The Learning Solutions Blog

This is a summary of a session I presented at Learning Technologies 2012. You can find the slides from the presentation on Slideshare at http://www.slideshare.net/alexmackman/realising-the-potential-of-mobile-learning.

Way back when (OK, it was only a few years ago), when talking about mobile learning or mLearning, we were generally thinking of delivering “training” to smartphones and PDAs. When I say “training” I’m not talking about fully fledged online training courses – you couldn’t possibly study one of those on a phone – right?! – but I am talking about bite sized training nuggets, videos, audio podcasts and so on – the types of training I might just want to consume while travelling or while sat in the park at lunchtime.

mLearning solutions tended to be very device specific, they required specific, usually quite costly development, rarely did the solutions provide centralised learner tracking (who’s done what) and there was little re-use of content across mobile and non-mobile courses. This was understandable due to the very different instructional design and technical challenges presented by mobile vs desktop online training.

Today though, the proliferation of tablets (led by the iPad) is changing all that. The additional screen real-estate, the comfort of the tablet interface for consuming content and the incredible media processing power now available on the tablet device opens up lots and lots of new opportunities and new potential for learning on the go, and just-in-time training. Reusing content across the desktop browser and tablet is now very much a reality. So while we use the same terms “mobile training” and “mLearning”, it’s a very different beast now that tablets are mainstream.

Why is mobile training useful?

Why should we care about mobile learning? There are many reasons, many scenarios and many business benefits, but here are a few of the top ones:

• Convenience. I can consume just about all other types of content on my iPad so why not eLearning? Why should I be forced to sit at my office desk to learn? If I want to make use of some travel time while sitting on a train, then why not?
• Just-in-Time Training. I expect most people have experienced the classic “retention curve” problem. We’ve all been on training courses and then for one reason or another haven’t managed to put into practice our new skills and knowledge immediately when returning to work. Sometimes it can be months before using the skills, which of course really de-values the training because by then you’ve not retained anything like 100% of your learning. Just-in-time-training, on the job, when and where you need it offers a valid and increasingly very relevant alternative.
• Reference materials. Consider the gas service engineer who arrives on a customer site to discover an old and rare bolier that he’s never seen before. This is an ideal scenario for a mobile device that enables him to quickly pull the relevant technical and service data on that boiler. Another scenario might be the field sales person who needs to retrieve information (perhaps the latest product “messaging”, company and industry background, competitor information and so on) prior to going on site with a potential new customer for the first time.

The reference material scenario is somewhat different from pushing training materials to mobile devices because the latter needs to be tracked – typically on an LMS. However, with a mobile content production capability and a platform to support mobile content publishing, both types of mobile delivery offer real business benefits.

Why isn’t mobile training everywhere?

Despite its early promise mobile training hasn’t delivered in a widespread way, mainly for the following reasons:

• Cost and Complexity. Up to now there has been no common technology to use across a diverse range of devices. The instructional design challenges associated with creating effective content for small form factor devices such as smartphones and PDAs is also challenging and it’s been very difficult to re-use content effectively across mobiles and desktops.
• Lack of Tools. The majority of rapid authoring tools produce Flash content which is not an option for mobile delivery.
• Lack of LMS support. Many LMS have presented additional challenges. For example there are those that require Java on the client in order to launch courses. This immediately makes them a non-starter for iPad delivery.
• Bandwidth issues / lack of offline capability. Lack of reliable bandwidth has been another issue and really, offline support is needed to ensure a continual connection to a server isn’t required.

The final point I’d make is that most of the mobile training initiatives that I’ve come across have not taken the final step of integrating with the back end LMS – to provide a coherent tracking story across mobiles and desktops. To do this with SCORM content, the SCORM data needs to be cached locally on the device and then re-synchronized with the server LMS the next time the device is connected. This amounts to more complexity and more development cost.

