Creating-entrepreneurial-mindset

T. Kurbanowdictionaries, word lists; thesaurus); text editors and word processors for writing texts;calendars; media players (for streaming audio and video, and for creating podcasts);academic search engines, databases, Internet public libraries and archives (GoogleScholar, Microsoft Academic Search, the British Library Catalogue); search enginesfor reading social media (Technorati, Google Blog Search, WhosTalking); services anddevices for content storage (hard drives, virtual discs; the system of online bookmarks);educational games; online quizzes; tools for creation of presentations (Power-Point, Prezi); content management systems for creating web sites; services for contentand video sharing (SlideShare, Flickr, Google Photos; YouTube; BlipTV); online mapsand GPS; newsreaders.Students will not necessarily adapt each of the tools available, but will choose mostappropriate from their personal point of view. Yet, technology is not the target in itself.It is not the number of services and tools the learner incorporates in his/ her PLE thatdetermines its value, but the benefits the learner manages to take from the technologyin order to enhance own learning. Students learn not due to the technology, but throughthe technology (Drexler 2010 b).Alec Couros (2010, p. 125) differentiates between Personal Learning Environmentand Personal Learning Network, which he defines as “the sum of all social capital andconnections that result in the development and facilitation of a personal learning environment”.The value of online learning communities is immense. While in the traditionalclassroom settings there is a possibility only for a limited number of viewpoints(the author's of the textbook, the teacher's, perhaps that of a number of co-students),PLN expands to include co-learners, educators, theorists, and profile experts from otherinstitutions, educational systems, countries to give the learner a more diverse perspectiveof the problem under study (ibid.; Drexler 2010 a). The external learning communitieshave an advantage before course-based communities, since the former unite usersby intrinsic educational interest, and not by a particular course the learners are taking atthe moment. Hence, the learners are likely to remain in the community much longer,than duration of an academic course, continuing their self-initiated learning (Couros2010).Interest-based communities, which users join with the aim of socializing on topicsof interest, should be differentiated from online learning communities, which unitepeople by the common aim to study. While the latter is a constituent of the PLE, theformer can be considered as such only if the discussion contributes considerably to theuser's knowledge expansion in a particular field of knowledge.PLE becomes a student’s individual virtual learning space, and at the same time ashared space for academic communication, with the knowledge placed in multiplenodes which the learner can re-visit, activate, extend, or change at any time in future.In case the learner chooses to abandon the old PLE, if created as an open resource, itstill remains a strong node from which others can learn (Drexler 2010 a).65