mlearning—anytime, anywhere is the difference

Mobile learning, or mlearning, has become the must-have training strategy for 21^st century education. One of the problems with this migration to mlearning is the number of organisations who are not migrating their learning platform, but are simply migrating their learning content. Doing this misses the whole point—two points to be more accurate—of mlearning; the student can learn anytime, anywhere. 

In our lifetimes the world of learning has escaped from the classroom. Please note that by classroom I mean any place where an individual or group has to be to learn; this may be any classroom, lecture hall or place of work, where an instructor or mentor imparts knowledge, or a room where a student studies an elearning course. All of these are bound by space and often time. The mobile delivery services offered by information and communication technology now means that students can learn whenever and wherever they want. Don’t underestimate this shift. As Mike Sharples puts it in Towards a Theory of Mobile Learning (Sharples, 2005):

“Many theories of learning have been advanced over the 2500 years between Confucius and the present day, but almost all have been predicated on the assumption that learning occurs in a school classroom, mediated by a trained teacher.”

(I have stretched this to include elearning where a teacher is not present, but you get the idea.)

We now have a delivery and consumption paradigm where the student is no longer tethered by time or place; a major change to how we have become used to working. In this blog I will ignore the mechanics of mobile learning design and concentrate on how mobility means that we must change our thinking about our design of training courses and learning events. (If you want to read about mlearning design have a look at my other blogs).

Anytime Learning

Training in industry has become a bit like the summer holiday; there is a set amount of time, we go someplace, we do something, we come back…and (at the risk of stretching the analogy) the tan fades after a few weeks. Many staff regard a training course as a part of the working year. Where there is a necessity for mandatory training, many employers provide some “sheep-dip” compulsory courses, which staff must complete for regulatory compliance. 

There are advantages and disadvantages in these approaches. The idea of going on a training course can put people in the mood for learning, perhaps by changing their environment or putting them with a group of other students with whom they can network and collaborate. On the downside, it takes people out of their workplace for, perhaps, a week and trains them in lots of things that they almost certainly will not use before they have forgotten the training. There is a good deal of speculation regarding how much students retain from a training course. The estimates range from 10% to over 60%, but a lot of the “research” is anecdotal. You can look at both ends of the spectrum by looking at The Low-Hanging Fruit Is Tasty and An Investigation of Training Activities and Transfer of Training in Organizations. Based on no empirical research, I would suggest that the 80:20 rule probably applies to training, just as it does to so much else in life.

What is clear is that we retain things that are pertinent and applicable to our lives. You only stick your finger in a fire once before learning that it hurts; an extreme and very basic example, but true. On a five-day training course you are unlikely to retain all the information that is covered because it almost certainly includes content that will not occur in your working life in the few months following the training event. For example, on an accounting course you may learn lots of information about tax laws, but it is unlikely that you will have to use all of this information before you start to forget the details or they become out-of-date. 

With mlearning the whole classroom model is turned upside-down. The student decides when is the right time for them to study, rather than their having to turn up on a Monday morning at 9am…for coffee and a 9.30 start. Not only do students take control over the starting time, they also control the duration. Received wisdom it that we only concentrate for about 40 minutes on new materials. If a training lesson last for an hour, the last 20 minutes suffer from the law of diminishing returns.

In the business world, where training is regarded as a personal benefit, this empowerment leads to greater engagement for the student and enhance retention for the organisation (Have a look at Jason Silberman’s interesting article in Business News). Students can also ensure that the timing of a training event is pertinent and applicable to their working lives. Our accounting student can spend 30 minutes taking a short course on the facet of tax law that is relevant to their current workload. This can be supported by short refresher content that they can review later, ensuring that what they learned in the initial training is updated for changes or just brought back to mind. Performance Support content of this type enables a student to refresh what they may have learned previously. (It is interesting to note that the Word synonyms for “refresh” include enliven, invigorate, and energise. Isn’t this what we all—student or training designer—want in our training?). This top-up functionality is positioned to improve retention, providing an on-going top-up to avoid the dip in Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve. Although the research that underpins this theory had a questionable methodology, it is clear that memory fades over time, so refreshing learnt information is useful in creating strengthened memories.

Anywhere Learning

In addition to control over when they learn, students can also decide where they learn. With just about all smart devices there is the option to connect via Wi-Fi or across the mobile or cellular phone network to access hosted content that is delivered using Web-based communications technologies. Alternatively a training organisation can develop downloadable apps that provide full course content on the device, with no need to be linked to a central content repository. This approach means that even where there is no communications access a user can still use training materials. For organisations that need to track and manage staff training, the Tin Can API/Experience API initiative enables more flexible, asynchronous learning management.

