Mobile learning (a.k.a. mLearning) is a topicthat continues growing and evolving at astonishing rates. In our newest eBook, Mobile Learning Perspectives, I beginby acknowledging that in today’s world, mobile is more than pervasive; it isubiquitous, universal, even omnipresent. In fact, Larry Page,former Google CEO, may have said it best: “We are no longerliving in a mobile-first world; we are in a mobile-only world.”
Wide Variance inmLearning Practices
Author and educator Cecelia Munzenmaier, my co-contributing editor, begins with the observation that arecent Towards Maturity benchmarking survey found widevariances in the way mLearning is being implemented (see References). Intop-performing organizations, 83 percent of respondents reported they were usingmobile devices for learning. These companies typically describe mLearning asbeing “embedded” in their culture. However, among respondents as a whole, about25 percent rate themselves as still “experimenting” with mLearning. Theseresults show broad agreement that organizations need to use mLearning, but thereare wide variations in practice, and not everyone has a strong record ofsuccess.
It doesn’t matter where you are now, or your pastrecord of implementation success. We focus these mobile learning resources onthree fundamental capabilities that are essential to everyone’s success:
- Assessing how mLearning canspecifically benefit your organization
- Planning an effectivemLearning strategy that works for the needs of your organization
- Implementing best practicesin developing mobile content that help you avoid common mistakes and obstacles
The authors featured in this eBook are managersand practitioners with strong, hands-on experience in mobile learningdevelopment. They present their best thinking on five fundamental questionsabout how to realize the potential benefits of mLearning.
1. What canmLearning do that other types of eLearning can’t?
The answer, for Paul Clothier, starts with theusers. In “Right Time and Place: mLearning Use Cases,” Paul discusses examplesof effective mobile solutions and then suggests questions you can use todevelop your own use case scenarios. At the time he wrote the article, Paul wasa chief learning guru at TapLearn, a consultancy specializing in mobilelearning content solutions. He is currently a director of training and mobilelearning specialist at Apple.
In “Challenging the Infinite Monkey Theorem:Mobile Performance Support,” Steven Loomis argues that the greatest advantageof mobile learning is that it allows you to embed learning content in theenvironment. He also details the advantages that mobile options have overtraditional hard-copy materials and paper-based references (Table 1).
Materials/tools we give students | Advantages of a mobile option |
Training manuals These materials contain the content covered in your class or course. They may also provide extra scaffolding or supplementary information that wasn’t part of the class or course. | Mobile devices connect to the Internet and can have dynamic content. Use of movies, audio, and interactive elements can add extra support and expand on your classroom content. |
Phone lists and contact information These materials contain factual content related to contact information. | Built-in mobile features can trigger phone calls, SMS, and email. This information could be dynamic so that it adjusts to changes within the organization. Skype and FaceTime options are available now to enable video conferencing. Other options include GPS and location information that could map directions. |
Other reference materials These materials contain blocks of data organized to support searching and scanning activities. Here, users need to access specific information quickly and easily. | GPS, scanning, and recognition features within these devices can push or pull information to your students based on their immediate environment. Networks, databases, and mobile computing power can greatly amplify your students’ search capabilities. |
Procedural or process guides These job aids provide step-by-step directions on how to perform a procedure or task. | Video, AR, and interactive content could be included with your procedural guides to provide greater detail and guidance on these procedures. |
Checklists These job aids support the need to document a list of items or tasks that users must complete for a complex process. These checklists ensure the accuracy and completeness of a given task. | When checklists are completed, mobile devices could trigger emails, alerts, or other notifications. |
Calculators These job aids allow you to input data and perform calculations. | You could automate calculations and cluster analysis. This could allow you to create custom material handouts or send data to other sources. |
Decision tables and flowcharts These job aids walk you through several conditions or decision points. Your inputs here will guide you to a set of recommendations. | Completing these job aids will generate automatic recommendations. This activity may trigger prepopulated process flows or initiate other actions based on your inputs. |
Steven then goes on to recommend threestrategies for making the transition to mobile performance support. Steven, whobegan his career in the QA department of an educational video game company, hasdeveloped performance support tools and training solutions for the legal,banking, and health care sectors.
2. How can we thinkstrategically about mLearning?
Beyond making sure your authoring tool supportsHTML5, and making sure you have either a BYOD (bring your own device) policy ora mobile-usage policy in place, what else do you need to be ready to deploymobile learning? In “Five Tips: Are You Ready to Deploy Mobile Learning?,” StephanieIvec identifies five things to think about as you plan and implement a mobilelearning strategy. She writes for the Lectora eLearning blog (www.trivantis.com/blog), eLearningIndustry.com, and HR.com.
The way to execute a mobile learning strategy atscale is to take advantage of micro-moments, explains David James in “The Roleof Mobile in Learning.” People will want to access learning at so many times andin so many places that L&D will need to use three ways to develop content,he says: create, collaborate, and curate. Formerly a director of talent,learning, and OD for Disney, David is currently a learning strategist withLooop.co.
