With mobile learning transitioning from merely a helpful resource to a necessary learning component, some companies and developers may be too quick to jump on the bandwagon. Seems easy enough, especially with a high-functioning authoring tool, to convert your eLearning material to correspond with mobile devices and send your learners on their way. But, it is a bit more complicated than that, and takes a bit more effort to choose a proper strategy and e-Learning software for your organization. The question is not whether you should get involved with mLearning, but how.

“The most significant [reason to develop a mobile learning strategy] is that mobile learning is a transformative opportunity,” said Bill Brandon in his Learning Solutions Magazine article. “It is not necessarily disruptive, but it does represent a significant means of augmenting formal training.”

Before hastily deploying mobile learning tactics, it’s vital to come up with a plan and strategy for implementation. The eLearning Guild recently released a research report, Mobile Learning: Landscape and Trends, written by Clark Quinn. The report highlights the fact that “it is now both possible and desirable to put in place a mobile experiment to create an mLearning strategy articulated with the overall learning, performance, and technology strategy.”

In the report, Quinn suggests following the “four C’s of mobile” in your strategy, which is a great starting point. You must deliver quality media content, including documents, audio and video. Compute—perform calculations and have programmatic responses when creating mLearning material. Capture data from the local environment, such as photos, video, audio or more specific information such as location or direction. And, communicate in order to reach others with text, voice or video. As Quinn says, “The point is to break out of our traditional design mentality and find a way to think more comprehensively about the opportunities that mobile provides.”

Following these four key ideas of the mLearning framework, you can start developing a detailed plan that includes your purpose, goals, learners’ interests, organizational capabilities, limits and other specifics. Also, see Gary Woodill from i5 Research's Mobile Learning Implementation Roadmap for a detailed view of an ideal mLearning plan. Once the strategy is in place, the next step is to decide which authoring tool best suits your organization.

Figure 2: The 4 C's of Mobile (Quinn, 2011)

“The best advice as of now is to focus on analysis and design, and then choose the tool that will let you accomplish what you need to...” said Quinn. “When you decide to execute a mobile initiative is when you should evaluate the mobile toolsets available and likely to continue to be available.”

When choosing an eLearning tool that best accomplishes what you need to do, whatever that may be, Lectora eLearning is an ideal solution, especially when developing for the mobile realm. Lectora is one of the only authoring tools that lets you publish courses directly to HTML5 with a single-click, so you can view and interact with the content on any mobile device, including all Apple devices, through its browser. The luxury of this feature appeals to those who abstain from creating mLearning material because of Flash player barriers or other complications. There’s no hassle, no extra work and no confusion when developing mobile learning courses in Lectora.

Another benefit of Lectora authoring is the accessibility of courses on the iPad and other tablets. With one-click you can publish to the iPad through HTML, and utilize free pre-formatted templates so your course appears how it should on your iPad. Diane Elkins, owner of Artisan E-Learning and instructional design guru, noted in her E-Learning Uncovered blog post some of the capabilities where Lectora excels for mLearning on the iPad. Of 17 features tested within an HTML-hosted Lectora course in Safari, Elkins found that 13 worked properly and were recommended for developers to utilize. Elkins’ main suggestions are to “test early and often and to know exactly how the students will be viewing the iPad content.” This way, the end result will be just how you planned and the mLearning material will be more effective for your learners.

Implementing a thorough and advanced eLearning strategy and using the appropriate authoring software will be advantageous to your organization, your developers and, most importantly, your learners. If you maintain a plan and utilize the experts’ suggestions, your mobile learning material will undoubtedly bridge unwanted gaps and become a significant resource for everyone involved.

 

To see Lectora’s features and publishing solutions, stay connected with our social networks at: Twitter: @lectora, Facebook - http://bit.ly/cIG0Pe, LinkedIn group (Lectora Rapid eLearning) -http://bit.ly/9qcO3n

 

Heather Thomas is the Social Media Lead at Trivantis Corporation. She is a senior public relations student at Kent State University and is interested in corporate PR and social media. She enjoys traveling, reading and writing.