The Learning Guys recently received the following questions from executive recruiter Shawn Draisey:

I am an executive recruiter seeking to comprehend the m-learning sector in Canada and/or the USA-North America as a whole. I have read federal government reports stating that we lag behind other countries when it comes to m-learning.

Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.

The Learning Guys are always happy to help! I thought we’d share our answer to Sean’s questions with everyone else, as we have been hearing these questions a lot:

I think it is correct to say that m-learning is still in its infancy in Canada and the U.S.A. The eLearning Guild recently published a new report on m-learning called “Guild Research 360 Report on Mobile Learning.” Here is what their survey findings reveal:

* The U.S. and Canada lag behind other countries in both current implementation and plans for m-learning. 24% of Guild members in other countries have either implemented or are designing m-learning offerings vs. only 14% in the U.S. and Canada. Plus 57% of International members plan to do more m-learning in the next 12 months vs. 41% for the U.S. and Canada.

* The top 3 barriers to the adoption of m-learning are concerns over content created for traditional media not working on hand-held devices, the lack of a standard for mobile delivery, and concern that screens are too small.

Many companies in North America have invested heavily in laptops for their mobile workforce and in the development of e-learning content. The majority are satisfied with the ROI from this investment, so they do not have any urgency about investing m-learning.

I think this will change over the next couple of years as we see a continued convergence of laptops and cell phones. As the mobile devices get smaller, so will the content.

As the demand for mobile content grows, I think we will see the emergence of learning design firms that specialize in this area. Right now, I believe that most mobile content is developed by larger e-learning/training companies that offer m-learning as one amongst many services.

Many of my clients are considering some initial investment in m-learning over the next couple of years. Look for many other companies across North America to do the same.

I hope this helps. Keep the questions coming!

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Many organizations are starting to offer mobile learning (m-learning) options to their employees. As learning designers grapple with how best to get learning content onto mobile devices, we should reflect back on some of the mistakes we made when we first introduced e-learning to our learners.

The biggest mistake we all made? That’s easy….We tried to take what was delivered in the classroom and faithfully recreate it in an e-learning format. As an example, many e-learning courses simply pushed learning content (mostly text) to learners in a linear sequence. Taking a course online meant lots of scrolling and tired, sore eyes.

What was the lesson we learned? Also easy…We had to apply a new set of design principles to design a new way to learn. From pushing screen after screen of text, we moved towards interactive learning experiences which made greater use of multimedia, non-linearity and personalization.

How do we apply this lesson to m-learning? Even easier…..Once again, we have to apply a new set of design principles to design a new way to learn. We can’t simply take an e-learning course and squeeze it into an m-learning format.

Some m-learning design concepts
When designing m-learning content and structure, I have found it useful to consider the following tips:

1. Keep it simple
2. Allow learners to determine which content is delivered to their mobile device
3. Content should be highly focused, componentised and interruptible
4. Divide content into short “nuggets”- 30 seconds to 10 minutes in length
5. Don’t demand too much reading on a small screen
6. Don’t distract learners with unnecessary rich media objects
7. Use visual cues such as keywords, comments and illustrations
8. Incorporate audio files
9. Use tabloid format - headlines and summaries
10. Use short words
11. Avoid large amounts of data
12. Use selection lists for data entry
13. Consistency - place links in same place on each screen
14. Always provide link to Start page or Index
15. Avoid underlined text as this will be mistaken for Links

I’d like to hear about what others are up to.

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Those of you that have been following my journey into learning Mandarin are familiar with the fact that I have made a daily podcast the centre of my personal learning plan. Given that I am having such a positive experience with this, it is natural that I would begin to explore how podcasting might fit into the learning plans of the clients I work with.

One of the more interesting uses of podcasting that we have come up with is the CEO Cast. What we do is film senior executives (at their office or in our production studio) as they share leadership thoughts, stories and insights. After we complete filming, we do some quick editing and post production, and then distribute to employees. Employees can view the CEO Cast on the device of their choice (desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone, iPod etc).

Why, you ask, would a senior executive want to do this? Here are a few compelling reasons:

Share your leadership vision
• Senior executives can communicate with employees in a personal and compelling way.

Share success stories
• Tell the stories that have made your company successful.

Keep it current
• Communicate the results of key meetings and corporate events.

Communicate globally
• Allow your global and distributed workforce to access senior leadership thought and expertise.

Succession planning
• Capture and internally distribute the thought leadership of senior executives before they retire and before that experience is lost to the company.

Look for more CEO Casts to be coming to an iPod near you.

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At a meeting with a client this week the subject was mobile learning (m-learning), and how (or if) custom developed mobile learning might fit into the organizations learning strategy for its employees.

What is mobile learning?
Just in case your not sure, m-learning is portable and focused learning content (learning objects) delivered via a variety of wireless devices (PDAs, mobile phones etc.). M-learning is a simple and timely way to deploy critical information such as condensed versions of training materials, product updates, audio and video files, job aids, or anything that your employees need to reference on a moments notice to do their jobs more effectively.

M-learning is vital content that is there when your employees need it. And it’s easy to deploy. Mobile content can be downloaded onto mobile devices from your VPN, website, emailed or transmitted using Wi-Fi networks or via Bluetooth directly from one handheld device to another.

How can organizations use mobile learning?
Here’s how leading organizations can use m-learning to instantly share information
with employees, partners and customers around the globe:
-Marketing Campaigns: Reach out to your customers with targeted content
-Training initiatives: Deliver condensed training material to employees around the
globe
-Meeting notes: Keep employees in the loop with the lastest meeting notes
-Sales Force Initiatives: Quickly roll out new sales initiatives across the enterprise
-New Product Releases: Keep your sales force up to date
-Location Free Support: Provide just-in-time support to mobile and remote
employees
-Technical Specifications: Provide easy to search documentation on all of your
products

Is this for us?
Yes. I think you will find a place for mobile learning in your organization. Your people already have the tools (cell phones, PDA’s). These tools represent an opportunity for learning designers to reconceptualize how we package and distribute learning objects to our learners.

I will follow up in future posts with more thoughts on how to design mobile learning content.

Your thoughts?

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