Use of Freeplane mindmaps to build-up a PLE for DH teaching and learning

The present work describes the PLE (Personal Learning Environment) paradigm and the experiences of the authors in the production of PLE resources, their integration and use for teaching and learning.

We will discuss the usefulness of PLEs, PLE networks (PLE-N) and the underlying connectivist hypothesis as an efficient teaching approach.

We will revise the vast variety of interesting Web 2.0 resources available on the Web that can be used in a PLE, commenting their particular advantages and disadvantages.

We will describe our experience in the production PLE resources (educational videos, blogs, social networks) for teaching technology subjects.

Finally, we will tackle one of the main unsolved problems of the PLE approach: integration of PLE resources, which abound scattered on the Web. Our approach for integration is based on the use of mindmap-oriented graphical tools like Freeplane and Freemind that can be used as a very handy PLE "dashboard" with multiple advantages.