Microlearning: Getting High on Content Canapés

If you want to prepare a Boeuf Bourguignon today, don’t look in Grandma’s old cookbook but simply surf the Internet and watch a video. If you need the long-forgotten Excel formulas for your new job, you’d rather go to YouTube for help than the program’s Help Center. Many companies even only carry out their onboarding digitally via short films.

Microlearning – learning in canapés

So if we have acute knowledge needs today, whether through private or professional challenges, we no longer want to plough our way through long training programs or books. For us, answers have to be presented immediately, demand-oriented, in short and understandable learning snacks – canapés with a layer of knowledge, one could say. The current eLearning trend term for this: Microlearning.

The more abstract and the further away they are from the learner and his needs, the more difficult it is to achieve learning goals. Microlearning can be understood as a short stand-alone learning unit. Its duration is between 30 seconds and a maximum of 10 minutes. Large topics are sequenced in their complexity into smallest coherent units – with a concrete, short-term learning goal. The contents consist of various media formats as well as the long learning programs. From video or animations to PDFs and infographics to quiz questions, there are virtually no limits.

In this way, complex content can be conveyed without the learner capitulating at the beginning because of the long runtime. The individual units can also be combined to form a larger learning program.

If one compares the development time of a long learning program with the production time of a learning canapé, it can be seen that these canapés can be produced faster and thus more cost-effectively. The customer and the supplier come to a faster usable result through a short iterative coordination. The learner no longer has to wait for the big picture or do everything at once.

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