizing some of my blog posts here into different different chunks. Some are linear, when I find that I've basically written a series without intending to. In other cases I have chunks around different topic areas.

最后，我还有Wikispaces。我将其用在两个方面。第一，用来重新组织信息，让我处理各种信息——收集来的以及需要重新归类的，将其重新组织到其他我觉得更加有意义的地方。比如，我一直参与一项“竹子的优点”项目，在这里，我将我日志中的某些帖子以不同的方式重新组织起来。如果我发现我已经在没有打算的情况下写了一个大概的系列，便以线性的方式组织起来。在某些情况下，我会为然不同的课题领域分类。

I've also been looking at Wikispaces as an eportfolio option (which is a whole other topic area that I intend to write on soon). I've started to upload some things there, but I'm not entirely sure that it's the route I want to go, as there are some other tools (even Typepad) that might make more sense for me.

我一直在挖掘Wikispaces的电子档案袋功能（这是另一个课题领域，我打算很快就写）。我已经上传了一些东西上去，但我并不完全肯定这是条正确的道路，因为在这方面还有一些其他的工具（比如Typepad）可能更有意义。

Doing Something with the Learning

为学习做点什么

Ultimately, all of this learning needs to go somewhere. If it doesn't change what I do or how I think, I'm not sure I can say I've learned much. I'm a big experimenter, so I find that what I first tend to do in a lot of cases is find a way to do a personal learning experiment. When I was learning about blogging, for example, then I started a blog (it was an art blog, so it was less professionally risky for me, too). When I was learning about wikis, I started my Web 2.0 in Nonprofits wiki.

最终，所有这些学习都要落到实处。如果我不改变我的做法和想法，我不敢说我学到多少东西。我非常强调学习体验，因此我发现在很多情况下我做的第一件事情就是进行个人学习体验。比如，在我学习写日志的时候，我会开始一份日志，一份艺术日志，这样做给我带来的专业风险比较小。在我学习维基的时候，我启动的是我慈善维基。

Depending on the learning and who I'm working with, I will also expand my experiments to my clients. Generally I will have tested things on my own before I go there. I will also tell the client that I'm trying something new so that they don't feel like an uninformed guinea pig to my learning.

依靠这种学医，以及和我一起工作的人们，我的已将经验传递到我的客户。一般而言，在我传递之前我会在自己身上做实验。我也会告诉客户，我将给他们一些新东西，这样他们就不至于在我的课上像呆头鹅一样不知所措。

These experiments then become fodder for more learning. I try when I can to reflect on what I've done to see what worked well and what didn't. For example, recently I used a wiki to write a grant and right now I'm in the process of analyzing how that worked for us. I will then incorporate my reflections into the next iteration if I intend to use the learning again.

这些体验会成为更多学习的原材料。我会在我反思自己的所作所为，弄清楚哪些做得好哪些做得不好的时候尝试运用他们。举个例子，最近我利用维基撰写补助，很快，我就开始分析他是如何对我们起作用的。我会把我的反思加入到下一次学习当中——如果我打算再次使用这种学习方法的话。

So What's Your PLE?

那么，你的个人学习环境呢？

OK--so that's my personal learning environment. I'd be curious to hear from others about how they've constructed their own PLEs, thoughts they have on the concept, etc. It's a topic that I think has real potential for use in nonprofits as a way to keep learning happening every day at a very low cost. But to do this, I think we have to be intentional in exploring what tools and processes are needed to put something together, which is a big reason I wanted to go through this reflection of my own practice as a way to get some ideas for how it could look. I need more than just my thoughts, though, so all feedback on this welcome.

好了，这就是我的个人学习环境。我很想听到别人是如何构建他们自己的PLE的，以及他们对这个概念的想法等等。我认为用于非营利用途的真正潜力在于，可以以非常低的代价保证每天都可以发生学习活动。这是个好话题。要做到这一点，我想我们必须专门弄清楚，哪些工具和过程是需要聚合在一起的，我想通过对自己行为的反思，对如何看待这些学习，得到某些思路。除了我自己的想法，我还需要更多，因此，欢迎一切评论。

UPDATE: Graham Atwell has an excellent introductory paper (PDF) on PLEs, pointing out that what we're talking about here is largely a methodology, as opposed to a particular tool. Also check out his Q&As on PLEs.

