Why Are Needs Analyses Critical to mLearning Success?
Online Events Archive
Online Forums 2013 - September 19, 2013


Ben Bonnet
Instructional Developer
Booz Allen Hamilton

Lauren Bonnet
Assistant Professor
University of Virginia
More and more organizations are embracing the idea of mLearning. The always-connected nature of mobile devices offers learning professionals the opportunity to deliver on the promise of seamless learning to which we all aspire. Once we start seriously considering our mLearning options, though, we confront one very difficult question: What do our learners need to know? For mLearning to be successful, we first need to know what our learners need. Only then can we determine the appropriate methods and strategies to bring that content to them.
Participants in this session will address the question, “What do my learners need to know when they are mobile?” You’ll examine the methodology and results of needs analysis conducted on a population of learning professionals, including questions about devices, preferences, consumption patterns, and overall behavior when consuming mobile learning content. You’ll see examples of the questions you should ask to properly target your learners with relevant, high-quality mobile content, and you’ll explore how to design, implement, and analyze a needs analysis for your own learners.
In this session, you will learn:
- About the importance of conducting mobile-learner needs analyses
- Techniques for conducting these needs analyses
- Appropriate questions to ask mobile learners to determine their needs
- How to identify mobile learners’ patterns of behavior and preferences
- About content design and delivery methods to increase the likelihood of mobile content consumption
- The importance of addressing the specific contexts of mobile learners
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Recording
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