Microcontent_Evideo2008

Lernen im Mikrokosmos

Martin LindnerResearch Studios Austria

Studio Microlearning & Microinformation EnvironmentsInnsbruck/Salzburg

www.microlearning.org

Wie digitaler Microcontent die Umwelt verändert, in der wir arbeiten, lernen und leben

Game-based VideoOnline Conference, September 17, 2008

“Das sind zwei völlig verschiedene Welten –

auf der einen Seite das moderne Zuhause,

eine Umwelt geprägt von integrierter elektronischer Information – und auf

der anderen Seite Klassenzimmer und Büros.”

(2008 ist die Kluft größer als jemals zuvor –

und sie wächst weiter!)

Marshall McLuhan (1967):

„Das ideale Klassenzimmer“

Solche Umwelten spiegeln das Selbstbild von Organisationen: effektiv, produktiv, hochkonzentriert, SAP-zertifiziert.

So würde der passende „ideale Arbeitsplatz“ dazu aussehen – vor dem Web (aber da stehen die meisten Organisationen immer noch).

So stellt man sich digitales Lernen und Informations-Vermittlung dazu vor.

US Airforce, 2002

Glückliche zertifizierte SAP-User.

effektiv, produktiv, hochkonzentriert, zertifiziert nach SCORM-Standard …

Adapted from Edward Tufte‘s famous graphic about MS Powerpoint

„Lernen“ in Makro-Organisationen

Emergente Mikro-Organisationen„Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities,

and software“

„Google Lernen“:Jede InformationsarbeiterIn tut das, ob sie es weiß und will oder nicht

?

„Die Lösung für den ‚Information Overload‘? …

OPENNESS

OPEN SPACE

Continuous Partial & Peripheral Attention

… mehr Information, in anderer Form und anderen Kanälen.

Un das ist nicht beschränkt auf Gee-Cockpits.Es gilt für alle, deren Tag zu einem großen Teil aus

e-Mails, Web-Suche, SMS und kurzen Handy-Telefonaten besteht.

Wie kann man sich auf diese neue Subjekt-Position einstellen?

Wir sind mitten in einemglobalen digitalen Klimawandel.

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.”

Das führt zu dramatischen Veränderungen in der Semiosphäre.

„Semiosphere“: a term coined by Jurij M. Lotman, referring to „Biosphere“.

Die Zirkulation von Mikroinformation heizt sich auf.

Das hat Folgen für unser alltägliches Leben!

(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.)

Gletscher ...

… schmelzen ab.

Wüsten …

… breiten sich aus.

Lebensformen verlieren den gewohnten Lebensraum.

MICROSOFT OFFICE

Ordner & Dokumente

Festnetz-Telefonanlag

e

Lokale Desktop

Programme

Das Microsoft Office …

MICROCONTENT

discovered in 2001

Google shreddert alleszu rohem

Microcontent.

WLAN, Laptops& andere mobile

Geräte.

Mobiltelefone,Kurz- und

Kürzest-Anrufe

Explosion dereMail Inbox

… nach dem Hurricane.

MICROCONTENT

discovered in 2001

Das Microcontent Office

“Die Medien, das ist nicht länger etwas, das wir nutzen,

Wir werden selbst ein Teil davon.”

“Media is is something we become part of”:

Swimming in seas of microcontent

and streams of microtasks.

Mikroinformation will zirkulieren

drops

trickles & flowpools

clouds

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)

So sollte sich Lernen und Arbeiten in der neuen Informationsgesellschaft anfühlen.

drops

flowpools

clouds

Emergenz von Information, von Bedeutung, von Sinn

Microcontent.Der Stoff aus dem das Web gemacht ist.

“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

… 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 designnext-generation eLearning & Information Management,

we have to understand & bear in mind the nature of microcontent-based information work.

OPENNESSmartin.lindner@gmail.com

Thank You

“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“.

Jay Cross now prefers to speak of „Informal Learning“.

(But the concept has close connections to Stephen Downes‘ „e-Learning 2.0“-meme.)

2007