更新：Graham Atwell有一份关于PLE极好的介绍性论文（PDF格式），指出我们所谈论的主要是一种方法，而非某一特定工具。同时请查阅他关于PLE的常见问题。

Also--see the follow-up on how I re-organized some aspects of my ple after writing this post and my list of Top 10 Personal Learning Tools.

同时，参见我写此帖之后的文章《我是如何重新组织我PLE的某些方面的》，以及我的《十样个人学习工具》列表。

http://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog/2007/04/my_personal_lea.html

2008年1月25日星期五

The Ultimate Student Resource List

学生资源终极列表

It’s back to school time, yet again. In the spirit of the season, I decided to gather together the best tools, websites, and advice I know of to help make you a more effective and relaxed student this semester. Since I know you’re broke, it’s all free!

又到了返校时间。在这个季节的精神里，我决定收集最好的工具、网站，以及我所知道的建议——只要有助于让你在这个学期成为一名更有效更灵活的学生。我知道你很穷，所以这些都是免费的。

10 Free Applications Every Student Needs

每个学生都需要的十个软件

Unless you have money coming out of your ears, you probably won’t want to shell out the cash you’ll need to get Office, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, EndNote, and so on — even with your student discount. These free apps do the job well enough, and sometimes even better than their paid or otherwise limited alternatives.

除非你能凭空变出钱来，否则你是不大可能为你需要的Office、Photoshop、Dreamweaver、EndNote等软件付钱的——即使你可以拿到学生折扣。这些自由软件足够胜任工作，某些时候甚至比收费软件或其他限制软件做得更好。

OpenOffice.org: A top-quality, full-featured office productivity suite — word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, graphics editor, database, the works! Can save and open most Microsoft Office formats. If you have MS Works on your PC, ditch it and get OpenOffice.org instead. Available for most operating systems.
OpenOffice.Org：一套高质量的、全功能的办公室生产力套件——字处理器、电子表格、演示软件、图形编辑器、数据库，一整套啊！可以保存和打开绝大多数Microsoft Office 文档。如果你的计算机上装得有微软Works软件，扔掉它，用OpenOffice.Org代替。OOo可以用于绝大多数操作系统当中。
GIMP: A powerful, full-featured photo editing program, comparable to Photoshop. Available for Linux, Mac, and Windows.
GIMP：一套强大的，全功能的图象编辑软件，类似于Photoshop。可用于Linux、Mac以及Windows。
KeyNote: Even after 2 1/2 years of being abandoned by its developer, KeyNote (not the Mac presentation software) remains the best free outlining software, with support for rich text formatting, plugins and macros, hotkeys, and a lot more. Can be run from a flash drive, too.
KeyNote：尽管已经被开发者抛弃两年半了，但是KeyNote（不是Mac下面那个演示文稿软件）仍然是最好的免费大纲软件，支持富文本格式、插件和宏、热键以及更多。也可以在优盘中运行。
FreeMind: Great mindmapping program, useful for brainstorming, outlining projects, and keeping notes.
FreeMind：优秀的心智图软件，于头脑风暴、概括项目和记笔记很有用，
Mozy Backup: An Internet-based backup system, Mozy’s free plan allows you to store up to 2GB of files. The software runs in your system tray and automatically backs up the folders and files you’ve selected. I have it set to backup my documents folder and my email, which comes in just under 2GB. To backup photos, music, and other big files, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid version.
Mozy Backup：一套基于互联网的备份系统，Mozy的免费计划允许你最多存储2G文件。该软件运行于你的系统托盘内，自动备份你选择的文件夹和文件。我用它备份我的文档和我的电子邮件，这些加起来不到2G。要备份照片、音乐一起吉他大文件，你需要升级到付费版本。
Zotero: A bibliography manager that integrates with Firefox, allowing you to automatically add webpages and, more usefully, resources from academic databases like J-Stor and AnthroSource to your bibliography. You can attach PDFs and images to your entries, as well as add your own notes. And all without leaving Firefox.
Zotero：与Firefox整合的参考文献管理软件，允许你从J-Star和AnthroSource等学术数据库中自动添加网页和更有用的资源到你自己的参考文献当中。你可以为参考条目附上PDF文件和图片，还可以加上你自己的注释。不能离开Firefox独立运行。
NVU: Mozilla’s web editor, NVU allows you to write webpages either in raw code or using the WYSIWYG interface, making webpage creation simple. UPDATE: NVU is no longer in development; the current version is called Kompozer.
NVU：Mozilla的网页编辑器，NVU允许你以源码形式或者所见即所得形式编写网页，另制作网页变得很简单。更新：NVU已停止开发；当前版本叫做Kompozer。
VLC: The VideoLan Client isn’t pretty, but it will play just about any audio or video file you throw at it.
VLC：VideoLan Client并不是很漂亮，但它可以播放任何你想要播放的音频视频。
Pidgin: A single IM client that connects to just about every IM network: AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, MySpace, IRC, and so on. Available for Windows and Linux; Mac users can give Adium a try (I can’t vouch for it, since I haven’t used a Mac for 7 years…).
Pidgin：一个单一的聊天客户端，可以连接到所有的聊天网络：QQ、MSN、Yahoo、MySpace、Gtalk、IRC等等。可用于Windows和Linux；Mac用户可以试试Adium（我不敢担保，因为我不用Mac已经很多年……）。

