one day I had an idea that I needed to write down. 
I thought others might like to read my idea.
Maybe they had something to say to make my idea better.
So I started a blog.
blog
twitter
RSS
Bookmarking
all of 
these
tools.
Supporting
My 
Learning
With
I added other ideas I'd had.
I also added video I liked.
I wrote about lessons I'd given
and new applications I'd found.
This was the start of my online personal learning environment.
my learning was now public in my...
twitter is a place where lots of conversations happen quickly.
I have it open on my computer nearly all the time
So I can quickly add my thoughts for my followers to read
and read their thoughts
and comment on their thoughts, and links, and comments, and pictures and videos
and they can comment on mine.
There are many more people in my twitter network
than would ever read my blog.
It's the first place I go whenever I have a question
like "Does anyone know of a good app for creating online books where you can flip virtual pages?"
I usually get a few answers.
It's also great for getting out messages about two online activities that I've started - the Twitterlits bookclub (#twitterlits) and the Interactive Whiteboard Challenge (#iwbchallenge).
the most powerful part of my online learning environment is ...
RSS supports my learning by bringing the internet to me.
I subscribe to feeds that suit my interests and I only have
to go to one place to read them all.
I heart my Google Reader.
People subscribe to my blog via its RSS feed.
I can also display RSS feeds on my blog that I think 
my readers might be interested in. 
Like the feed of my Diigo bookmarks
or any podcast episodes I've created
(though, I must admit,
it's been a while since I've done that)
one thing that definitely shapes my
online personal learning environment is...
a colleague said to me recently that
if people weren't using social bookmarking
then they were idiots.
Thankfully, I'm not an idiot :-)
My Diigo account is an essential tool for me.
I save my bookmarks online to share them.
I find people who have similar interests to me
and I can see what bookmarks they have saved.
I've even created a quick reference list of
bookmarks for this subject, with sections for each week.

tags
I've also created a few groups on Diigo - 
Interactive Whiteboards in the Classroom
technoLanguages
Politics and New Media
China and Chinese
so that anyone can join and share bookmarks under these topics
You have to use tagging effectively
to really make bookmarking work.
I did, so it does.  
Though tags can be confusing 
but more about that later.
I really need to use Diigo more effectively.
Maybe it should be my first stop
Instead of Google.
All in all, you're missing out if you don't use social...
fle, unimelb, tagging, folksonomy, list, of, words
that help classify, categorise, create order, help, link
I use tags on
my diigo account, on twitter (#hashtags), 
articles in Google reader, wikis I use,
my flickr account
and of course
my blog
in Diigo and flickr other people's bookmarks and photos come to me
straight away.
I barely have to go looking
because we all use...
comments
one thing I really need to get better at
is leaving comments for other people
because commenting really is the backbone of all this sharing
It's fine to add your own stuff, but if you want feedback
you have to give it too. 
I do comment on blogs, and in twitter.
But I could always contribute a few more
on some new blogs
on bookmarks in Diigo
on other people's Flickr photos.
I use co.comment to keep track of my comments 
and therefore the conversations I've become part of.
The RSS feed for my co.comments account is on my blog.
comments from others help to validate my learning.
It's exciting to know that people are reading what I've written 
and taking the time to say something about it.
That's a good feeling and makes me want to keep contributing.
so my on-going goal is to leave a much longer trail on the web of...
Writing about my online personal learning environment here has again made me realise the importance of connecting and sharing. 
My PLE would not be what it is if it wasn't for comments or for the tags that connect resources immediately.
Each item in my PLE centres on sharing with others.
without them I would not be learning the same way.
nor nearly as effectively.
So I really am...
different
Then I got some comments
which made my ideas better.
I wrote about how my ideas
had changed.
PERSONAL
LEARNING
ENVIRONMENT