Ritesh Patil
There is no denying the fact that mobile learning is the future. Even if it’s a new domain, the concept evolving swiftly. Learners are increasingly looking for ways to seek new experiences in a mobile-friendly way. When you plan to implement m-learning in the workplace, these 7 steps will help you in creating an effective strategy.
- Create a Demand
This is the initial step for creating a mobile learning strategy and the most important one, but surprisingly, it is often ignored. In fact, learners take up their early m-learning strategy more for creative value than for recognized real needs. It can be due to the lack of understanding of what m-learning is and how to utilize it in the workplace.
Most of the organizations can have the benefits of mobile learning solutions for corporate training, given that the specific organization identifies its real needs to implement the most suitable solution. Just because it’s the most trending thing or everyone else is doing it isn’t the only reason you should do it. First, ask these questions to yourself-
- Is it difficult to provide training to your mobile workforce?
- In some cases, is mobile the only appropriate way to provide training?
- What is your end goal of using mobile learning solutions?
- Estimate Readiness
Even after creating a high demand, corporates may not be ready to include mobile learning. It has been experienced that mobile learning enhances the informal, social, just-in-time, and performance support solutions. Some key elements that estimate readiness include:
Audience Profile: This includes the way learners use their mobile devices, their readiness of m-learning, and the topics and situation in which they want to learn through mobile.
Management Buy-in: It’s about how senior management appreciates the possibilities of mobile learning. Whether they are willing to invest their time and money on creating a valuable strategy for mobile learning solutions for corporate training. The mobile learning must fit in your learning strategy and you must know the ways of leveraging it in your workplace.
Culture: A culture of sharing, social learning, comment in the organization is important.
3. Choose Devices & Platforms to Support
With tech giants like Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS ruling the industry as of now, mobile platforms/operating systems are struggling for more profits. There is a large number of different devices built on different platforms and most of them don’t use any operating system.
You can expect mobile devices with the screen size from 4” t0 11” in the environment to choose from, as all types of tablets are present in the mix now, and for good reason. Although, tablet learning is essentially not like mobile or e-learning.
While it’s quite complicated to choose any specific device for m-learning, planning to provide particular devices to your employees can make this easy. But everyone doesn’t want to choose this way, companies are mostly choosing just their sales staff or another mobile workforce. Another trend allows employees to use their own devices for business purpose. You can implement ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) policies in your strategy in order to enhance the mobile learning experience without any interruption.
- Choose Development/Delivery Models
There are various options available to choose from that can work best for you.Native Apps vs. Mobile Web: Currently native apps are the best in delivering a quality experience if you can afford it. However the mobile web is becoming the best option these days. In consideration with m-learning, native apps are the winners when your staff needs to access information in some area with low or no connectivity or want to execute specific operations on the device. However, the mobile web can be a great choice if you support a wide range of platforms and devices and building apps for each aren’t practical. Cross-platform development tools may solve this issue but not completely. Some common problems here are the slower performance than native apps and no support for all platforms’ features, therefore compromising on user experience.Flash vs. HTML5: Undoubtedly, HTML5 and its extensions are the future of the mobile web. Companies are choosing HTML5 for e-learning strategy for making it available on mobile devices too. If HTML5 is suitable for your purpose, go with it, else Flash is best to develop your e-learning in and keep the mobile web development different. Flash still has the ability to deliver the much better experience than HTML5.
M-Learning Authoring Tools: Some authoring tools can’t completely provide real HTML5 compatibility if that’s what you need. Most of them just insert non-interactive videos in HTML code. Better quality animation and information are still not there. For the future, these tools must be capable of utilizing the potential of HTML5. Some mobile learning delivery and management products are already offering inbuilt authority tools.
LMS integration: LMS integration needs a quite nominal SCORM compliance for implementing mobile learning solutions.
5. Identify Content
One of the most important aspects in implementing m-learning strategy is identifying content and making it mobile-friendly. The e-learning content you are currently using may me too long and complex for mobile training apps. Eventually, you may want to consider shorter mobile training courses that you can effectively complete with the elements that are easier to use on a mobile device. For example, you can create the courses that include the modules navigated on a smaller device and enables the learner to speak rather than type
6. Ensure the Security of Your M-learning Solution
One of the key concerns for a mobile learning solution provider is security, knowing that mobile devices have the ability to download information. So it’s vital to ensure that your m-learning solution is encrypted or password protected, or in case the system is hacked, there are some security measures in place. Make sure to encode and carefully guard all the personal information, so that you don’t have to worry about security concerns later on.
- Test, Review, and Launch
Before officially launching your m-learning solution, it’s important to test and review it. Try to identify areas that need some adjustments or resolve all the errors before enabling learners to log on. It’s necessary to allocate enough time to make sure that your end product is ready to use by the public. This will help your learners enhance their learning experience and uphold your professional name.
The above points are the secrets to creating a successful strategy for mobile learning solutions. Use these tips and design a strategy that’ll always come out on top.
