Technology allowsus to do some amazing things with learning. Today, everyone wants to mobilizehis or her content. It’s almost impossible to attend a learning and performanceevent without feeling inundated with presentations on mobile strategy, or thelatest in mobile authoring solutions.
The challengeremains … is the effort worth it? Most stakeholders can’t explain (at least inconcrete terms) why they need to create mobile learning for their audience, letalone why they need a plan to track and report on those efforts. In order toget the most out of your mobile learning strategy, here are some questions toget you started on reporting and analyzing this content.
What are you tracking?
To begin with, youhave to determine what information you will need to track. As with alltraining, there are standard components you want to track. Those may includecourse attempts, completions, scores, etc. However, mobile learning opens up anumber of other opportunities. For example, how do you account for level ofinteraction, reuse as performance support, and social learning?
Informal and/orsocial-based learning is rapidly becoming a mainstay of all learningactivities. Some research suggests informal learning may account for as much as70 percent of all corporate learning. Given the nature of mobile deviceintegration with social media (including both smartphones and tablets),informal learning will continue to take on a larger role in corporate training.It’s important to identify the specific touch points within social learningthat we need to track and report on. In addition to traditional learning, weneed to give focus to frequency of interactions, type of interactions, and levelof contribution.
How do you track it?
Tracking learningevents has long been measured around AICC and SCORM standards. Most majorlearning platforms and authoring tools tout their support for these standards. Howeverwhen it comes to mobile learning, you need to make sure your chosen platform supportsthese standards within a mobile context.
The first step isto review your authoring solution. If you’re creating your own content, thereare a number of solutions that claim to author for mobile consumption. Testseveral out and pilot them with a variety of end users. Keep in mind that toolsleveraging plugins are problematic for mobile devices, particularly as pertainingto tracking and reporting. The key is to focus on native HTML- and JavaScript-basedauthoring tools.
Next, confirm thatyour method of deploying content supports tracking of mobile assets. As withthe content tools, make sure the system avoids the use of plug-in-basedarchitectures for their SCORM or AICC packages. For example, it’s common for aLMS to leverage a Java-based SCORM player. HTML- and JavaScript-based contentplayers are generally the best solution as they are available as standardbrowser features without the need for a plugin.
As previouslymentioned, mobile devices naturally facilitate the use of social and informallearning. You will want to track these events on a different level than you dotraditional classroom or online learning as learners access blogs, wikis, Twitter,YouTube, etc. from their mobile devices. Assuming these resources are part ofyour learning strategy (and they should be), you will want to track andevaluate how people are using them. It’s common to find authoring and talentplatform solutions integrated with these informal resources. Just make sure youinclude tracking and reporting on the use of those resources and that mobile devicessupport them.
How are you evaluating it?
You need toprepare in advance for how you’re going to evaluate your mobile learningoutcomes. It’s a little too late once you start collecting the information. Youmust start by clearly defining the objectives and intended outcomes.
Some groups findit challenging to nail down their exact intent for mobile learning. Determiningif it will be a primary method for delivering training, or whether you let it focuson training and performance reinforcement provides the bulk of the neededdirection. Evaluating the impact of performance support materials is verydifferent from evaluating that of a complete training program. With clearlydefined objectives, stakeholders are able to better evaluate the effectiveness.
From an overall evaluationperspective, mobile learning remains very similar to that of classroom or eLearning.You can leverage Kirkpatrick’s Model of training evaluation as the analysis basisfor your mobile content. Of course, the focus still remains on the ability toimpact behavior (Level 3) and business results (Level 4). Ultimately, seniorstakeholders may even ask what the ROI is.
ROI within thelearning space results in a mixed response. Kirkpatrick suggests you shouldinstead focus on Return on Expectations (ROE). This is easy to do if thoseexpectations are set from the outset. You’re then able to match the collectedmetrics with the defined expectations and determine to what extent they aremet.
Is it worth it?
In the end, youmust ask this one question: Is theeffort required to create and deliver mobile learning worth it? Mobilelearning is here to stay. There doesn’t appear to be an end in sight assmartphones and tablet devices become more and more pervasive. Throughcontinual evaluation and analysis, mobile learning strategies will become aneffective component of any learning strategy. It won’t be long before informalmobile learning becomes the main element of a holistic learning and performancestrategy.