“Your learners are already mobile learners,” accordingto Jennifer Neibert. In “Mobile Learning for Talent Development: CriticalQuestions for Learning Leaders,” she offers questions to help organizationsthink strategically about how to integrate mobile learning into their culture. Jenniferis a news writer with Learning SolutionsMagazine and principal of Brushfire Learning, which creates customsolutions to engage learners and promote long-term performance sustainability.
3. How can we bestdevelop mLearning?
J.P. Medved presents a template for managing allfive phases of an mLearning project in “Mobile eLearning Design: How to SurviveYour First mLearning Project.” J.P. is a content editor at Capterra, aprivately held technology and online media company focused on bringing togetherbuyers and sellers of business software.
Tempting as it can be to simply move existingcontent to a mobile platform, it’s best to “think of ways you can supplementthe eLearning you have rather than trying to duplicate it on a small screen,”says Paul Clothier. In “Adapting eLearning for Mobile: Learning from WonderfulMistakes,” he models best practices for transitioning to mLearning, as well asa positive attitude.
Paul divides“mobile” into two categories, “phone mobile” and “tablet mobile.” When writingabout mobile devices, he is “primarily talking about smartphones, not tablets,”he says. His perspective is that designing learning content for a tablet hasmore in common with designing for laptop or desktop eLearning than for smartphones(Figure 1). As a result, Paul’s guidelines are for “phone mobile” devices—“thosewith a small screen that you typically carry with you everywhere.”
Figure1: Content similarities between devices
4. What newinsights are emerging about mLearning?
Rick Wilson and Gary Woodill’sarticle “Engineering Intelligent Content for Mobile Learning” originallyappeared in Learning Solutions Magazineon March 24, 2011. In its final section, the authors discussed the “emergingvision” of mLearning. We’ve incorporated the authors’ updated thoughts on thepotential of intelligent mobile content.
5. How do we knowwe’re doing mLearning right?
Another area in which new insights and bestpractices are emerging is quality control. We invited our authors to reflect onhow you can monitor whether you’re doing mLearning right. Theirresponses give you their latest thinking on the potential of mLearning andprovide benchmarks you can use to assess the quality of your mobileinitiatives.
Where do we go from here?
Our purpose in creating this eBook was to reachout to L&D professionals who see the pervasive workplace influence ofmobile and its exponential impact on almost all aspects of learning anddevelopment. More importantly, we also wanted to provide guidance andresources—and a solid starting point—toward gaining an in-depth understandingof current mLearning strategies, development approaches, and best-practiceinsights. Among these are additional Guildresources, detailed references for further reading, and a glossary of termsfor those new to mobile learning strategy, design, and deployment.
In terms of “where we go from here,” let meleave you with two data points that we discuss in the eBook:
- We havealready moved from “mobile” to “mobility.” According to Giselle Abramovich (seeReferences), “90 percent of the population has a connected device within arm’slength at all times.” Mobile is no longer just a tactic for marketers—or forlearning professionals; it is a “core critical strategy,” as Steven Cook writesat CMO.com (see References).
- “Mobile” isbecoming “digital.”We willbegin to see the distinction between “mobile” and “digital” disappear. Termssuch as “mobile teams,” “mobile strategy,” and “mobile marketing” “will startto diminish in 2016,” Giselle Abramovich writes, as we recognize that mobilecannot be confined to its own conceptual or technology “silo.” It remains to beseen whether mobile learning willalso disappear as a distinct type of learning.
You can’t afford to miss the insights andresources in Mobile LearningPerspectives. Visit our website and download your own copy now. Ifyou are not a member of The eLearningGuild, please visit our membership pageand consider joining our community. We appreciate your interest and lookforward to your comments and suggestions about this eBook. Please send yourfeedback to [email protected].
Want more?
Join us in Austin, Texas, June 8 – 10 for FocusOn Mobile! Sessions by experts will help you understand how touse mobile technology for eLearning. Other sessions provide FocusOn Video and FocusOn Performance support. One registration gets you all three. Hurry! Early registration discount ends thisFriday, April 22—save $100!
References
Abramovich, Giselle. “Five Mobile Trends To Catch UpWith In 2016.” CMO.com. 28 January2016.
https://www.cmo.com/articles/2016/1/27/5-important-mobile-trends-in-2016.html
Cook, Steven. “CMO’s Notebook: Mobile Not AMarketing Segment, Says mCordis’ Becker.” CMO.com.
4 January 2016.
https://www.cmo.com/articles/2015/12/9/quick-chat-michael-becker-mcordis.html
Towards Maturity. Mobile learning in the workplace: Practical perspectives onimplementing mobile learning. June 2014. (Requiresregistration.)
https://www.towardsmaturity.org/article/2014/06/16/towards-maturity-mobile-learning-work-2014/
