MICROLEARNING 2005 :: Learning & Working in New Media Environments
International Conference
June 23 - 24, 2005 :: Innsbruck (Austria)

We'd like to invite all practitioners and researchers interested in innovative learning technologies and didactics, especially m-learning, and/or in new concepts of "microcontent" and an ubiquituous "metaweb",

More information at www.microlearning.org

CALL FOR PAPERS

MICROLEARNING 2005
Learning & Working in New Media Environments
International Conference
June 23 - 24, 2005 :: Innsbruck (Austria)
www.microlearning.org

Program Chair: Peter A. Bruck (Research Studios Austria)
Program Advisory Board: Michael Kerres (Duisburg), Peter Parnes (Luleå), Richard Straub (IBM); William Uricchio (MIT); Claudio Dondi
(SCIENTER/Bologna); Erik Duval (Leuven)

MICROLEARNING 2005 provides a multidisciplinary forum for intensive
discussions on innovative approaches to and best practices in learning,
teaching and gaining knowledge in the new media environments.
Mobile Minds, Smartmobs, Ubiquitous Computing are some of the latest buzzwords. Broadband breaks through, mobile data services go multimedia and the Google Galaxy is rapidly expanding.
Within this environment optimized strategies for Learning are called for.

A new generation of educational programmes are being developed.
This conference focuses on Microlearning as offering key answers: learning in small units, developing flexible designs, designing mediated
environments and integrating different learning models are seen to
optimize the use of technologies for learners.

Exploring Microlearning as a cutting edge option, this conference aims at bringing different aspects and approaches into focus: mobile and the Web, didactics and learning technologies, corporate learning and academia, e-learning and semantic web, ICT and new media cultures.

Papers are invited which present topical issues, new projects, best practice results, and innovative aspects.

TOPICS

1. Microcontents & Knowledge Dynamics
- knowledge dynamics and media dynamics
- microcontent and the construction of micro-learning objects
- organisation of microcontents and knowledge landscapes

2. Microdidactics
- organizing complex subjects in modular learning environments
- embedding microlearning scenarios in formal curricula and in informal
settings
- modular approaches to immersive and explorative learning
- microdidactics in story- & scenario-based learning

3. Projects and Best Practices
- Practical experiences with and theoretical reflections on microlearning
- Modular learning approaches
- Microlearning projects in different contexts (corporate learning,
language learning, public schools, etc.)
- Smart M-Learning applications: Micro and Mobile

4. Working & Learning in New Media Spaces
- New media technologies and media cultures between mobile devices and the Web
- Societal and technological dynamics: types of users, learners, workflows and workplaces
- new ways of learning in mediated environments

PAPERS / POSTERS
Researchers, practitioners and scholars focusing on new projects, concepts, didactics, technologies or applications are invited to submit abstracts (2 p. max.) for a paper or poster presentation (15 min. plus 10 min discussing) to: confererence@microlearning.org

Length of final papers: 6 - 8 pages min.; Awards for Outstanding Paper and Outstanding Student Paper. Selected papers will be published by
DUV-Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag. Language of conference is English.

CONFERENCE FEE (except for invited speakers):
235 € (65 € students & participants from Eastern Europe)

SCHEDULE
March, 30 Deadline for abstracts (2 pages max.) and proposals for special sessions and posters
April, 30 Notification of Authors and proposers
June, 15 Deadline for final papers and posters

MICROLEARNING 2005 Program Chairs:

Peter A. Bruck, ARC Research Studios Austria
Theo Hug, University of Innsbruck

MICROLEARNING 2005 Program Advisory Board:
Michael Kerres (Duisburg), Peter Parnes (Luleå), Richard Straub (IBM); William Uricchio (MIT); Claudio Dondi (SCIENTER/Bologna); Erik Duval (Leuven)


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION


MICROLEARNING2005 is intended to be a transdisciplinary platform for really groundbreaking and exciting discussions ­not the average academic conference based on just another buzzword.

It will be attended by people from academia and corporate training with a high reputation in innovative, technically enhanced learning/knowledge
concepts as well as by young web culture enthusiasts. Related fields
include didactics and learning technology, academia and corporate training, instruction design, semantic metaweb technologies and studies in new media cultures …

For a kick off we plan to have some speakers with a unique competence and expertise giving an introduction for the three main subjects and to set the focus for the following presentations and discussions (see the provisory program attached). These subjects are:

(1) the latest developments in the new converging media culture between mobile and the web, including the consequences for the construction and distribution of knowledge;
(2) the interrelations between „microcontent/metaweb“-technologies and
concepts on one side (like applications based on the principles of
NewsExpress … )
(3) … and, on the other side, complex and innovative knowledge/learning scenarios structured as open patterns of small „learning objects“.

In a first round of reflection the concept of Microlearning should be
introduced both theoretically and empirically: Structuring learning in
small units and steps (from some seconds to some minutes), developing flexible designs, designing mediated environments and integrating different learning models to optimize the use of technologies for learners.

This establishes a new field for systematical reflexion and innovative
practice, offering key answers to new challenges of the ongoing media
revolution. New media technologies (web and mobile, ubicomp in the near future) are already forming the specific experiences of today’s knowledge workers and new media users, immersed in clouds
of knowledge plankton. These new microcontent environments lead to new forms of learning, working and even living that have to be described,
analyzed and understood to create new (micro-)learning and (micro-)knowledge applications and contents.

Microlearning, as it is used in this context, is more than just another
buzzword: Implications concern a change of technologies (converging media, web, mobile, ubicomp), a change of user experience (multitasking in new media environments), a related change of perspective in instructional design (creating learning experiences bottom-up instead of top-down), and even a change of paradigms (reconstructing knowledge in new media environments as an open and highly granularized texture consisting of micro-elements).