Despite decades of research and years of touchscreen mobile phones and tablets being in use, there’s still a great deal of myth and disinformation in place about how these devices work, and how best to design touch-based interfaces. Mobile technology is now mature enough to mandate that we design mLearning solutions in a way that better matches the ways our learners actually interact with these devices. Too much mLearning design involves scaled-down desktop interfaces, or makes incorrect assumptions about how people’s thumbs work. We can’t design with poor foundational knowledge, and expect good outcomes.

The introduction of new technologies has continuously impacted personal and professional learning. Individuals have used desktops, smartphones, tablets, and other technologies to enhance the way they learn, and organizations have struggled to keep up with the changes. Organizations desiring to make the move to mLearning often hit roadblocks, and find it challenging to find a place and meaning for mobile learning.

Blended mobile learning should be an experience that holds value for both training and performance support. The growing usage of tablets and mobile apps provides an opportunity to combine more traditional eLearning with user-friendly mobile applications that can also capture real-time data to enhance the overall instructional content. Pairing performance support apps with learning materials ensures that content delivered in a training session stays relevant to the user on the job.        

Organizations are not using technology in ways that match with how we think, work, and learn. The learning and development (L&D) function is focused on limited options, when there’s so much more they could be doing. On the other hand, people are using mobile devices in ways that are natural, ways that augment their ability to do. The intersection here is the opportunity that mobile provides.

Augmented reality (AR) can take any situation, location, environment, or experience to a whole new level of meaning and understanding. Mobile AR technologies provide an innovative tool for contextual learning, but mobile learning designers and developers are unaware of where to look for examples or development options.

There are close to a dozen different iOS devices and over 4,200 different Android devices on the market. Designing your content for these different devices is challenging. When considering building training material for mobile devices, you may wonder if it’s best to build a native application or a web application. It’s important to know the advantages and disadvantages of both native and web training applications, and to understand the significant differences between developing for mobile as compared to a traditional desktop.

Mobile technologies and web platforms are advancing faster than training methodologies so keeping up with the trends is getting more and more difficult. There is a growing need to develop training initiatives for a technology landscape that is evolving at a remarkable pace without having to redevelop content for each device or platform.

Organizational leaders often see gaming and immersive mLearning solutions as frivolous and potentially a waste of time. As a result, an engaging learning medium is often overlooked, resulting in missed opportunities to use mobile solutions as a strategy to improve employee skill building. Studies show that participants learn either because they are motivated to learn or because they are engaged in the learning. The challenge is in helping stakeholders understand that mLearning can be extremely immersive and effective for learning.

A new approach to credentialing learning is on the horizon. Digital badges is a new credentialing model will have a profound impact on trainers, designers, developers, managers, and learners. A digital badge is a credential that is ideally suited for the age of electronic networked learning and work. But how does an organization initiate a badge program? Digital badges are transportable, sharable, embedded with information, and authenticatable. Before issuing badges, organizations must understand the process for issuing, storing, and sharing digital badges.

For most organizations, starting to explore adding mobile to an organizational learning strategy can be confusing. Some organizations see mobile learning as nothing more than HTML5. Some instructional designers think mobile learning is a concern only for developers. Still other organizations think mobile is nothing more than a different publishing option from an authoring tool. It’s only when you start walking down the path that you realize just how wrong those assumptions, and countless others, truly are.

eLearning developers are used to being able to use rapid eLearning development tools to quickly build and prototype eLearning materials. In the mobile world, these tools are a bit different and have their own constraints and implementation considerations. Development of mobile apps can be a tricky, specialized skill set. If you are new to this world, the barrier to entry likely overwhelms you.

Technology innovations, increased learner expectations, and leadership demands continue to change the learning ecosystem. Learning organizations are challenged to deliver mobile learning solutions that range from just-in-case compliance training to on-demand performance support at the moment of need. As a result, gaining support and resources for mobile learning requires executing the correct business model and having the proper framework to have tough consultative conversations (i.e., trade-offs, budget) with executives.