11 Online Tools Students Should Check Out

学生需要注意的十一款在线工具

Or 20, depending on how you count.

或者二十款，取决于你如何计数。

Email: Gmail
Register for a solid, plain-jane email address from Gmail, something like FirstnameLastname@gmail.com. If your school sends important information only to your school email account, have it forwarded to your Gmail account. When you graduate, you’ll lose that school address — don’t invest too much of your social identity in an address you’ll lose someday. And while that .oOAwesomeChickOo.@goober.com email address seems like fun now, it won’t be much use he you start applying for internships, scholarships, and jobs.
电子邮件：Gmail
在Gmail注册一个可靠的、朴实的邮箱地址，看上去类似于username@gmail.com。如果学校发送的重要信息只寄给你的学校邮箱账户，让它转发到你的Gmail账户上去。你毕业以后，你会失去你的学校账户——所以不必在一个你迟早会失去的社会角色上花太多精力。而且.oOAwesomeChickOo.@goober.com这类邮箱地址现在看上去似乎很好玩，如果你开始申请实习、奖学金和工作的时候，它就不好用了。
Word Processor: Google Docs/Zoho Writer/Buzzword
Online word processing offers solid features (minus a few bells and whistles you aren’t likely to need) with the ability to access your work from any web-connected computer. Google and Zoho lead the pack at the moment, though Buzzword’s gorgeous interface makes it a definite contender.
文字处理：Google Docs/Zoho Writer/Buzzword
在线文字处理工具提供了扎实的特性（减去了一小部分你不大可能需要的花哨功能），让你可以用它来从任何联网计算机上访问你的工作。Google和Zoho现在走在最前列，但Buzzword华丽的界面使它成为一个明确的竞争对手。
Spreadsheet: Google Docs/Zoho Sheet/EditGrid
Again, Google and Zoho both offer strong online spreadsheets; if you’re using them for word processing, you might as well stick with them for spreadsheets. EditGrid’s emphasis on collaboration (they even have a FaceBook app) and strong feature-set make it well worth checking out.
电子表格：Google Docs/Zoho Sheet/EditGrid
同样，Google和Zoho都提供了强大的在线电子表格。如果你使用他们的字处理软件，不如继续使用它们的电子表格。EditGrid强调协作（他们甚至有一个FaceBook程序）和强大的功能集，这都值得你注意。
Student Organizer: Notely/MyNoteIt/GradeMate
Online organizers designed with students in mind, these services offer the ability to create, organize, and share notes, create reminders for important assignments, track grades and schedules, and generally keep on top of your student life. Each offers a slightly different feature-set and approach to student organization; pick the one that fits you best.
学生管理：Notely/MyNoteIt/GradeMate
在线组织以学生的角度进行设计，这些服务提供了创建、管理和分享笔记，创建对重要功课的提醒，跟踪成绩和日程表的功能，尽量让你在学生生涯中保持优势。每一个都提供了略微不同的功能集和管理学生的方法。选择一个最适合你的。
Todo List: Toodledo/Remember the Milk
