Learning in the Microcosmos Standards for Microcontentbased Working
Learning in the Microcosmos Standards for Microcontent-based Working & Learning in New Digital Media Environments Stuttgart, Open Forum, September 5, 2008 Martin Lindner Research Studios Austria Studio Microlearning & Microinformation Environments Innsbruck/Salzburg www. microlearning. org
Marshall Mc. Luhan (1967): “There is a world of difference between the modern home environment of integrated electric information and the classroom. ” (In 2008, the gap is bigger than ever. )
“e-Learning is dead!”
“Did you hear? e-Learning is Dead. That's right. . . dead. Shot down in the prime of its life. Six feet under. Kaput. “ Jay Cross (2003)
Jay Cross had coined the term „e-learning“ in 1998, fascinated by the possible impact of the Internet on human-centered learning. He got frustrated when the term was misused in the following years, When it became just a new buzzword label for „Computer-based Online Training“ & the transfer of courses & classrooms into virtual „Learning Management Systems“.
„The Ideal Classroom“ (presented as such in the Web)…
… the matching ‚Ideal Office‘ …
… and a model for „e. Learning 1. 0“ US Airforce
Macro-organizational Learning
Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software
„Google Learning“
New Learner
Micro-Information Workers: oint of Presence, Continuous Partial & Peripheral Attention OPEN SPACE OPENNESS (After getting connected, mainstream workplaces do not feel that much different from this geek cockp
E-Learning 2. 0: Early vision of a „Personal Learning Environment (PLE)“ Scott Wilson (UK), 2005
Jay Cross now prefers to speak of „Informal Learning“. 2007 (But the concept has close connections to Stephen Downes‘ „e-Learning 2. 0“-meme
In Web-driven digital media environments, people are in fact already practicing (informal) microlearning. Willingly or not. How can we design for this situation?
A Global Digital Climate Change
David Weinberger, 2002 Small Pieces Loosely Joined “[The Web is ] a collection of ideas, none longer than can fit on a single screen. … small nuggets pointing to more small nuggets. ”
Anil Dash, 2002 Introducing the Microcontent Client “We've discovered in the last few years that navigating the web in meme-sized chunks is the natural idiom of the Internet …“
Anil Dash, 2002 Introducing the Microcontent Client “Microcontent is information published in short form, with its length dictated by the constraint of a single main topic nd by the physical and technical limitations of the software and device that we use to view digital content today. “
This causes new dynamics within the „Semiosphere“: a term coined by Jurij M. Lotman, referring to „Biosphere
Circulation of microinformation is heating up.
This will fundamentally affect our future lives! (This is somehow more than just a metaphoric illustration – since the 1980 s, Al Gore has actually been both a prophet of Global Warming and an evangelist of the Internet. )
Glaciers are melting.
Glaciers are melting.
Deserts are growing.
Deserts are growing.
Creatures are driven from their habitat.
Microsoft Office FILES & DOCUMENTS DESKTOP APPLICATIONS MICROSOFT OFFICE FIXED-LINE TELEPHONY
MS Office devastated GOOGLE & THE WEB SHREDDERING MACROCONTENT EXPLOSION OF THE E-MAIL INBOX MICROCONTENT MOBILE PHONES. discovered in 2001 SHORT CALLS WLAN, LAPTOPS & MOBILE DEVICES.
The Microcontent Office MICROCONTENT discovered in 2001
A System of Microcontent Circulation clouds drops pools trickles & flow
“Media is no longer something we do, but something we become part of. ” (It is not tools anymore …)
People working and living with digital micromedia are swimming, rather than navigating, in a sea of microcontent and streams of microtasks. This also changes the way Information Workers learn.
Microcontent. The stuff the Web is made of.
Anil Dash, 2002 Introducing the Microcontent Client “We've discovered in the last few years that navigating the web in meme-sized chunks is the natural idiom of the Internet. “
… memes: self-replicating units of cultural information
Microcontent is a virus
Dash‘s microcontent definition (paraphrase): Human processed information self-contained the smallest units of meaning and attention that can stand for itself elementary individually addressable to be easily re-used and re-mixed appropriate media format appropriately formatted to work as building block in different cultural patterns and individual mindsets
Dash‘s microcontent definition (paraphrase): Human processed information self-contained the smallest units of meaning and attention that can stand for itself elementary individually addressable to be easily re-used and re-mixed appropriate media format STANDARD appropriately formatted to work as building block in different cultural patterns and individual mindsets
Dash‘s microcontent definition (paraphrase): Computer processed information self-contained [some relation to object-oriented programming] elementary individually addressable to be easily re-used and re-mixed appropriate data format appropriately formatted for integration in different applications and services
Dash‘s microcontent definition (paraphrase): Computer processed information self-contained [some relation to object-oriented programming] elementary individually addressable to be easily re-used and re-mixed appropriate data format STANDARD appropriately formatted for integration in different applications and services
The evolution of microcontent is a complex feedback phenomenon – it can not be reduced neither to software nor to humans (Microcontent is about circulation, not just transmission. Standards have to be built for enabling feedback and emergence. )
The Micro-Web is about emergent patterns of user-generated and user-enriched content
appropriate data format for computers Emergent standards: microformats, RSS/Atom, appropriately formatted for integration tagging APIs… in different applications and services Emergent standards: appropriate media format for human attention blog posts, microbloggingappropriately formatted to work as building templates, delicious block in different cultural patterns and items … individual mindsets
But for now e-Learning primarily is formatted neither for humans nor for the Web, but for macro-organizations & -institutions. appropriate format for organizations Formatted to stabilize macro-organizational frameworks: - macro-organizational training (formal, top-down) - macro-organizational calculation of costs - macro-organizational management control
If we want to design standards for “Next-Generation e. Learning”, we have to understand & bear in mind the nature of microcontent-based information work.
In micromedia environments, knowledge takes on the form of clouds. (Microcontent being something like small drops of vapor. ) Thomas Van der Wal, 2005 “Personal Info Cloud” www. vanderwal. net
„… all kinds of information chunks in our digital life take on the form o digital lifestreams … … leaving behind a stream-shaped cyberbody, like an aircraft's contrail, as w David Gelernter, The Second Coming – A Manifesto (2000)
Learning in microcontent-based environments should feel like this clouds drops pools flow
Thank You OPENNESS martin. lindner@gmail. com
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