My aha moment was a realization of how important it is for educators to acquire skills to organize and curate information for learners, given the speed and abundance of content in the information age.

Both trends of microlearning and augmented intelligence demonstrate this importance in different ways. However, they both are trends that respond to the need for learners to deal with the new present-day issue of information overload.

Microlearning fulfills this requirement in a dual function. First, it takes an abundance of content and emphasizes the most salient points to learn. Second, it takes away the overwhelm from the abundance of content to reduce cognitive load for the learner and allow them to process information quickly.

Augmented intelligence also curates content for the learner to emphasize specific content. It also offers a secondary function in that it implements quality control to the type of content that the learner can access.

Both trends also are responses of learning and development (L&D) to another trend of today – organizations facing non-stop and fast changes that typically require just-in-time training.