Good, solid general-purpose task lists that allow you to sort tasks by date, priority, project, and just about any other way that strikes your fancy. Send yourself reminders by SMS, email, IM, or RSS. Access on your computer or any web-enabled mobile device, even by voice using Jott. Integrate with GMail (Remember the Milk only), iGoogle, Google Calendar, and various other apps and services.
待办事项列表：Toodledo/Remember the Milk
良好、扎实的一般用途的任务列表允许你排序任务，排序的方式包括按日期、优先级别、项目，以及其他任何你满意的方式。通过短信、电子邮件、聊天工具或者RSS给你发出提醒。可以通过计算机访问，或者任何能够上网的移动设备，甚至利用Jott进行语音访问。整合Gmail（仅Remember the Milk）、iGoogle、Google Calendar和其他各种应用与服务。
Mindmapping: Bubbl.us/Mindomo/Mind42/MindMeister
Release your creativity and organize your thoughts using an online mindmapping tool. Collaborate with others and publish your mindmaps. Use to generate ideas for your papers and export in outline format.
绘制心智图：Bubbl.us/Mindomo/Mind42/MindMeister
使用在线心智图工具释放你的创意，整理你的思路。与他人合作，并发布你的心智图。用来为你的论文产生思路并输出大纲格式。
Textbook Search: BookFinder
Search over a hundred online bookstores for used or cheap copies of your required texts.
书籍搜索：BookFinder
在超过一百件网上书店搜索二手或便宜的书籍。
Bookmark Manager: del.icio.us
Still the best place for storing, organizing, sharing, and discovering online resources. Tag bookmarks with the name of each project you’re working on to create an online research reference. Tag by subject to recall possible topics for later papers.
书签管理：del.icio.us
至今仍是存储、整理、分享以及发掘在线资源的最佳场所。用你当前正在工作的项目名称来标记书签，从而创建一份在线研究参考索引。按课题标记可以为随后的论文回忆起可用的主题。
Notebook: Google Notebook
Use Google Notebook to keep track of pages, pictures, excerpts, and other material for papers and projects. Create a new notebook for each class or essay. Share resources by publishing your notebooks to the web.
笔记本：Google Notebook
用Google Notebook来跟踪网页、图片、摘要以及用于论文和项目的其他素材。为每一堂课或者作业创建一本新的笔记本。将你的笔记本发布到网上来与他人分享资源。
WIki: PBWiki/WikiDot
Another way to build and share resources like notes, collaborative papers, etc. Wikis offer incredible ease of use and are ideal for working with others.
维基：PBWiki/WikiDot
建立共享资源的另一条途径。可以建立的资源包括笔记、协作论文等。维基为与他人合作提供了难以令人置信的易用性和适用性。
Bibliography Creator: OttoBib
Enter the ISBNs of all the books you used in a paper; OttoBib returns a perfectly formatted bibliography ready to cut and paste into your paper’s “Works Cited” page.
参考文献制作工具：OttoBib
输入你在论文中提到的全部书籍的ISBN编号，OttoBib返回一条已经完全格式化好的参考文献，供你复制粘贴到你论文的参考文献一节。

15 Websites for Students (Aside from Lifehack)

十五个对学生有用的网站（不含Lifehack）

These sites are in the same vein as lifehack.org, but focus exclusively on student life and the needs of academics.

