5 Ways Mobile Devices Make Classroom Training More Effective

5 Ways Mobile Devices Make Classroom Training More Effective
Summary: We have got so used to mobile devices being a part of our lives, leveraging their power in classroom training can serve to be highly advantageous. This article highlights 5 simple yet powerful ways in which mobile devices can make your existing classroom training more effective.

How Mobile Devices Make Classroom Training More Effective

Most of us have been a part of a time when the mobile phone was strictly prohibited inside educational spaces. But the revolution in the manufacture, usage, and distribution of mobile devices has increased paramount. With the Millennials now comprising a major part of the working population and boasting of being a generation having grown up with technology as a major part of their lives, organizations have begun to rethink the way they can use technology to engage the millennial workforce, among other things.

Over one billion smartphones ship each and every year, worldwide. 

- Statista

The good news is there are simple yet extremely powerful ways in which mobile devices can change the way we look at classroom training. Here is how you can use mobile devices in your existing classroom paradigms.

1. Look-Up For Topics

Remember the time in school when we were asked to revise whatever was being taught in the previous classes so that we know what the teacher is talking about? Well, this is one of the fundamental things in learning; and if there is a continuation of a topic or even in case of an entirely new topic, it is always better if the students are aware of what they are going to learn before they enter the classroom. Mobile devices can enable this. The trainer can upload content about the topic that is going to be covered in the next class in the form of videos, presentation slides, or PDF documents which are easily accessible to the trainees on their mobile devices at any time through a simple login.

2. Pre- And Post- Training Assessments

 It is predicted that 70% of professionals will do some work from their own, personal smart phones or tablets by 2018.

- Gartner

If you want to measure the effectiveness of your training, pre- and post-  training assessments can help you identify how much of the content or learning material has actually sunk into the minds of the trainees. Conducting assessments before the training on a mobile device can help understand caveats as well as identify how much of the content or learning material has actually been absorbed by the trainees. Post-training assessment results can be compared with pre-training assessment results to measure learning analytics, understand what gaps exist and taking necessary steps to clear them. The assessments can have interactive questions that can be answered on mobile devices, ranging from sequencing, match the following, image or audio based questions to video responses.

3. Attendance Tracking

A classroom is a space full of trainees and in order to understand how each one is doing, understanding the level of participation is crucial, and attendance tracking is one way to find this out. A mobile device can enable this easily with the help of something as simple as a QR code. Say for instance at the time of creating a mobile course, the trainer can add a QR code whose successful scanning will lead to the next sequential set of training content. The trainer then takes a copy of that same QR code and puts it in somewhere inside the classroom and voila, every person who attends the session can scan the code and have his/her information captured and recorded! A paper free, ink free and hassle free procedure to track the attendance of a learner.

47% of businesses and other organizations already use some sort of mobile devices for training and eLearning activities

- Towards Maturity

Once the classroom training is over, the trainee can log in once again and refresh whatever was being taught in the classroom through content for revision on a mobile device anytime and at any place. This kind of revision content can be in the form of videos, presentations, podcasts or PDF’s with engaging visuals to keep the learner hooked to the screens.

4. Feedback After The Training

This could be one of the most critical ways of finding out how the learning was taken by the trainees. Feedback could be about the content, the learning environment, the trainer and the overall aspects of what was being taught. This can also be captured real time on mobile devices through questions about the training program.

5. Tracking

Mobile devices like tablets and laptops can also help trainers capture the learning journey of their students through detailed reports – both at an individual and at cumulative levels. The performance as well as participation levels of trainees can be tracked through visually enriching reports.  Such insights through data analytics can help learning managers know exactly what is needed to better the learning process.

The preferences for mobile devices is only increasing with time and using their power to make classroom training more interesting can reward the trainer and the trainees.