Micro-Worlds, Micro-life Learning: The Big Phenomenon, (But Small) Social Networking

I keep on going back to the same thesis which I started studying a few years back: "all learnings are micro."(See"3-Minutes-Learning"2006)

I am beginning to see correlations and movements of events that lead me to conclude and see even clearer what Chris Anderson talks about in "The Long Tail" and applied in the learning world.

These are related phenomena coming from different disciplines or parts of our societies:

• Nanoseconds - the speed of our thoughts
• Nanotechnologies - it's all over us- fabrics, cars, medical devices
• Microchips - even far smaller
• Super micro-microscopes - Caltech - thumbnail size
• Terabytes , Pet bytes - cheaper, faster memory storage (that's why it's free at Google)
• Nuclear-fusion -- Backyard/Garage - Raymond's project (my son)
• Social Networking - millions of MySpace small-interest groups
• Micro-robotic surgeons - injected into your body to laser blood clots
• The Long Tail - there are more buyers of smaller items combined, than the one hit product
• Freakonomics - economics on ordinary daily events or things

As we look at the big picture but pause to see the details -- all the above are really studies of our micro-worlds. What is intriguing to me is that we see them as big phenomena, but in essence they are only huge phenomena because they consist of micro-worlds that work well together.

From a learning perspective, we can call this "Micro-life Learning."

Ray Jimenez, PhD www.vignettestraining.com
"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"