elearn Magazine: If Mobile Learning and Support are Wonderful, Why aren't They Everywhere? There is much to like about mobile learning and mobile support. Smartphones and tablets are not light as a feather, but close, delivering lessons, insight, guidance and information when and where needed. Do you want to send salespeople to training to memorize product features and prices? Would you take a class to prepare to get the very most from your time during a short visit to Paris? What about leader development? I highlighted the differences between mobile learning and mobile support in an ode published in Learning Solutions in August 2010. Words Without Actions I am not alone in my fondness for mobile everything. What we don't yet see is widespread mobile practices devoted to enterprise learning and support. How could that be? The responses were consistent with our survey findings. Why? When I saw those scattered hands, I wondered, we all wondered, "Why? Binder's Six Boxes presents a structured way to think about performance—and the lack of it. Figure 1. What Are YOU Going To Do?
Google’s GoMo Launches To Help Businesses Go Mobile As was previously leaked, Google is now launching its new GoMo service, which aims to help businesses easily create a mobile-friendly website. The website for the service was discovered earlier this week, but the details sat behind a password-protected front page. Today, Google is making GoMo available to the public. On HowToGoMo.com, business owners can enter in their current website’s URL to see what the site looks like on mobile. Of course, Google itself provides this service through its recently updated Google Site Builder, which it is happy to link to. The list of providers can also be filtered by service type (DIY, Full service), cost and timeframe to build. GoMo is really more of a marketing effort and a push to get business owners to go mobile the latter which fits into Google’s overall goal of getting more websites on the (mobile) web so Google can expand its advertising reach.
Designing Learning for the ultimate Mobile Learner’s Experience It is not always easy to design a meaningful learning experience. In the same way, eLearning is not straight PowerPoint conversion, mLearning is not just eLearning on a mobile device. When it comes to mLearning, it is necessary to completely rethink “our approach to instructional design, graphic design, user experience and information presentation” (Float Mobile Learning, 2010) and make decisions from the learner´s point of view more than ever before. In our first podcast in Spanish, “Esta semana en el aprendizaje móvil Episodio 1 : el nuevo iPad y su impacto en el aprendizaje móvil”, RJ Jacquez and I discussed the impact of the iPad’s characteristics on mLearning design and we agreed that, in order to effectively develop portable, spontaneous and context-aware knowledge, we need to concentrate on three fundamental aspects: immediacy, interactivity and immersion. Immediacy Interactivity All these elements foster meaningful interactivity as well as functionality. Immersion Conclusion
7 Steps for Building A Mobile Future In Your Enterprise One of the major trends we have seen in business in 2011 is how enterprises are coping with the movement of employees to bring their own mobile devices to work. There are a plethora of problems associated with the bring-your-own-device culture, from security to application and device management to employee reimbursements. This is an ongoing topic that is not going to go away any time soon. Research firm Forrester has come out with a roadmap of how to "build an operations stairway to a mobile future." The firm outlines seven key aspects that will help IT departments prioritize efforts in the mobile enterprise, from workforce segmentation to how to handle multi-platform development. Check out Forrester's results below. The main thrust of the Forrester report is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to building "an operations stairway to a mobile future," as Forrester calls it. Segment employees - Not every employee has the same needs.
The Pulse of Mobile Learning A faint pulse today Most of what is said and written about mobile learning and support touts potential and points to the future. Current studies confirm a faint pulse for mobile in enterprise learning today. I first noticed this enthusiasm-action gap when colleague Jim Marshall and I surveyed workplace learning professionals about their learning technology practices. ASTD’s 2011 Annual State of the Industry (SOIR) Report found even punier use of mobile for learning and support. Elliott Masie recently released his mobile study . Interest in delivering learning on mobile devices is high but implementation is in the very early stages of development. The Masie group pointed to employees as the advocates for mobile learning and support. An Educause study of mobile IT in higher education described unimpressive forward motion. The blood does flow Some mobile initiatives offer hope. Khan Academy recently announced it will bring its 3600 instructional videos to the iPhone. Making mobile happen 1.
