The coming explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT) will impact almost every aspect of human life. The integration of different sensors and wearable devices will play a key role in addressing some key challenges associated with mobile learning. However, to take advantage of these opportunities, it is important for organizations to understand the ways of bringing standards from both the IoT and mLearning worlds together, to enhance the overall learning experience.

Clients often ask for mobile learning solutions without considering whether mobile learning is the best fit for the business, instructional needs, and technology constraints. For a mobile project to be successful, instructional designers and managers need to be grounded in the fundamentals of mobile learning strategy. What questions should you ask when determining whether a mobile solution is the best fit? How do you educate your clients on the advantages and disadvantages of mobile learning?

When thinking about training and performance support, it should not be an either /or proposition. The most effective mobile learning solutions should provide ways to support both! During the Mobile Training Implementation Framework (MoTIF) research project, ADL collected data and feedback from many mLearning and performance support experts. One of the tools developed as part of this effort is a new reference model for mLearning design.

Learning is more than just the distribution of information. Motivation, memorability, and personal meaning should be required ingredients for a successful learning moment. An additional ingredient required for mobile learning is the fidelity of interface design. Touch-based designs can help, but as a mobile designer, you are pitted against the high-fidelity game and social media apps that are just a button away.

As more and more people are adopting agile-based development methods, the single biggest thing TorranceLearning hears is, “I’ve got to get my team/clients/boss/SMEs on board with this, or it will fail miserably.” You do need to get your team, your clients (internal and external), your boss, and your SMEs on board with this—because if you do not, then yes, it is likely to fail miserably. Agile is more than a project management method. It is a culture.

Mobile learning isn’t just for re-packaging eLearning. It is about going to where the learner is ... out in the real world, beyond the computer. The tried and true method for reaching people in the real world has been the QR code, but we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what can be done with this simple tool. Because it can open any content, the QR code affords the designer an opportunity to make a lot of things happen for the learning experience.

The world of training and development has changed. Today’s technologies provide dozens of new affordances that can be used in learning and development that were simply not available in the days of training being done in classrooms with instructors and three-ring binders. But making sense of these new affordances, and the opportunities they provide, can be a challenge.

One of the most popular authoring tools in use today is Articulate Storyline. As more organizations make the move to mobile, the need to find ways to use Storyline for mobile projects increases. But where do you start? 

There is a frustration on the part of many HTML designers and instructional designers. While they would love to be able to place content directly on an iPhone or iPad as a native app, they soon realize that a solid knowledge of Xcode is required. If you want a native experience without having to learn iOS, Android, and BlackBerry (soon Windows 8) native development, then Titanium is the perfect solution.

Recent investigations questioning the potentially preventable nature of fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan make combat lifesaving an even more critical area of focus in training and developing the future leaders of the military. Because soldiers are always on the move, mobile devices can play a big part in supporting their training. 

As the use of mobile devices is increasing, individuals have access to information anytime and anywhere to perform authentic activities in the context of learning. This provides the opportunity to bring education to any location, without the need to physically move to an academic institution or training facility.

Tracking the learning experience in typical eLearning scenarios is one thing, but how do you track the learning experiences of students scattered throughout a museum for their science field trip? Personalized learning is a growing interest in the workplace, but an understanding of the technology and path to get there is lacking. What are needed are examples of personalized learning in practice.

So, you think you want gamified mobile learning? You’re not alone. By some projections, the market for gamified mLearning applications will reach $2.3 billion by 2017, spurred on by an increase in the use of mobile devices and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) approaches. Your learners are already turning to mobile, and they’re expecting more engaging learning. But where do you start?

The federal government faces numerous circumstances that make adopting and offering mLearning, training, and performance solutions challenging. There are also expectations that government products should be made available to the public. In light of that, the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) initiative, a Department of Defense initiative focused on furthering distributed and remote learning, training, and performance support in government and in civil society, will provide an overview of various mLearning projects and their open source products.

When you launch an mLearning project for the first time, you start with a plan and several expectations on how things will proceed during implementation. Many learning professionals new to mobile are surprised to discover that their expectations for a mobile project are not in line with the expectations of their audience.

It isn’t enough to build performance support solutions that are instructionally and technologically sound. Motivation and engagement are essential to ensure actual organizational impact. Engagement and creativity can be engineered and trained. They can also be incorporated into the actual design of learning and performance solutions. 

Of course, all employees want learning at the moment of need on their mobile devices. What they want to know, when they want to know it, and how they choose to learn it: Just-in-time learning is not only what employees expect, but also a proven model to increase business outcomes. You may want to provide performance support tools; however, gaining executive support, funding, IT support, and so forth, can be challenging. A performance support model requires changing the conversation with all the stakeholders.

