Mobile Learning: Make It Mobile With These Tips

With eLearning, it’s all about convenience, efficiency and tailoring customized learning that will help your employees be more effectively trained, and continually educated.

One of the ways to accomplish all of these goals is through the use of mobile eLearning, in addition to traditional desktop eLearning.

When eLearning also includes mobile components, employees can easily access information in an on-demand, as-needed basis.

While the benefits of providing mobile options are tremendous, the primary challenge lies in the misunderstanding of how to create mobile learning coursework. Many organizations still believe they can simply take their desktop coursework as-is, and transfer it to a mobile format.

Creating mobile learning content can be tricky. See this white paper on Microlearning to help you out.

There are some basics of mobile learning and eLearning that do remain the same, such as knowing who your audience is and what the learning objectives are, but beyond that there are additional considerations to keep in mind that are specific to mobile devices.

If you’re new to the world of mobile learning, or simply want to improve your current mobile learning, consider these tips:

Simplify Navigation

On a mobile device, whether it’s a tablet or a smartphone, the primary step you can take when designing mobile learning is to keep the navigation as simple as possible.

Navigation on a small device can be much more complicated than navigation on a desktop, so don’t expect to be able to simply utilize the same navigation as you make the jump to mobile learning.

Create Stand-Alone Chunks of Information

With mobile learning, the main benefit is that the learner has the ability to access specific snippets of information quickly and easily.

This is particularly important in manufacturing industries, where the learner may need to access one concept to troubleshoot a particular piece of equipment, or maintain safety standards.

This type of on-demand accessibility should be a key focus of designing mobile coursework. Information isn’t presented in a linear fashion, and instead a non-linear fashion should be used to allow the learner to find specific areas of information without having to progress through other areas first.

As well as keeping information brief and specific, it’s also important to make it easy for the learner to search. It needs to be necessary to access exactly what you’re looking for very quickly with mobile learning.

Information should also include guides, like a table of contents or index.

Rely Heavily on Images

Images are extremely important to eLearning in any capacity, but particularly when it comes to a mobile device. Large chunks of text require a great deal of scrolling, and are difficult to consume on a small device.

In areas where your desktop eLearning has a large portion of text, it can be wise to replace at least parts of it with images instead, since they’re much easier to digest when using a mobile device.

Consider Gamification and Social Components

It can be a challenge to create an emotional connection to eLearning material in any capacity, whether on a desktop or a mobile device, but it’s often most difficult on a mobile device.

To increase engagement and develop a connection between the learner and the material being presented, consider including some type of gamification within mobile content.

Many mobile device users are already familiar with using their tablet or smartphone to play games, so by adding this component material becomes more compelling, and interest is captured and held more effectively.

It may also be a good idea to tie in not only gamification, but also social components to increase engagement and emotional appeal. It could be that employees are competing against each other in some capacity, or working together.

Conclusion

Mobile learning is a valuable component of eLearning as a whole, when done correctly. Designing great mobile content doesn’t happen overnight, but when you do take the time to follow these tips and put thought into your coursework design it can increase your employees’ productivity, motivation to learn, and overall efficiency.