Collection Development for My Random Life.

IBM is checking up on you! Well at least what people are doing on wikis. Check out their research concerning online author collaboration in wikis… history flow

Smart Mobs has a post about a German department store has ‘smart mirrors’ that note which RFID clothing is being tried on and then suggests other articles of clothing which may go with the outfit. Might this technology be used in libraries? Perhaps when a patron checks out an RFID book a list of related resources is automatically suggested to them?

I guess you wouldn’t necessarily need RFID to suggest other resources to patrons. Libraries could have their circulation receipts include a list of related items or something along those lines.

Smart Mob post: http://www.smartmobs.com/2007/10/22/rfid-tags-help-you-to-choose-clothes/

A concept that the Smartmobs website has hipped me to is called Microlearning.  The Microlearning website (http://www.microlearning.org/) describes Microlearning as:

Microcontent is the kind of (very) small pieces (quite) loosely joined that emerged in the last five years, in the Web as well as in the mobile/cellular sphere.
The usual buzzwords — Smartmobs, Google Galaxy, Blogosphere, Web 2.0, Semantic Web … — all point to this fundamental phenomenon: microcontent circulation and resulting micromedia environments.

Further:

Microlearning emerges when new media keep breaking the world into work, knowledge, communications … all is falling into small digital fragments, loosely joined and permanently rearranging to form a multitude of new patterns, tasks and threads. We have to learn to live in the micro-cosmos.

So basically a student looking at a text message, podcasts, or a blog is engaging in ”microlearning”. Ever skeptical me, I am not quite sure I buy into this completely. It reminds me about all the unecessary the mumbo-jumbo surrounding Web 2.0 (and for that matter Library 2.0) but I am willing to keep an open mind about it.

What I gather is that Microlearning is derived from the small pieces of content on the web which come together to form larger wholes. Microlearning is seen to have a large impact on E-learning. E-Learning and distance education are important players in the library because much of the learning for those programs occurs within the library itself. Many students use library computers to access their distance education materials, write up papers,  and also to research homework assignments. The library thus becomes in some cases the surogate ”classroom” for distance education and E-learning.

What I think is interesting about the word Microlearning is that you can slap “micro” in front of other words to create new buzzword content (MicroContent, MicroEnvironments, MicroMedia, MicroTeaching). This is quite similar to all the hype created from Web 2.0 by simply adding ”2.0″ to something (Library 2.0,  Business 2.0, etc.) .

In any event, the modes of learning encompassed by Microlearning are something to pay attention to. Off the top of my head, I could see a screensaver or desktop game being placed on library computers which would ask users to put items in LC order or quiz users on library terminology. It wouldn’t have to be complex just something simple and small (or should I say micro), that would transfer some useful library knowledge to patrons. I think this is what Microlearning is all about.

 For more info on Microlearning check out:

Microlearning blog/website: http://www.microlearning.org/

Microlearning wiki: http://www.microlearning.org/MicroWiki.html

MicroMoments: http://www.theledge.com/micromoments/