The Future of the Web: Mobile, Data Rich Apps Built by Everyday People? Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIn, told audiences today at the Web 2.0 Summit that the next stage of the Web will be building apps and mobile UIs on top of our collective data. Some people believe that a big part of that could come in the form of technology platforms that anyone can use to create those apps and UIs. Cross-platform mobile Web apps may be poised to become a big part of the future of the Web, but they just aren't as powerful as native apps yet. I'm not sure what to think of HTML5 mobile Web app authoring tools in general. The first partners in the Cabana exchange are location platform SimpleGeo and API service Mashery (disclosure: Mashery is a ReadWriteWeb sponsor). Each of those is a good chunk of functionality to bring to the crowded market of DIY mobile app creation tools. There are a number of drag and drop, DIY mobile Web app creation services and most of the others offer cross-platform native app creation too, for a fee.
Understanding the Triumvirate of Mobile Learning Mobile learning is about much more than just technology: it’s about a mindset, about a relationship between ‘people‘, ‘technology‘ and ‘subject‘ and how we maintain a balance between the three of them. The Triumvirate of Mobile Learning ‘People‘ are our audience and we have to understand their everyday reality: what is their environment. Not just the physical, but also the knowledge environment that they sit within. We see this especially at times of change: organisations put out multiple messages in multiple channels, but often lacking a coherent context and a context that reflects the everyday reality of the learner at that time. People are our audience. ‘Technology‘ is often the starting point of the organisational view: how do we buy a solution? Technology facilitates experience: it doesn’t guarantee it. Technology is often sold on ‘features‘, but adopted on ‘usability‘. ‘Subject‘ is interesting: not every subject is suited to mobile learning. Like this: Like Loading...
Rein in smart-phone chaos at work If smart phones are a small-business boon, they’re also a potential liability. Not only do businesses who offer them to employees have to keep track of who is using what device, they're also loaded with information you don't want “just anyone” to have access to. (If you've ever had to replace a lost or stolen company smart phone, you know what a hassle it can be.) Research In Motion Ltd. recently debuted its new BlackBerry Management Center – basically a do-it-yourself tool for managing three to 100 BlackBerry devices. It's free, which makes it an appealing choice for companies that can't afford expensive IT services to handle their growing arsenal of smart phones. It's also one more reason RIM hopes businesses will continue to use its products. Here's a first look: What it is: BlackBerry Management Center lets you manage your business's BlackBerry devices from anywhere using an online Web application. What you might not like: The mobile work crowd is diverse.
Real mLearning Too many times, at conference expos and advertisements, it appears that folks are trying to say that courses on a tablet (or phone) are mlearning. On the contrary, I’ll suggest that courses on a phone or a tablet are elearning. Then, what is mlearning? My argument is pretty simple: just because courses are on a different device, if they’re a traditional course – page turning with knowledge test, a virtual classroom, or even a simulation – if it’s only made touch-enabled, it’s still just elearning. Now, if you start breaking it up into chunks, and distributing it over time, we’re in a bit of a grey area, but really, isn’t that just what we should be doing in elearning, too? So, when is it really mlearning? Most of our formal learning involves what IBM termed ‘work-apart’ learning, something that happens away from your regular job. Now, however, when we can bring digital technology wherever we are, we can use our real work to be the base of the learning experience.
Mobile apps, sites trickiest to hand off Of all the turnkey solutions we’ve looked at in this series – the various ways that small businesses can hire an outside firm or use a service that does all of the hard tech work for them – mobile apps and sites are probably the trickiest to figure out. Setting up a social media page may not take a very long time, but building a mobile app from scratch can be a difficult – and, if you pay someone else to do it for you, expensive – endeavour. And given that a lot of small businesses don’t even have regular websites, there’s a tendency to wonder if going mobile is even worth it. For most businesses, the answer is a definite maybe. Whereas a lot of people aren’t currently using their mobile devices to find the nearest plumber or driving school, there is a growing movement to ditch traditional desktops for smart phones and tablets. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to establish a mobile presence without having to do a lot of the technical work yourself.