What Are The Challenges Of Offline Learning?
‘Around 60 percent of the world is without internet today, and even where online access is available, it can still be spotty.’ [Google Official Blog, 2015]
Remote working capabilities are increasingly important in the modern day. Connectivity is the key to harnessing the skills of the best employees around the world; global time zones make 24-hour collaboration possible; worldwide teams are now seen as the norm. The world is only getting smaller and global staff expect to access information on a personal device whenever they need it. An increase in technology has addressed the challenges of offline learning and encouraged teams to operate across the world with team members working across different countries and with varying levels of connectivity within their working day.
Distribution of training content via apps has become increasingly popular over recent years. The debate between the two most popular, HTML5 and native apps, has been a topic of conversation in technology for a number of years now. The effectiveness of each method is largely a matter of preference as both models offer high-quality, media-rich content with a good user experience. Choosing between the two is largely dependent on the app’s content, how learners will access it, and what sort of functionality is required.
Introducing HTML5 Apps
HTML5 apps can be published once and accessed via the web on multiple devices. Because the content is accessed via the web, it doesn’t use device memory to store the app, but your learners will need an internet connection to access it at all times. This makes HTML5 apps better suited to office-based compliance training, for example, rather than courses for field-based staff with lots of video.
The challenges of offline learning, tracking, and updating will however be familiar to teams looking to deploy learning to devices on a global scale. Providing a means of offline learning is an important step for organisations looking to fully support global learners, allowing training to be deployed flexibly for consumption without a Wi-Fi or 4G connection.
Ultimate Flexibility With Native Apps
Offline learning has been a particular focus recently because not everyone sits in an office with a Wi-Fi connection all day - it seems a shame to create great learning which requires learners to stay indoors in order to use it - a situation that a mobile workforce cannot guarantee.
A native app is downloaded to a device and accessed offline, meaning you will only need an internet connection to download and update its content. Because the app has the full capability of the device it lives on, the user experience is often enhanced, making native apps highly suited to media-rich courses which take advantage of touch functions and use lots of audio and video. These can be distributed in a number of ways, from in-house distribution to making the apps publicly available through the Apple App Store or Google Play. Introduction of learning distribution via native app is revolutionary for roles demanding remote working, particularly those conducting activity in rural or disconnected surroundings. Offline learning capability enables employees to fit training around the demands of their daily job without concern for connectivity.
Offline Tracking
Having made your learning available offline, how do you know who has completed it?
Apps that benefit from Experience API (xAPI or Tin-Can) analytics, can allow you to track users, quiz scores, device types, and much more, even when the courses have been consumed offline.
Quick and easy access to learning offline is being seen as more and more important as global businesses tackle the challenges of connectivity. Having the flexibility to create both web and native apps for learning is vital as the technology landscape continues to change and grow.
Both web and native apps have pros and cons in the debate as to which technology is the most effective and, ultimately, it is the preference of the user that will nominate a winner. At gomo, we see users debating the benefits of HTML5 and native apps on a daily basis and we are keen to offer both as a part of our hosting and distribution subscription.
We at gomo learning are working towards solving the challenges faced by many business owners in the modern day. The tool’s all-new native app functionality is helping learners everywhere overcome the limitations and challenges of offline learning.
