I’ve yet to hear a consistent definition of microlearning. More than that, I haven’t heard a clear definition. I personally struggle with the name as it is because once again “learning” (an internal, individual process) is being used to describe some “thing” that may promote or aid in that process. I’ve had my own take in “Smaller, Faster Training Is Not Going to Move Us Forward” and “The Best Example of Microlearning is Us“. The first spoke of the desperation in it all and the other, how we’ve really been microlearning for eons. Well, there’s been another microlearning conversation flare up this time on LinkedIn and I jumped in to see what the latest was. Go check it out if you want to kill some time and walk away still scratching your head. From what I read “microlearning” is something created and tangible and yet most will provide information where to use “it” but no clarity on what “it” is or what “it” isn’t. Maybe it doesn’t matter? Let’s back up.
We often forget that the Microlearning concept was really born long ago when someone extracted a “learning object” from a larger course to use again and/or in different training vehicles. Remember THAT term… “reusable learning object”? Well THAT was microlearning before it was repackaged as Microlearning. History aside we are now wondering, in the age of digital and social, is it about learners and their need to access information quickly? Is it about an ID’s ability to create it quickly? Is it about size of the content or speed of creation and delivery? Is it formal or informal? No disrespect for those doing their damnedest to define this but it’s all still a bit muddy even with decent definitions. Take this one by JD Dillon:
“microlearning is a way of teaching and delivering content to learners in small specific bursts.”
Succinct but then this definition points to it being squarely in the formal content space and it’s also a system of delivery. Words like small, specific, and bursts don’t really help clarify. What’s small? What’s a burst? I get to decide I guess. Dr. Will Thalheimer said he couldn’t find a good definition but I’m not sure his definition adds any more clarity for me. To his credit he does include the maximum of 60 minutes for a duration (yet that varies too, no?) but I’ve seen etraining… errr, I mean elearning courses with an estimated length of 60 minutes. Are those then Microlearning too? A lot of what he does include speaks to spaced-learning opportunities in or closer to the flow of work and that seems to resonate for me some. Frankly, it might just be time to chuck the whole labeling effort which is forcing content, activities, delivery, etc under a convenient ill-defined umbrella. So if it’s a prompt, call it that. If it’s just-in-time to help complete a task, let’s just tag it the far less sexy “performance support” it’s always been known as. If it’s a conversation in a social tool, then social learning has worked now for a while. And if it’s a short learning interaction, that sure sounds like a “learning object” to me and we were fine with that 15 years ago.
So, I’m done with it. Let the battle rage on but until someone can concretely state something is and something else is not microtraining…errr, I mean microlearning, I’ll just roll my eyes when I hear the term. There’s nothing to see here, moving on.