Supporting Personal Learning in the Workplace

The paper focuses on the potential of a work based Personal Learning Environment. It examines relations, context, actions and learning discourses in line with Vygotsky’s sociocultural approach to cognitive development, working on the assumption that “action is mediated and cannot be separated from the milieu in which it is carried out” (Wertsch, 1991). The key aspect of learning discourses it that they are fluid and relational. Vygotsky (1978) held that the learning environment “cannot be regarded as a static entity and one which is peripheral in relation to development, but must be seen as changeable and dynamic.” It is this fluid and dynamic nature of learning environments and discourses which provides the central challenge to the design of a PLE, particularly in a workplace context. The final section of the paper looks at how a work based PLE might provide some solutions to changing contexts and changing relationships and examines demonstrator applications being developed through the EU funded Mature project..