Fast food is easily prepared processed food served in snack bars and restaurants for a quick meal or to be taken away. Within the learning environment, we find the same in the newer developing of e-Learning: “Bite-sized learning” or “Microlearning” is the latest buzzword in the eLearning world.
Microlearning
The microlearning last 1-7 minutes. It matches the working memory capacity and attention spans of humans. Micro-learning is a model that has taken the corporate training world to a new level. Microlearning content features easy-to-consume texts, images, and videos that can be grasped quickly, in a very short amount of time.
Those training courses create deeper meaning by sharing some experiences and stories that are much easier to remember. The human brain is probably not wired to maintain focus for hours on end. It learns better when the content is delivered in short bursts with the courses well spaced out to help cement the learning. Repetition also aids retention. Micro-learning is well-suited to this delivery format.
Day-long PowerPoint training sessions are soon passé; microlearning is an effective way to train adult corporate learners.
When Microlearning content is easily and readily accessible, learners can take it at their own pace, wherever they are, and most importantly, when they are “ready.” Because these courses are more focused, learners don’t have to clutter their memories with irrelevant information. This makes retention easier. Learners have to digest only small chunks of information. This makes comprehension easier without spending too much effort. Because microlearning content addresses only some few objectives in each learning step (video, audio or text), on an average, yield 4-5 learned takeaways in some steps.
Smartphone
However, we cannot stop here. We move to the smartphone. Lessons developed for mobile phones are many times called mobile-learning. M-learning or mobile learning can be defined as “learning across multiple contexts, through social and content interactions, using personal electronic devices”.
When we use smartphones for microlearning we may call that for Mobile-Micro-Learning, or MM-learning.
Mobile-Micro-Learning is perfect for Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET). The student shall learn a special technique with his tools. He removes his phone from the pocket. He opens the Microlearning course for that technique. He spends some few minutes following that course. Then he tries himself to do it. He can go back to the Mobile-Micro-Learning-course as many times he wants.
He takes the fast food that is easily prepared processed for his needs and served in a mobile device as a quick meal or to be taken away.