What Is Micromedia? Living and Learning in Microcontent Environments.

Use These Tools, Your Mind Will Follow Martin Lindner ARC Research Studios Austria Studio eLearning Environments Learning in Immersive Micromedia & Microknowledge Environments

Research Studios Austria eLearning Environments (Innsbruck, Austria) R & D

RESEARCH www.microlearning.com RESEARCH

www.microlearning.org

DEVELOPMENT www.knowledgepulse.com DEVELOPMENT

www.knowledgepulse.com

From the KAFKA GALAXY into the GOOGLE DOCUVERSE Confessions of a Digital Immigrant

1980 – 2000: 20 years learning and teaching German Literature Case study of a Digital Immigrant

Case study of a Digital Immigrant 2000 - 2001: e-Learning „Autor Interaktiver Lern-Medien (CBT / WBT)“

Case study of a Digital Immigrant 2002 / 2003: Media Studies Visiting Professor at University of Innsbruck Since 2004: Researcher Studio eLearning Environments

2000: Web Experience iMac, Always On, Google, Amazon

around 2000: Beginnings of „Web 2.0“ Wikis, Blogs , Wikiblogs, RSS, DHTML, XML Texting on Mobile Phones, „Smartmobs“…

Emerging new … (Micro-) Technologies, (Micro-) Practices (Micro-) Experiences

I. UNDERSTANDING MEDIA

” Da media! So - what is DA MEDIA? A lot of you out dere probably won't even have heard of da WORD!” Media Theorist Sasha Baron Cohen a.k.a Ali G. in Da Ali G. Show , 2000

… ” Is Books Part of DA MEDIA?”

No. Books may be understood as “mediums”, but they are NOT part of “THE MEDIA” in the way of TV, radio, magazines, newspapers … and the Web.

Yes. Books do not exist independently from this media environment anymore. In this sense they are “part of the media” …

… and the same goes for (formal) e-learning within education institutions but also within “functional” corporate training

THE MEDIA is … Here & Now Always On, 24/7 Sensurround, Multimedia A Chain Reaction of Small Perceptual Shocks A Total and Immersive Field

“ There is a world of difference between the modern home environment of integrated electric information and the classroom.” Marshall McLuhan on Next Generation Learners (1967):

“ Men are suddenly nomadic gatherers of knowledge , … informed as never before, free from fragmentary specialism as never before – but also involved … as never before.” Marshall McLuhan (1964):

Today’s child is growing up absurd, because he lives in two worlds …

We are not “users”. We are “media beings” - being involved in the “total and pervasive field” of “the media”.

This screen has not been “part of the media”

Only with the Second Screen of the Web-PC knowledge really became part of the media …

… now enhanced by a Third Screen ...

“ Media is no longer something we do, but something we become part of.”

II. UNDERSTANDING MICROMEDIA

Umair Haque (2005), The New Economy of Media Micromedia, Connected Consumption, and the Snowball Effect The explosion of digital micromedia puts an end to Mass Media as we know it. www.bubblegeneration.com

Microchunks result from the “unbundling of traditional media goods” like news, albums, books … [and courses]. www.bubblegeneration.com Umair Haque (2005), The New Economy of Media.

Attention costs dominate production costs , because technology ends production, distribution, and retail scarcity: The more a microchunk is consumed the more value is added..

„ Continuous Partial Attention“ Linda Stone „ Attention Economy“ Michael H. Goldhaber

Lev Manovich (2000), Macromedia and Micro-media “ Media technologies seem typically to move in one direction : ‘more’. More resolution, better color, better visual fidelity, more bandwidth, more immersion.” www.manovich.net

… but why would people want to play games on a tiny phone screen? or texting? or moblogging?

Lev Manovich (2000), Macromedia and Micro-media “ While some media forms get richer, others stay purposefully 'poorer.' A more minimalist kind of media, characterized by low resolution, low fidelity, and slow speeds, is born. I call it micro-media.” www.manovich.net

Lev Manovich (2000), Macromedia and Micro-media Micromedia will not go away: “ Given the fact that soon more users worldwide will access the Internet through cell phones than through computers, it will not only successfully compete with macro-media but may even overtake it in popularity.” www.manovich.net

“ Cool Media”: Low definition media for casual attention

III. MICROCONTENT

“ 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

… memes : replicating units of cultural information

Like Language, Microcontent is virus-like

self-contained the smallest units of meaning / communication 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 blocks in different cultural patterns and individual mindsets Dash‘s microcontent definition (paraphrase): Human 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

The evolution of microcontent is a complex feedback phenomenon – it can not be reduced neither to software nor to humans

MICROSOFT OFFICE FILES & DOCUMENTS FIXED-LINE TELEPHONY DESKTOP APPLICATIONS

MICROCONTENT discovered in 2001 GOOGLE SHREDDERING MACROCONTENT PC GOING MOBILE MOBILE PHONES EXPLOSION OF THE E-MAIL INBOX 2000/2005: MS Office exploded MULTITASKING ATTENTION CRISIS LIFE INTER-RUPTED

MICROCONTENT discovered in 2001 2006: A Microcontent Office

IV. MICROLEARNING

People making use of, or rather swimming in, microcontent are in fact already practicing (informal) microlearning. 1

People learning and working with micromedia are learning and working differently. They are swimming, rather than navigating, in a sea of microcontent and streams of microtasks. 2

If we want to create microlearning experiences, we have to understand the nature of microcontent-based knowledge work. 3

Blackboard in Virtual Space

Blackboard in Meat Space

“ The ideal classroom“

“ The ideal classroom: instructor‘s station“

Classroom exploded

V. MICROKNOWLEDGE

David Weinberger, 2002 Small Pieces Loosely Joined “ The Web is a mess, as organized as an orgy. … a collection of ideas, none longer than can fit on a single screen. … small nuggets pointing to more small nuggets.” www.vanderwal.net

“ We’re falling into [processes] that … imperceptibly deepen, like furrows worn into a stone hallway by the traffic of slippers.”

“ We’re falling into groups that feel like parties [more than like classes or seminars].”

Thomas Van der Wal, 2005 “ Folksonomies” “ Personal Info Cloud ” www.vanderwal.net

“ Lifestreams“ vs. the “Desktop“ metaphor David Gelernter, 2000 The Second Coming – A Manifesto www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gelernter/gelernter_p1.html

In micromedia environments, knowledge takes on the form of clouds. (Microcontent being something like small drops of vapor.)

„… 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”

VI. Designing Microlearning / Microknowledge Experiences

“ Point of Presence”

Google

“ Digital Lifestreams”

Google

The Casual Web (on PCs and Mobile Phones)

Embedding learning in the peripheral view of the multitasking micromedia user.

The microcontent-based Web (2.0) is NOT about people & communities …

… it is about SIGNS on SCREENS

We have to design knowledge in the form of clouds & landscapes …

… and flows that integrate into the digital lifestream

“ Mobile Microlearning” will have to be learning with mobile phones

… but “mobility” has to be understood in a different way as a phenomenon at the intersection of supermodern “non-spaces” & ubiquitous digital spaces

Thank You. [email_address]

„ Microlearning“ …

Is it just another buzzword?

… or can one find some Buzz Honey ?

So ... is Microlearning a SHEEP?

... hiding under VERY small pieces of sheep‘s clothing? … or the old BIG BAD E-LEARNING WOLF?

Microlearners will decide.

Thank You. [email_address]

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What Is Micromedia? Living and Learning in Microcontent Environments.

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