The Drivers – iPad Trends

The tablet, with the iPad at the forefront is driving a new desire to support mobile training. The statistics are interesting and help to explain this renewed interest:

• ~20% of iPads are sold for corporate use
• Over 90% of Fortune 500 companies are currently deploying or piloting the iPad
• 8 Million tablets were sold in 2011 in the UK
• 1 in 6 UK adults say they will buy a tablet such as the iPad by the end of 2012

What about Windows 8?

So while we can expect to see many more organizations either formally adopting iPads or at least providing support for employees to bring in their own devices and use them at work, I think the Windows 8 tablet (due out sometime in Q4 2012) will further this trend particularly within the Enterprise. While supporting Apple devices is tough for many companies who have invested in a Windows  infrastructure, and have Windows IT support skills, the Windows 8 devices are likely to be easier for IT departments to embrace and support – certainly for those already invested in Microsoft products and technology.

iPad and Tablet Deployment Models

So you want to get content onto the iPad (or another tablet) what are the options? I’ve blogged about this in the past, and you can find a discussion of four possible iPad deployment models here: http://www.cm-luminosity.com/blog/2011/10/18/elearning-deployment-models-for-the-ipad/.

HTML5

No discussion of mobile learning would be complete without talk of HTML5. Flash is no longer an option for mobile content delivery and HTML5 offers a viable alternative, albeit with its own caveats. I’ve discussed this further in a couple of previous posts which you can find here http://www.cm-luminosity.com/blog/2011/09/22/html5-opening-up-new-possibilities-for-elearning/ and here http://www.cm-luminosity.com/blog/2011/11/21/flash-and-html5-for-elearning/.

Supporting IE6 and Other Old Browsers

While use of IE6 is slowly diminishing (less than 1% now in the US), it’s still a factor that needs to be considered if you want to create a learning strategy that supports both desktops and mobile devices in a coherent manner with content re-use and learner tracking across both. Certainly in the UK we encounter many organisations who continue to use IE6. The numbers increase further when you include IE7 and 8 and other, older browsers that have very limited HTML5 capability.

Any HTML5 solution needs to be “adaptable” and “intelligent”. More on this here: http://www.cm-luminosity.com/blog/2011/11/21/flash-and-html5-for-elearning/

Platform Ingredients

So what are the key ingredients to support a coherent learning offering – one that enables content reuse across multiple different device types and one where mobile content delivery is part of a coherent whole rather than a tacked on after thought? These are shown in the following diagram:

1. First is rapid authoring tool that supports HTML5 output in an “adaptable” and “intelligent” manner. This enables you to create training and reference content and deploy it via a learning platform – most likely a learning management system.
2. The content (and LMS) should support a wide range of browsers starting from IE6 (if like many you need to consider IE6 clients) but including IE7, 8 and 9, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera.
3. The same authoring tool and same learning platform should also enable content to be built and consumed across a range of tablets and mobile devices, including iPads and iPhones, Android devices and (later) Windows 8 tablets (expect to see these rapidly gain traction in the Enterprise from 2013 onwards). By delivering content in a coherent manner in this way, course completion tracking (and scoring etc) can be handled in the same way from desktops and mobile devices – with common reporting on the back-end LMS.
4. For full offline support on the tablet (and for the ultimate user experience) and phone devices, App support is required. I’ll be talking more about an exciting new iPad App for SCORM based eLearning delivery soon – so stay tuned.

Summary

Tablets and in particular the iPad are fuelling the demand for mobile / anytime / anyplace learning and I believe Windows 8 tablets (Q4 2012) will accelerate the corporate adoption trend within the Enterprise.

HTML5 is an essential ingredient for any mobile solution so here are some key questions to ask if you’re considering mobile training solutions and you want a coherent solution rather than a bespoke solution.

• Does your learning strategy embrace mobile devices?
  If so, which ones do you want/need to support?

• Does your toolset support mobile devices with HTML5?
• Does your LMS support mobile devices?
• How reusable is your HTML5 content across devices?
• How does it fall back to support older browsers?
• How accessible is your HTML5 output?

Further thoughts, views, opinions – please let me have them!