The eduFire Blog

In the interest of coining more new terms I thought I’d throw out something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to lately: Micro-Learning. What is Micro-Learning? It’s the 21st century ADD-version of learning brought to you by the same factors that now cause a bunch of us to consume a good chunk of our video on YouTube rather than television. These factors include the following:

1. Continual access to broadband – When you are connected to the Web and have millions of choices as to what to do with your time the notion of remaining engaged with a single piece of content for 2 hours let alone 20 minutes gets pretty challenged.

Sit at the back of any classroom in America where the kids have laptops and Net access and watch what happens the minute the lecture gets boring. Off go the kids to more exciting and engaging things. Good luck fighting that.

2. Bite-sized content mimics the way we interact and work – How many of you write multi-page letters to your friends? Today you’re much more likely to be writing a couple of paragraphs via e-mail or 60 character long text messages. Same goes for work interactions…the days of bloated corporate memos are numbered (this = good).

However when we approach learning it seems like most people are operating under the premise that the world hasn’t changed in 50 years. Lectures go on for way too long and learning cycles are way too slow. Shouldn’t learning at least make an attempt at preparing us for real life?

3. People thrive off of tight feedback loops – Read Senge’s Fifth Discipline for background on this. It’ll help you understand why the notion of final exams is ridiculously antiquated. You mean I’m supposed to sit in class and learn and not really know how I’m doing until the class is over and I have no opportunity to course correct? Really? Really?!

Bite-sized chunks offer the opportunity for people to learn a bit, get feedback, adjust course if necessary, learn some more. It’s the way the most successful stuff is built in the corporate world these days (see agile development) and it’s the people should be learning as well.

4. Synthesis not analysis is the future – Read Dan Pink’s excellent book A Whole New Mind for the back story here. The ability to analyze is becoming less valuable in a world that often outsources or automates. Instead, synthesis is where it’s at. The ability to pull together large amounts of disparate data and make sense of it.

This is where micro-learning shines. It’s why I love “learning” from blogs. I can pop back and forth in my RSS reader, take in a bunch of different things and sort it all out in my brain (or at least attempt to!). Very, very, very different from how I learned in college or b-school. And much more effective in preparing me for this new world we’re living in.

5. Time is tight – We’re all busier than ever. Most of us simply don’t have time to spend hours attending classes in person. And at the same time we need to continually learn more than ever (one of fav quotes is Drucker “continuing professional education of adults is no. 1 industry of next 20 years”). So we need ways to squeeze learning into those little gaps in our day. The half hour we’re waiting for our flight. The ten minutes in line at the bank.

That’s where micro-learning shines. For instance, right now I’d love to learn about SBIR grants. I’d happily pay one of the world’s top experts to teach me exactly what I need to know in 15 minutes. They’d enjoy doing it, make some quick cash and I’d have a very efficient way of getting important information to me.

A solid system for micro-learning doesn’t exist yet. Things like Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers are getting us closer but we’re still a ways away. When micro-learning is a reality though the world will be a very different place. Looking forward to that day!

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