The Product

Hi, I’m Hayley Mooney, Instructional Designer, student in the Masters of Educational Technology program at UBC and Educational Venture Analyst with the ETEC 522 Ventures and Learning Technologies class.

Today we’re tackling the range of technologies that fit under the category of Microlearning Platforms.

So first up, what is microlearning, and how is it delivered?

It’s unlikely that you haven’t come across microlearning at some point by now.

Have you helped with someone with their homework using Khan Academy? Found out how to fix something on YouTube? Perhaps you’re improving your Spanish on Duo Lingo. If you’re looking to learn something these days, chances are it’s on the internet, and it comes in bitesize formats. Because that’s the way we like to learn (I won’t bore you with the research, but if you’d like to perform search on the benefits of microlearning and you won’t be disappointed). Microlearning is content taught in relatively short sessions, where each module would typically focus on a specific topic, but beyond this can look very different depending on the teachers, the students and the subject. It can take many forms including videos, quizzes, texts, and individual short responses. There are tonnes of innovative microlessons out there to be perused.

But what if you have something original to teach? Of course. There’s an app for that. In fact there are a lot of apps for that.

Due to the popularity of microlearning as a teaching format, the market is now flooded with software that can be used to create short lessons for everyone from young school children, to academics in universities, to tradespeople and businesses who need career advancement or on the job training. And Teachers, Instructional Designers and Learning and Development specialists are often searching for the best technology to deliver these bitesized nuggets of information.

So we’ve established there is a market for microlearning, but what is the business model? And who are the customers?

Because of limited budgets, K-12 teachers often make use of ready-made solutions, apps that are already on the market with a variety of pre-prepared lessons they can choose from, or platforms which offer free plans. These same platforms typically also offer a more extensive paid version for higher education and businesses. Examples of these include

Kahoot! Where teachers can create quizzes to see if their students are paying attention,

Brainscape where teachers collaborate with their class to create flashcards which the system repeats depending on how the student is responding and even coding can be taught in microlessons with apps like Tinkercad.

In higher education and business, topics that must be covered in lessons tend to be too niche for premade lessons, and with larger budgets come more options. This is where the more complex learning platforms come into play.

Assets to look for in these platforms are that they:

- Are easy to navigate

- Provide simple tools for authoring lessons

- Offer a wide variety of delivery options

- Provide the ability to collaborate with other students and teachers

- Have analytics and reporting systems so lessons are responsive to progress and teachers are kept appraised of performance and problem areas

- Can be offered on any mobile device

There are a variety of platform styles for these markets:

For the holistic approach, there are platforms like EdApp, which is a complete microlearning Learning management system LMS, which takes existing lessons and helps convert them to short mobile lessons. EdApp offers powerpoint conversion, quizzes, push notifications, in-person assessments and analytics.

For a more specific style of teaching there are apps that facilitate learning in modes such as text messaging, like the Arist, which allows learning designers to coordinate a series of interactive text-based lessons.

Some apps are already integrating AI into their platforms, like Axonify, which uses data from individual students to identify knowledge gaps and deliver tailored material

There are also industry-specific microlearning platforms, like Brainshark, which is specific to training sales teams.

Teachers, instructors and instructional designers in schools, colleges, trades schools, higher education and the corporate world are all eager to produce lessons in these micro formats- after all, research is showing how useful they can be for retention, engagement and completion rates. When done right.

So hopefully this video has given you have a broad overview of some of the types of platforms available to create microlearning lessons. I have created a separate page with links to more information on these and other microlearning platforms if you would like to review or deepen your knowledge.

Of course, if you have any questions, please enter a comment below on my ETEC 522 Analyst Report page.

Thanks for watching!