Many staff commute to and from work on public transport. With the video and audio capabilities of smart devices, it is possible to take a 30 minute course or watch a video on the way to the office. I am not suggesting that this should be regarded as a mandatory learning time, but for users who want to do so, the flexibility of a training app on a smartphone can make this an attractive option.

Is anywhere learning something that students want? (Good question, John) It is estimated that nearly 40% of smartphone users read the news on their devices and 50% search for content or use maps (Smart Insights, Statistics on mobile usage and adoption to inform your mobile marketing strategy). This shows that many people now regard their smart devices as sources of information, rather than just a games-playing diversion.

In addition to anywhere availability of content, the majority of devices offer locale functionality, which can provide geographical context to personal training. For staff working in the health and safety environment of a global business, this means that the organisation can provide training on local H&S practices in their current location. Alternatively, the employee may review some induction training on the local company division. This means that training content can be pertinent, irrespective of location, which is a key element of developing effective and engaging learning materials.

The place of Performance Support content in anywhere learning is well known. In the 1980s staff would lug increasingly bloated Filofaxes with them, packed with the handy hints and tips that they felt might be useful while doing their work. This was particularly the case with mobile workers, like sales executives and on-site engineers. With Performance Support content delivered on mobile devices, all of this can be maintained as a centrally managed set of up-to-date resources that a “student” can use to help them on-the-job. I have put student in quotes there because this is far removed from our student/classroom archetype; this is life-long learning in action.

And in Conclusion…

There is a lot of hype about mlearning, and too often it is driven by training organisations trying to put what they already have into HTML5, so that it can be viewed on an iPhone. Like any training, mlearning needs to be designed to fit the audience and environment. Simply migrating current content can lead to a poor fit and substandard learning. Equally importantly, it misses the opportunities offered by anytime, anywhere learning.

Beginners guide to mlearning: How do you know when to go mobile?

The mobile education explosion has led to many organisations trying to make everything available on mobile devices. In the same way that early efforts at elearning simply put PowerPoint slide decks, perhaps with notes cut and pasted out of an associated manual, on to web pages, we now see training organisations repeating the mistakes of the past. Some of this may be the result of pressure from a CEO who has fallen in love with his or her Christmas present iPad or iPhone and wants “everything available on my mobile. NOW!” Others are jumping to mlearning because of the “Me Too” attitude so prevalent during the .COM boom of the nineties. It is easy(ish) to migrate the lot and say, “We have an extensive mobile training environment”, even if it is not appropriate training. The flexibility of responsive content development options, such as HTML5, means that a training group can build content once and then have it available on all platforms pretty much automatically. This does offer platform choice, but it does not necessarily make for good training. It can even taint the experience of mobile users, such that they have the same unsatisfactory learning experience that they had with the early elearning.

I have come up with four key categories that should affect your decision to go mlearning and your design strategy. I have put these in alphabetical order, because they are all important and interdependent. You may note that I have not included an educational reasons section, but I think that education excellence already permeates all out thinking.

Audience

Find out what your people want and need. This should be meat and drink to everyone in training, but it is remarkable how much training is pushed out to users rather than requested by them. 

You need to know:

• How consumers work with mobiles. Your target training audience needs to buy into the whole mlearning and mobile strategy. Make sure that you know whether they want or are ready for mlearning. If the majority of your audience does not use mobile devices or only uses tablets, then your will need to do a good deal of preparatory work, probably with a very targeted pilot.
• How consumers want to consume. Find out how open your users are to mlearning. This may be a case of gathering some basic usage information, such as do you use a mobile device, what do you use it for, and so forth. With this information you could try publishing a proof of concept and getting feedback. This may sound like a lot of effort, but without it this basic ground-work you are guessing.
• What the attitude is to training. You need to understand what the users’ attitudes are to training in general. Mlearning is often done in personal time, rather than in the office or in a formal setting. Does this appeal to your users, or will they regard it as an imposition or training on the cheap? You need to find out whether life-long learning is a concept with which they are familiar and to which they are attracted. If the responses are generally negative to learning outside a formal setting, you will need to sell the personal value of life-long learning.
• What consumers want to consume. Find out what your users would find useful to have available to them on their mobile devices. There is always an element of top-down imposition of training, but you must include content that will be attractive and useful for your target audience. This will give you a far greater chance of achieving a successful deployment. Make sure that you identify what is new training content and what is performance support content.
• Generational differences in your workforce. Marc Prensky (Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, 2001) stirred up a hornets’ nest of debate in the educational world. His much discussed premise is loosely that people born in around the 1980s are digital natives and those born before are digital immigrants; the former feel instinctively comfortable with digital technologies and the latter have to work at it. I can, and have, argued about the validity of this, but you should be aware that Generation Y staff are not only more used to using Web 2.0 technologies but also expect to use them in all aspects of their lives, including training.

