MicroContent map and PLE’s

@Downes saw my Microcontent Map and sees a parallel with Personal learning Environments. He points to one of his presentations. So I had a look.

I must say that I find the drawings a bit hard to grasp. What I take out of these drawings is that many components (systems, services, software, etc.) are involved, many type of contents (user generated, professional), content is distrbuted over multiple places, API’s, etc.

For me the problem with such diagrams is that they try to describe the world in a single image, on multiple abstraction levels. These diagrams are nice show the complexity, but I miss some internal logic. And that logic is what I am always looking for.

These (personal) MicroContent Maps are an attempt to attain some logic. Let me explain these levels:

1. Me - at the top-level is the user that consumes (toMe) or publishes content. The user also needs other functions to manage his content;
2. MicroContent Type - on the second level are the MicroContent Types, the various forms of MicroContent. One could add other file formats (documents, spreadsheets, presentations), etc, to this level, but I chose to limit myself to MicroContent;
3. MicroContent Applications - on the third level are the applications that are used to consume/publish individual MicroContent Items. I limited myself here to applications. One could add here services that one uses through a browser;
4. MicroContent Services - and on the third level one has the MicroContent Services that communicate with MicroContent Clients through either API’s or feeds (Atom/RSS);

Naturally there are things missing from these maps. They are limited to what I actually use for instance. I would like to add the distinction between API, RSS-based and embedded MicroContent for instance. I think I should add Browser-based services, such as Gliffy in some way.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • general
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The other diagrams are one-dimensional, agreed, from a certain perspective. Yours, also, is one-dimensional, from a certain perspective. The concept is illustrated only by looking at all of the diagrams, seeing the whole of which each represents a part.

I agree that my map does not include all possible (and necessary) concepts. I strived to create a map, where each line and rectangle has clear semantics (at least for me). When the semantics are clear, I can also do a check on completeness.

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