The document discusses the rise of microcontent and how it is changing the way we work, learn, and live in the digital age. Microcontent can be defined as small chunks of information that are self-contained, easily reused and remixed. It is shaped by both human and computer processing to be appropriately formatted. The proliferation of microcontent is leading to new types of emergent, micro-organized environments and a shift away from traditional macro-organized learning and work settings.

1. Lernen im Mikrokosmos Martin Lindner Research Studios Austria Studio Microlearning & Microinformation Environments Innsbruck/Salzburg www.microlearning.org Wie digitaler Microcontent die Umwelt verändert, in der wir arbeiten, lernen und leben Game-based Video Online Conference, September 17, 2008

2. “ 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):

3. „ Das ideale Klassenzimmer“ Solche Umwelten spiegeln das Selbstbild von Organisationen: effektiv, produktiv, hochkonzentriert, SAP-zertifiziert.

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

5. So stellt man sich digitales Lernen und Informations-Vermittlung dazu vor. US Airforce, 2002

7. Glückliche zertifizierte SAP-User. effektiv, produktiv, hochkonzentriert, zertifiziert nach SCORM-Standard …

8. Adapted from Edward Tufte‘s famous graphic about MS Powerpoint „ Lernen“ in Makro-Organisationen

9. Emergente Mikro-Organisationen „ Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software“

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

11. „ Die Lösung für den ‚Information Overload‘? … ?

12. OPENNESS OPEN SPACE Continuous Partial & Peripheral Attention … mehr Information, in anderer Form und anderen Kanälen.

13. 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?

14. Wir sind mitten in einem globalen digitalen Klimawandel.

15. 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.”

16. Das führt zu dramatischen Veränderungen in der Semiosphäre. „ Semiosphere“: a term coined by Jurij M. Lotman, referring to „Biosphere“.

17. Die Zirkulation von Mikroinformation heizt sich auf.

18. 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 .)

19. Gletscher ...

20. … schmelzen ab.

21. Wüsten …

22. … breiten sich aus.

23. Lebensformen verlieren den gewohnten Lebensraum.

24. MICROSOFT OFFICE Ordner & Dokumente Festnetz-Telefonanlage Lokale Desktop Programme Das Microsoft Office …

25. MICROCONTENT discovered in 2001 Google shreddert alles zu rohem Microcontent. WLAN, Laptops & andere mobile Geräte. Mobiltelefone, Kurz- und Kürzest-Anrufe Explosion der eMail Inbox … nach dem Hurricane.

26. MICROCONTENT discovered in 2001 Das Microcontent Office

27. “ Die Medien , das ist nicht länger etwas, das wir nutzen, Wir werden selbst ein Teil davon.”

28. “ Media is is something we become part of”: Swimming in seas of microcontent and streams of microtasks.

29. Mikroinformation will zirkulieren drops trickles & flow pools clouds

30. 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

31. „… 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)

32. So sollte sich Lernen und Arbeiten in der neuen Informationsgesellschaft anfühlen. drops flow pools clouds

33. Emergenz von Information, von Bedeutung, von Sinn

34. Microcontent. Der Stoff aus dem das Web gemacht ist.

35. “ 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

36. “ 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

37. … memes : self-replicating units of cultural information

38. Microcontent is a virus

39. 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

40. 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 appropriate media format appropriately formatted to work as building block in different cultural patterns and individual mindsets STANDARD

41. 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

42. 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

43. 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.)

44. The Micro-Web is about emergent patterns of user-generated and user-enriched content

45. 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, microblogging templates, delicious items …

46. 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

47. If we want to design next-generation eLearning & Information Management, we have to understand & bear in mind the nature of microcontent-based information work.

48. OPENNESS [email_address] Thank You

49. “ 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)

50. 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“.

51. Jay Cross now prefers to speak of „Informal Learning“. (But the concept has close connections to Stephen Downes‘ „e-Learning 2.0“-meme.) 2007