Visuals are an important part of eLearning, and this importance and challenge only increases when you are working on the smaller screens of mobile devices. Understanding how to tweak your visuals to work better in a mobile environment can take your mLearning projects to greater heights. 

When it comes to mobile learning, there are a number of challenges learning and development practitioners experience. It is necessary to add context to mobile learning experiences, including using mobile devices for performance support. It is also necessary to understand the possibilities posed by new technologies. Thankfully, you can learn much of this by looking at the examples provided by organizations that have already walked this path.

Mobile devices offer an enticing array of opportunities for learning and development, so much so it seems as if it’s a “no-brainer” for training departments to add mLearning. But there are four key issues that should be taken into consideration before just jumping into mLearning: technology, people, content, and business value. All of these can have a critical impact on the potential success of any plan to add mLearning to an organization’s overall training and development program.

In today’s mobile world where learners may be accessing learning solutions on many different devices and screen sizes, it’s challenging for instructional designers to “storyboard” a solution that works universally. Many may struggle to determine if they need to design three totally unique solutions: one for phones, one for tablets and one for desktops and laptops. Is storyboarding even feasible in this situation? 

The mobile workforce will reach 1.3 billion in 2015, and people will have an average of 50 connected devices by 2020; meanwhile, mobile in the enterprise continues to lag. While 71 percent of senior IT leaders see mobile as strategic or transformational, only 18 percent today have a comprehensive mobile strategy.

It’s hard enough to get learners to engage with the content of your eLearning course. The issue is compounded even further when learners can’t figure out how to use the course or it’s too difficult to use on a mobile device. All too often, new eLearning designers put their focus solely into designing the learning content, while at the same time ignoring the interface it’s encapsulated in. This leads to confusion on the part of the learner and disrupts the learning process.

Trainers have all seen the “light come on” when participants really get a point from the training. The trainers wonder if they’ll remember it in a few days or weeks when they encounter a need for that knowledge. Over the years, trainers have all built job aids, tools, and refreshers, and provided follow-up coaching in person, online, and on the phone with varying degrees of success. Apps and mobile phones offer a new way for the participant to keep the knowledge close at hand.

Mobile is one of the biggest trends in workplace learning. But mobile what, exactly? Pinpointing exactly what mobile means in the context of your organization isn’t easy. You also need to answer the why of mobile. To do that, you need to view mobile in the context of all the current trends in workplace learning.

Classroom programs don’t often translate well online. As a result, people watching programs online are often bored and do other things while “watching” the programs. They use the programs as “background noise,” and as a result, do not learn the information presented. This problem increases as more organizations push content to mobile devices.

Learning does not happen by turning a page. Everyone has seen the Next button page-turning courses and realized that it does not work. However, building engaging content that is interactive and helps with training can be complex. Most designers do not have the technical skills to build an interactive native application or an interactive book.

The DeMaND Project is a consortium project funded by the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training program that trains students for careers in skilled trades, including welding, construction, HVAC, electrical, CDL, and heavy equipment. The project works with students from areas with chronically high unemployment and generational poverty. Students have difficulty entering the workforce and retaining employment. The project needed a mechanism to help students learn about job opportunities and stay connected with their instructors and one another, and to support students toward employment.

Making the decision to add mobile technologies to your learning and performance strategy is one thing; making it happen is something else. One of the biggest challenges organizations run into once they make the decision to go mobile is choosing a tool to be used for mobile development. The mobile environment is very different than that of the desktop, and a tool that works in one space may not perform as well in another.

As iPads and mobile technology become more ingrained in all areas of our lives, we need to find ways to use the same tools in learning. But this shift can be extremely challenging for learning professionals and organizations to make.

You’re a top-performing company. You’ve started using a couple of mobile apps at work. How do you turn some inspired use of mobile into a broader strategy? One of the key components of this is creating an internal corporate ecosystem for mobile. So how can you get started? Should you build or buy? How do you navigate around issues with IT security and legal?

Compliance training is a universal issue and requirement for all types of organizations. It can be tricky to design and create compliance training that’s easy, available, and engaging to all learners, yet satisfies statutory legal and HR requirements. Traditional eLearning programs have gained an unfavorable reputation for being uninspiring and complex, stuck on a restricted platform such as desktop.

The instructional design process is iterative. Going from analysis with subject matter experts (SMEs) to design and back can consume precious time and resources. Developing learning materials away from the customer can sometimes yield surprises during pilot and deployment.

Onboarding of new employees to ensure they are prepared to perform is a critical undertaking for any organization. When the call is to effectively onboard temporary employees, a new wrinkle is added, as onboarding activities can take too much time in relation to the length of their contract.  

As more and more projects are being built to accommodate multiple devices, the need to prototype grows. Whether you are creating a new project, developing an app, or simply launching a new responsive course, prototyping can help you better understand what’s working and what needs to be changed.