Business

Good old-fashioned training needs analysis is still the single most important step in developing training. For mlearning it is possibly even more important. Make sure that you involve users as well as sponsors in your decision-making processes.

You need to know

• The business goals. As always, make sure that you understand the business goals, but now you have to make a specific review of these as they pertain to users who are likely to want or need to learn using a mobile device. It may sound a little brutal, but you should start with easy wins. Mobile support or sales staff are far more likely to use mlearning, because they are more used to working independently and remotely.
• The budget. You need to use your budget wisely. Spending a fortune on designing a snazzy front end and then only having enough to publish a set of PDFs behind it is a bad idea. You are better to use your initial budget to deliver a small but successful pilot, as this can breed more budget.
• The success criteria. This is tightly linked to budget. I am not suggesting a full return on investment study here, though you can if you wish. You need to look at addressing the goals that will make a business impact and understand how that impact will be measured. You may deliver the best mlearning in the world, but if it does not deliver change that the board regard as proof of success it will be regarded as a failure. Make this a tick list of must deliver points and make sure that everyone involved in the project has identified how they can contribute to fulfilling the success criteria.
• The training scope. Make sure that you have a training scope. Moving everything to mlearning is almost certainly unrealistic; don’t promise to do it. Make the scope challenging but achievable; if it is not challenging, no one will be impressed by the results and if it is not achievable you will fail.

Current training

Your mlearning is just a part of your overall training and learning strategy, so don’t regarded it a unique or separate. You need to be sure that it fits with existing training, rather than replacing or duplicating it. Bear in mind that learners who take your current training will expect continuity of message and approach, even if the format and delivery medium are new. You should review your current offering to identify how mlearning will integrate, extend, or even replace parts of your training curricula.

• Review current training for mlearning opportunities. You probably review your training curricula regularly, but now you have to review curricula, courses, lessons and topics to see which could be more appropriate as mlearning items of which could benefit from mobile performance support content. You need to identify elements that are self-contained, directed to an audience who are remote or appear to be more receptive to mlearning usage.
• Review learner comments. You and the board may not be the only people who feel that mlearning is a good idea. If you have student comment data, you should surface and analyse any student comments regarding mobile-ready content.
• Identify training that may be suited to mlearning migration. As part of your review of learners’ comments, you should also identify any training content that they may have requested as being available outside the training environment or that should be updated regularly. It may be that some of you training—especially things like mandatory training that occurs annually—may be better suited to elearning or mlearning.

Technology

There are some basic traps to avoid, and the first goes back to your enthusiastic CEO. If your audience is primarily made up of Android users and you create iOS solutions because that is what the CEO wanted, you will have a problem on your hands.

You need to know:

• What devices your audience uses and how they like to use them. This sounds basic, but you must be sure that you understand the devices that your users use. There are lots of subtle differences which may require different design approaches. This is particularly the case if you need to ensure that your users can run mlearning content offline. You may be attracted by the flexibility of using responsive HTML5 so that all devices can run your training (well that’s the idea), but if your users want or need to run the training without being connected to the Internet, then you may need to develop app-based training solutions.
• What devices and browsers your IT department supports. Unless you have an organisational Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) standard you will need to understand what devices your IT department are happy to support. You may find issues with connectivity, authentication, content rendering, and many, many others, even if you adopt a “standard” development options such as HTML5. There is no point creating training and then finding that it is not available to lots of your users. Ask first and you will find that you get far more enthusiastic support from the IT bods.
  You will also need to test. Don’t assume that an “open” standard will work on every device. Your IT team will not be happy if they have to handle increased support call volumes because you didn’t test your training content.
• The potential for mobile integration with your LMS. This could have gone in several categories, but I have put it here because it is often a challenge that needs a technical solution. If you have an LMS and track user training to develop management information reports then you need to be sure that your mlearning can update your LMS tracking system. Issues with this particular area come in the form of problems with offline training; the LMS can record the progress of people who are connected, but not those who aren’t. You may have a SCORM-compliant LMS, but you may need to consider a solution that conforms to the Experience API/Tin Can API and can update a learning record store. (For a great review of the Experience API and what it offers, read Alex Mackman’s blog on the subject http://www.cm-group.co.uk/blog/scorm/thoughts-on-tin-can-and-the-future-of-elearning/).

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.