Lately, I have come to realize I am an avid micro learner. I spend countless hours looking through Twitter — following mainly other educators — and scrolling through a few hashtags on Instagram that help keep me current with the great innovations happening in classrooms around the world. This avid microlearning is possible because the ubiquity of information has changed enormously in the last decade.
🤔What is microlearning? Short bursts of learning that can initiate exposure, interaction, knowledge construction and reflection. They lead an educator along a roundabout path that ends with deeper understanding and deeper learning. This learning is frequently fueled by curiosity and inquiry. A deep dive results in richer understanding through actual examples and rapid fire metacognitive thinking. Microlearning can help teachers reach a more intentional and personalized learning goal.
In one of my microlearning spurts, I bumped into a fun post on BuzzFeed about what life was like not too long ago. In this post about 24 Things That Ruined Your Day 15 Years Ago That No One Cares About Now — I was reminded that only 15 years ago, I would wait almost an entire day to download music or sit impatiently at my computer while a simple website loaded. I didn’t know it at the time, but a seismic shift in information would soon turn me into an extensive micro learner.
Thankfully, information is accessible everywhere and now I am a critical consumer of lots of great content and can foster my unquenchable curiosity with ease. I probably ask Alexa more than 15 questions a day, pestering her the way a four-year-old annoys a parent. So in 2019, I have come to terms with the fact that I now crave this ubiquitous information, and it has changed my life!
A deeper dive into my own microlearning reveals that videos-when done correctly- seems to garner most of my attention. In fact, 5 years ago my best friend and I did a video show called EduSlam, which offered short 5-minute videos that featured ideas you could use in your classroom tomorrow. These short and easy-to-watch shows garnered so much attention — we were asked to present all over the world, but time constraints forced us to give it up because we couldn’t meet the demand — something we both regret. But the excitement for this type of learning was real and still exists, and people who post videos for learning — and keep them short — often find they are quite popular.
Now, information and data acquisition will all change again. In a 5G world where we will see speeds 600 times faster on our phones — I am sure that videos like EduSlams will top our list of favorite microlearning hubs.
Is it possible video might take over as our top micro learning tool? After all, about 70% of Generation Z visit YouTube each week. It seems they prefer video over other mediums- because its captures their attention in a way other mediums cannot.
Because of the growing popularity of video-based learning, many Fortune 500 companies use this medium as a way to get messaging, learning and training successfully out to their employees. They consider not using video to be archaic. Sadly, this valuable source of learning is NOT mainstream for teacher professional learning, YET. From what we saw when we had EduSlam shows — teachers flock to short video segments. But the key is video learning must be brief and powerful!
So while I wait for 5G and learning to super-charge, I sit back and just observe how much more attracted I am to the short relevant bite-sized chunks of information, searching it out when I can. I just hope all teachers will soon become avid micro learners, and that this binge-like learning will become more valued by schools and districts. We have to remember that short and easy to consume information may be just what we need to make the connections — and garner those ideas that will make classrooms places that are valuable to our 5G generation of kids.
Holly Clark is the Co-Author of The Google Infused Classroom follow Holly on Twitter or Instagram or FB Group.