这些网站与lifehack.org风格类似，但仅仅关注学习生活和学术需要。

Study Hacks: The first stop in academic productivity, written by author Cal Newport (How to be a Straight-A Student).
Study Hacks：学术生产力的第一站，由作家牛博佳（如何成为一名优等生）撰写。
Academic Productivity: Three cognitive scientists share their insights into how productive researchers work.
Academic Productivity：三个认知学家分享他们关于如何进行研究工作的见解。
HackCollege: Cynical (in a fun way) and unabashedly anti-authoritarian, this site promises to teach students how to hack “the old” — professors and administrators.
HackCollege：愤世嫉俗（以一种有趣的方式）、厚颜无耻地反专制，该网站承诺教授学生如何对付“老家伙”——教授和行政人员。
Mindful Ink: Review of tools and techniques for better studying.
Mindful Ink：为了更好的学习，评价工具和技术。
The University Blog: Study tips and higher education news and commentary from a avid student turned university administrator.
The University Blog：来自一个热心学生工作的大学行政人员的学习提示和高等教育新闻及评论。
That College Kid: Great tips and blogs from a on-the-ball college student.
That College Kid：来自一个勤奋的大学生的重大提示和日志。
Gearfire: Billing itself as “Tips for Academic Success”, Gearfire offers a daily dose of practical advice, software reviews, and pointers to the latest online services for students.
Gearfire：以列表的形式展示“学术成功提示”，Gearfire提供每日切实可行的建议、软件评论，以及列出最新在线学生服务。
Instructify: Written by educators at the University of North Carolina, the intended audience is actually K-12 teachers — but most of the advice and tools they share apply to college students as well.
Instructify：由北卡罗莱纳州大学的教育工作者撰写，目标读者是中小学教师——但是他们分享的绝大多数建议和工具也适用于大学生。
Protoscholar: With the longest front-page I’ve ever seen, Protoscholar offers tips and advice in the GTD vein.
Protoscholar：拥有我所见过的最长的首页，Protoscholar提供任务安排方面的提示和建议。
The Student’s Blog: Backed by a student loan company, of all things, the Students’ Blog is packed full of great tips and advice for students.
The Student’s Blog：背靠一间学生贷款公司。特别是，网站充满了给学生的优秀提示和建议。
Scott H Young: Scott writes for lifehack.org, so you know what he’s about already. A college student himself, Scott’s advice comes from deep experience and reflection.
Scott H Young：斯科特也为lifehack.org投稿，因此你知道他大概有些什么内容。斯科特本人是一名大学生，他的建议都来自深度体验和思考。
Academic Lifehacker: Advice for students with an emphasis on time management and academic efficiency.
Academic Lifehacker：给学生的建议，强调时间管理和学术效率。
Academhack: Focuses on the use of technology by students and academics, with news, reviews, and howtos.
Academhack：关注学者、学生对技术的使用，有新闻、评论和一些基本知识。
Efficient Academic: More tips, advice, and pointers to new technology from a working academic, with an emphasis on the sciences.
Efficient Academic：更多来自一线学术工作的提示、建议和点子，重点放在科学方面。
Getting Things Done in Academia: Dr. Mike Kaspari offers the kind of advice about working habits, creativity, and ideas that most grad students are expected to know but are never taught.
Getting Things Done in Academia：卡斯帕瑞博士为大家提供这一类建议：工作习惯、创造力思路，都是绝大多数大学毕业生都应该明确知道却从来没有人教的东西。

30 Pieces of Advice for Students from Lifehack.org

来自Lifehack.org的给学生的三十条建议

Lifehack.org authors have published dozens of pieces with advice for students. Here’s a good sampling:

Lifehack.org的作者为学生提供了数十条建议。这里是一些不错的：

7 Online Research Resources

七项在线研究资源

To help you get started with all your research projects:

