lindner microcontent standards 2008
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microcontent presentation, new version: here for people interested in standards.TRANSCRIPT
Learning in the Microcosmos
Martin LindnerResearch Studios Austria
Studio Microlearning & Microinformation EnvironmentsInnsbruck/Salzburg
www.microlearning.org
Standards for Microcontent-based Working & Learningin New Digital Media Environments
Stuttgart, Open Forum, September 5, 2008
“There is a world of difference between the modern home
environmentof integrated electric information
and the classroom.”
(In 2008, the gap is bigger than ever.)
Marshall McLuhan (1967):
“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 impactof 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 „eLearning 1.0“
US Airforce
Adapted from Edward Tufte‘s famous graphic about MS Powerpoint
Macro-organizational Learning
Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software
„Google Learning“
?
New Learner
OPENNESS
OPEN SPACE
Micro-Information Workers:Point of Presence, Continuous Partial & Peripheral Attention
(After getting connected, mainstream workplaces do not feel that much different from this geek cockpit.)
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“.
(But the concept has close connections to Stephen Downes‘ „e-Learning 2.0“-meme.)
2007
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.”
“We've discovered in the last few years thatnavigating 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
and by the physical and technical limitations of the software and devices that we use to view digital content today. “
Anil Dash, 2002
Introducing the Microcontent Client
This causes new dynamics within the „Semiosphere“
„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 1980s, 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
FIXED-LINE TELEPHONY
DESKTOPAPPLICATIONS
Microsoft Office
MICROCONTENT
discovered in 2001
GOOGLE & THE WEB SHREDDERING
MACROCONTENT
WLAN, LAPTOPS& MOBILE DEVICES.
MOBILE PHONES.
SHORT CALLS
EXPLOSIONOF THE E-
MAIL INBOX
MS Office devastated
MICROCONTENT
discovered in 2001
The Microcontent Office
A System of Microcontent Circulation
drops
trickles & flowpools
clouds
“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.
“We've discovered in the last few years thatnavigating the web in meme-sized chunks
is the natural idiom of the Internet.“
Anil Dash, 2002
Introducing the Microcontent Client
… memes: self-replicating units of cultural information
Microcontent is a virus
self-contained
the smallest units of meaning and attentionthat 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 attentionthat 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
appropriate media format
appropriately formatted to work as building block in different cultural patterns and individual mindsets
STANDARD
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
Dash‘s microcontent definition (paraphrase): Computer processed information
appropriate data format
appropriately formatted for integration in different applications and services
STANDARD
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 ofuser-generated and user-enriched content
appropriate media format for human attention
appropriately formatted to work as building block in different cultural patterns and individual mindsets
appropriate data format for computers
appropriately formatted for integration in different applications and services
Emergent standards:microformats, RSS/Atom,tagging APIs…
Emergent standards:blog posts, microbloggingtemplates, delicious items …
But for now e-Learning primarily is formatted neither for humansnor for the Web, but for macro-organizations & -institutions.
appropriate format for organizationsFormatted 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 eLearning”, 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.)
“Personal Info Cloud”
Thomas Van der Wal,
2005
www.vanderwal.net
„… all kinds of information chunks in our digital life take on the form of
digital lifestreams …
… leaving behind a stream-shaped cyberbody, like an aircraft's contrail, as we go”
David Gelernter, The Second Coming – A Manifesto (2000)
Learning in microcontent-based environments should feel like this
drops
flowpools
clouds
