Title: Challenges of producing micro content
Course: Producing Micro Content in a Team (Digivisio 2030) > Section: What is Micro Content?

Producing Micro Content is not without its challenges. It can be difficult to create concise, engaging content in a structured way that supports learning. To help us understand how to overcome these challenges, let's examine them using the DIE model, which focuses on Design, Implementation, and Evaluation Challenges.

Design Challenges

Delivering quality content is essential when planning any educational material. With micro content, careful planning and design are especially needed to facilitate meaningful learning in this shorter format. Breaking down complex information into many smaller pieces of content can easily lead to learning fragmentation, as learners may struggle to grasp the bigger picture or understand topics in depth.

It can be tempting to produce a lot of micro content to cover all the bases and provide the learner with lots of content to engage with. However, think about what is absolutely essential to provide the learner with. You don't want to bombard them with too much content, as this can lead to cognitive overload. Content overload can reduce the coherence between pieces of micro content sections and increase the risk of fragmentation of learning.

One way to overcome this is to plan or storyboard the learning content effectively or use a Learning Management Platform (such as Moodle) to structure the material logically. These LMS platforms can usually track the user's progress through the material, ensuring they do not miss critical information. LMS can also include built-in assessment options and discussion forums, which can help to check that the learner has understood the material.

Don't be tempted to rely solely on text. It is essential to offer a range of media formats that engage learners and spark their interest.

Using accurate information is a central challenge in the design process. Remember that the content we produce will be consumed. Our responsibility as creators is to ensure that the information we provide is factual and reliable and that we have the right to use it. Licencing and copyright issues might seem difficult or time-consuming when planning the material; however, if you don't, it can cause legal issues and damage your reputation if you use copyrighted material without permission.

Implementation Challenges

According to Gilly Salmon, for online learning to be successful and happy, participants must be supported through a structured developmental process. She has created a five-stage model to help structure learning material, and you can learn more about it from her website or Carpe Diem workbook in the third part of this course.

The five-stage model provides a framework or scaffold for a structured and paced programme of e-tivities and offers support at each stage of the learning process as they build up expertise in learning online.

The core elements of Salmon’s model of successful e-learning are access and motivation. These are key challenges in stacking different pieces of micro content to create a larger entity, such as a micro course.

In terms of access, good-quality technical infrastructure, such as reliable connectivity and compatible devices, and technical competence, like the ability to access and use the content effectively, are required.

Sustaining motivation and engagement, however, could be a challenge. Learning in short, isolated bursts without a clear sense of connection or progression between topics is a risk factor. Think, for example, of how easy it is to lose interest in learning a language when you are learning phrases that have no basis in everyday life, such as "My hovercraft is full of eels". This can be combated through gamification or socialisation, creating opportunities to engage learners beyond the basic level of initial participation and to maintain their interest in your content.

Creating high-quality micro content can also be quite resource-intensive, as it requires investment in instructional design, multimedia production, and platform development. This may be challenging for organisations with limited budgets or expertise.

Evaluation Challenge

Evaluation is a central element of learning.

Although micro learning platforms can incorporate frequent assessments and feedback mechanisms to track learners' progress and provide targeted support and guidance, quality assessment and feedback is a challenge.

Assessing learners' understanding and providing timely feedback in the context of micro learning can be more challenging compared to traditional classroom settings, where interactions are more immediate and continuous. Multiple-choice quizzes are the easiest way to provide a quick assessment that ties in with the bite-sized nature of micro content.

Another challenge is evaluating the effectiveness of the learning process. Measuring the effectiveness of micro learning in learning outcomes, knowledge retention, and skill acquisition can be challenging, requiring robust evaluation methodologies and data analytics capabilities.

It is crucial to provide a space for the learner to give feedback on their learning process and the course implementation. Your course material should be regularly reviewed to allow for improvements to the learning process and content.

Read more

Challenges of micro learning - Google Scholar

Jaronen, Marja, Pajarre, Eila (2022).. TP4 Digital pedagogy Sub-contractor study, report 12/2022. High Quality Means of Assessing (micro-) learning (digivisio2030.fi)