可以帮助你开始你的研究项目：

WikiPedia/Citizendium: While neither online nor offline encyclopedias are suitable as references in college-level papers, they are great for looking up unfamiliar topics in a flash and for getting a good overview of your topic when starting a new research project. WikiPedia is well-established as the “go to” resource on the web; Citizendium is an upstart using hand-picked expert authors.
WikiPedia/Citizendium：无论线上线下，对于大学水平的论文，百科全书是最适合的参考资料。当开始一项新的研究项目时，百科全书非常适合快速查找陌生课题，并能得到一份有关课题的不错的概述。WikiPedia是得到认可的“定位”型网上资源；Citizendium是由专家作者手工挑选的、快速窜红的资源网站。
Library of Congress: Literally Congress’s library, the LOC’s website offers a wealth of primary sources, including historical documents and photos, artworks, letters, manuscripts, and more. Expecially good are their online exhibitions of art and artifacts around specific themes, people, and events, like the Civil War or Colonial America.
Library of Congress：国会图书馆的网站提供大量一手材料，包括历史文献和照片、艺术作品、书信、手稿等等。特别赞的是他们根据特定主题、人群和事件——比如关于南北战争或者美洲殖民地——举办的网上艺术和文物展览。
Google Books: A great way to locate books for research papers and other projects. Use “Advanced Book Search” and select “Full View” to limit your search to titles whose entire contents are available online. You can even download PDF facsimiles of some titles!
Google Books：为研究论文或其他项目定位书籍的绝佳途径。使用“高级图书搜索”并选择“完整视图”，将你的搜索限制在那些整本内容都已经上线的书籍当中。你甚至可以下载某些书籍的PDF复印件。
LitSum: Online study guides and book summaries
LitSum：在线学习向导以及书籍概述。
Artcyclopedia: One-stop shopping for information on virtually any artist, movement, national tradition, or anything else art-related.
Artcyclopedia：与艺术相关的一站式信息网站，包括几乎所有艺术家、运动、民族传统等等。
Intute/InfoMine: Curated guides to scholarly resources available on the Internet.
Intute/InfoMine：互联网上可用学术资源指南。
Bartleby: A full reference library at your fingertips, with dictionaries, encyclopedias, poetry collections, and full versions of classic novels, philosophy, religious texts, science writings, and more.
Bartleby: A一个可以完全索引的掌中图书馆，有字典、百科全书、诗歌收藏，以及全本的古典小说、哲学、宗教经文、科学著作等等。

About Author: Dustin M. Wax is a contributing editor and project manager at lifehack.org. He is also an anthropology and women's studies professor in Las Vegas, NV where he lives with his partner and three children. His personal site can be found at dwax.org.
关于作者：达斯汀是lifehack.org的撰稿编辑和项目经理。他也是拉斯维加斯的一名人类学和妇女研究的教授。他与合伙人及三个孩子生活在内华达州。他的个人网站可以在这里dwax.org找到。

Comments

Tiara says on:
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:47 am
Google Scholar came in REALLY handy for academic research as well - it tended to be more useful than my uni’s online academic journal search as I could look through a whole bunch of databases at once. If Google had a citation but not an actual article, I could look it up on the uni library site.
Google Scholar 的到来真的方便了学术研究——它使得能更方便的搜索大学在线学术期刊，相当于一次搜索了若干数据库。如果Google只给出引文而没有给出整篇文章，我也可以在学校图书馆找到它。

Almost all your college blogs are for US students. Any suggestions for those from other countries?
你的大学日志基本上面向美国大学生。有无给其他国家大学生的建议？

For those looking for experiential and non-traditional educational resources, allow me to plug my blog EducateDeviate:
要找更多经验和非传统教育资源，可以到我的日志：

http://educatedeviate.wordpress.com
Dustin Wax says on:
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:29 am
Tiara: Good point on Google Scholar. I rarely use it, but when you need it, it’s nice to know it’s there!
关于Google Scholar说得很到点子上。我很少用它，但是当你需要他的时候，你会很高兴他还在那儿。

There are a couple of UK bloggers in the list, but you’re right — most of them are US-based. The information is probably applicable anywhere, but a different perspective might be nice, and different systems *do* present different challenges. I’m sure there are non-US-based student productivity blogs out there, but a) some are in languages other than English, which I wouldn’t understand, and b) I guess I haven’t come across them yet. Know any good ones?
列表中有两个英国博客，你是对的——大部分都是美国的。这些信息可能适用于所有地方，但是从不同的角度去看可能不错，不同的系统会导致不同的挑战。我知道别的地方也有非美国的学生生产力日志，但是（一）有些用的不是英语，我看不懂；（二）我才我还没有看到他们。你知道哪些不错的？
akoesa says on:
January 23rd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Nice list!
不好的列表！

