Beginners guide to mlearning: Collaborative and social learning and the role of smart devices

Learning has always been a mix of personal and collaborative events. Our whole school education system is based on teaching as a group activity and then assessing as an individual. Collaboration in mlearning is a tricky question. We know that working together sparks ideas, but we also know that mobile devices are primarily used for content consumption. So how do we design for this?

Once again, we must return to analyse what mobile devices do well. As covered in the previous blog, here is the Smart Insights review of mobile device usage.

Source: Smart Insights, Statistics on mobile usage and adoption to inform your mobile marketing strategy (http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/).

Our users like using mobile devices for creating short messages, such as a Facebook update or an SMS text, rather than as a platform for creating presentations or large documents. So these are the elements that we have to use. Many learning management systems (LMS), such as Moodle or Blackboard, offer users a discussion group function, where students can swap short, asynchronous messages, perhaps with links to longer pieces of text or videos. This is where you should focus your design attentions when adding collaborative components to your training.

This is a tough call for most educational content designers, because you suddenly lose control. In the classroom you have an instructor or teacher who directs the class conversations and discussions, ensuring that collaboration stays on-track. In virtual learning environments we have moderated (to a greater or lesser degree) text or voice discussions at specified times when a trainer or facilitator is there to direct. In mlearning, where there is an anytime, anywhere principle, it is not viable to exercise anything like the control that we are used to having. People could just say anything!

Of course, they could, but they don’t. Anyone who has run synchronous or asynchronous discussions, perhaps through Twitter or Skype, will know that the hardest part of involving learners in collaborative sessions is getting people to talk at all (aside from the one or two that you just can’t shut up). 

It takes time for people to become comfortable and feel secure in a collaborative environment. The social and cultural traditions, such as shaking hands, talking about the weather, looking a new person in the eyes, is missing. Learners are thrown into a social situation without the physical preamble that we have been fine-tuning for the last 10,000 years.

You need to establish consistent, but flexible, collaborative environments, so that your users become increasingly familiar and comfortable with the social structure. When you have established a format, collaboration will occur more readily. You don’t necessarily have to go to the effort and expense of implementing an LMS. You can set up a Twitter hash tag, use Skype, or even have video conversations with a Google Hangout, although this latter is more appropriate for tablets with video capabilities. 

For asynchronous collaboration, Twitter is an excellent vehicle, especially for smartphones. The discipline of having only 140 characters within which to express an idea is initially frustrating and eventually liberating. You don’t have to write a treatise, you just put a thought out there. Then someone picks it up and runs with it. It is rather like a game of educational basketball, with a team throwing ideas around to try to come to a conclusion or, more often, a new discussion. 

As an example of synchronous collaboration, I recently took part in a course where a Google Hangout was used to hold an instructor-led discussion session; all very much in the control of the tutor. The class saw the potential for working collaboratively and we decided to have our own weekly hangout sessions, where we could bounce around ideas or just have a chat. The social bonds that this built made the whole learning experience far more enjoyable and brought together a group of individuals spread across three continents. Not everyone turned up every time, but we did gel as a team.

Both of these platforms are free, available at any time and from anywhere. Of course synchronous collaboration needs everyone to be available at the same time, but you can be in your office or at home. Students can also organise these themselves. If you are really going to embrace mlearning, then be prepared to let the student have the freedom to determine and even enhance their own learning. You will have to initiate contact, but once the learners in your organisation get used to collaboration and discussion as part of their mlearning, they will take it on to places you may not have thought possible.