Mobile learning is a hot topic. Who can resist the promise of a portable, pocket sized learning experience that lets you crank through an MBA while waiting for your kids to finish soccer practice? That scenario is so appealing we keep rooting for it even when the signs of life just aren’t there. But they could be. Here’s what’s dulling the heartbeat on effective mLearning:
This is the same thing that strangled online learning for years and years and is still making a gory mess out of to this day. Simply moving all of the DOCs, PDFs, PPTs, and quizzes from a F2F class into an LMS and calling that an online course doesn’t work. And it works even less for mobile learning experiences. The online medium is very different from the F2F one and the mobile environment is another place entirely. It deserves and demands knowledge of its quirks, strengths, limits, faults, and glories. You need to know it intimately in order to speak its language and be effective in its space. So don’t assume the same materials that work in one realm will work in another. You need to translate from one medium into another.
And it’s not a 1 to 1 translation. This is the most common mistake made by mLearning practitioners. Don’t let this be you.J ust because we’re talking about mobile learning doesn’t mean that EVERYTHING has to be put into a mobile format so that it will count as mobile learning. There are lots of things that don’t lend themselves to a mobile format at all and will, in fact, count against a respectable mLearning effort. It’s best to take a “mixed bag” approach when taking an existing course, curriculum, or training and moving it towards mobile delivery.
What’s in the mix that’s in the bag? A little of this, some of that, and more of something else. Not all of one thing. You aren’t just reading, you aren’t just watching, you aren’t just listening. You’re doing some of each of those things, but you’re not doing any of them for very long. This is key. Err on the side of brevity in the realm of mobile learning.
Mobile Learning might be a part of the overall learning experience you’re designing, rather than the entire thing. And that’s ok. Making mLearning a portion of the whole is better than cramming the whole into mLearning when it doesn’t fit there. While we’ve been riding the “media rich” bandwagon for a few years now, mobile is one place where choosing the appropriate media is very necessary.
Screencasts are useful tools for explaining lots of things and form the backbone of lots of online courses. But the same screencast that shows Accounting students how to to set up an Excel spreadsheet is illuminating on an iPad and brutal punishment on an iPhone. You can’t just produce once and distribute to any device. There are certain places where screen size is the dominant concern. By contrast, audio really shines on mobile. You can listen to an hour-long podcast because it’s easy to put on some ear buds, stick your phone in your pocket, and go about your business while listening. Not so with video which demands that you look at it.
Shorter video clips fit into the spaces people have when they’re standing in line at the grocery store checkout line, waiting for the subway train, and waiting on hold for tech support. Even with all of this good advice, there will still be lots of bad mLearning out there. Let’s make sure we’re not part of it. It’s up to us to limit the amount of painful mLearning that gets created. Let’s start today with making better choices. Even if you only improve on one aspect of an mLearning project at a time, it will make someone’s experience of it better. Pick an easy target and make a change today. Shorten those videos. Don’t try to make everything fit the mMold. Work on translating materials into a new medium. Simple but effective measures that really do add up to positive experiences for learners.