Just a few a wanted to share:
我也拿出一些来分享：

GIMP alternative: Paint.net
GIMP的替代物：Paint.net
http://www.getpaint.net/

TO-DO list alternative: todoist
待做事项列表替代物：todolist
http://todoist.com/
John says on:
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Paint.NET is a good free alternative to PhotoShop and GIMP that’s much easier to use. Windows only.
Paint.net是一个很好的Photoshop和GIMP免费替代物，也更容易使用。仅用于Windows平台。
James says on:
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
OpenOffice, GIMP and Mozy I definitely agree with, use them even now. May I also suggest my student guides
我完全赞同对OpenOffice、GIMP和Mozy的评价，我现在就在使用。允许我推荐我的 student guides 。
omar says on:
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
here is another collborative web-based mind mapping tool worth looking at http://www.comapping.com .
这里还有一个基于网页的协作式心智图工具，值得一看。 http://www.comapping.com 。【译者注：要收费】
Dubber says on:
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:53 pm
There’s a new online resource for students that you may be interested in.
这让有一份新的在线学生资源，你可能会感兴趣。

It’s called UniSurvival and is aimed at giving advice, study tips, and general coping strategies to university students. Based in the UK, but written by a collection of lecturers and student advisors from around the world, the site is aimed at tertiary students of all kinds, wherever they are.
它叫做 UniSurvival ，目标是给大学生提供建议、学习提示以及一般的复制策略。总部设在英国，但写作的讲师和学生顾问来自世界各地。网站的目标是所有的大专学生，无论他们身处何处。

Although it’s in its formative stages, has just received a major injection of resources and is at the beginning of a major growth period. Look for a site redesign and a large upswing in post regularity from the new contributors over the next week or two.
虽然还处在初始阶段，刚刚得到主要的资源注入，处在关键的成长时期的初期。接下来一两周，寻求网站重新设计，以及来自新贡献者的帖子稳步快速增长。
Nicole Willson says on:
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:09 pm
You may also want to add wikiHow. I’m a volunteer editor there, but they have a bunch of really great college-related how-to articles about topics such as cramming for exams, how to use certain types of software, drinking and how to balance school and life as an adult.
你可能还要加上wikiHow。我是那里的一名志愿编辑，那里有大量非常优秀的大学相关入门文章，相关主题包括考前强记，如何使用某种类型的软件，饮酒以及成年人如何平衡学校和生活之间的关系。
JamesFromPittsburgh says on:
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Really solid advice all around. I’d like to add a few.
全篇的建议都很中肯。我补充两点。
(1) del.icio.us -> Great for bookmarking interesting articles and useful links on your university’s webpage. Tag lots to make finding things easier later.
（1）del.icio.us -> 非常适合收藏感兴趣的文章，对链接到你大学首页也很有用。多多设置标签可以让以后找的更容易一些。
(2) Invest in a flash drive and load up on portable apps. I carried OpenOffice.org, Firefox, and Pidgin on mine.
（2）买一个优盘，运行便携式软件。我自己的装得有OpenOffice.org、Firefox、Pidgin。
(3) Calendar. Having a good calendar (as well as a to do list) is a big booster in staying organized and keeping on top of assignments. I recommend Google Calendar and Mozilla Sunbird.
（3）日历。拥有一份好的日历（以及待办事项列表）对组织工作是一大助力，并能在功课中保持领先。我推荐Google Calendar 和Mozilla Sunbird。
mojaam says on:
January 26th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Bookmarked! Already use many of these but I’m eager to implement the new ones on this list. Additions not already mentioned:
收藏！里面有许多已经在使用了，我迫切的想尝试列表中的新东西。增补一些没有提到的：

http://definr.com
http://www.schoolr.com

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/the-ultimate-student-resource-list.html

订阅：博文 (Atom)

2008年2月8日星期五

Dan Tries Problem-Based Learning: A Case Study 基于问题的学习：个案研究

Abstract

摘要

Institutional Change in Instruction

教学中的体制变化

What is Problem-Based Learning?

什么是基于问题的学习？

Why Problem-Based Learning?

为什么要基于问题的学习？

The Case.

个案

Acknowledgments

致谢

References

参考资料