How To Improve Your Mobile Learning Experience
Looking to create a mobile learning program for your company? Or maybe you already have one in place and you’re looking for ways to improve the current experience you provide for your learners. Either way, you know how important mobile learning is to the modern corporate training process. If you want to learn how to improve your mobile learning experience and make it much more enjoyable and effective for your learners, follow the tips below.
1. Send Regular Reminders To Their Mobile Devices
You’d be surprised how many organizations create incredible training programs and then forget to remind their staff they exist! Even when the training is mandatory, it’s easy for learners to forget about the progress they’ve made without some way to remind them.
Luckily, with mobile devices it’s easy to send reminders using push notifications. All we need is a little tap on the shoulder now and then to keep us on track when we are trying to learn something new, and mobile devices make this process easy.
2. Break Things Down Into Smaller Chunks
Microlearning is one of the biggest trends in education today - from academic institutions to corporate organizations all over the world. People have grown accustomed to bite sized information in this hyper connected and fast-paced world that we live in. Blogs, social networks, new sites, and video platforms have all been ahead of the curve in this department for a while. Perhaps this is because they’ve had the data to understand what our attention spans truly are these days.
The truth is there is no reason to be cynical about our shortening attention spans – it simply means that information needs to be broken down so that it’s easier to digest. If you want your mobile learning program to become more successful with your learners and you should consider making shorter videos and modules that can be completed within a matter of minutes.
Allow your learners to go with their own pace rather than require them to sit down for large blocks of material and you’ll see that they respond and retain the information much better.
3. Make The Process A Collaborative One
Mobile learning platforms make it easy for your learners to interact with each other. This might be through chat rooms or forums or it may be through real-time video-conferences. When learners interact with each other it gives them the ability to gain unique insights and see things from an outside perspective. It also promotes an introspective process that improves their focus on the important parts of your course material.
Humans have been learning in a social environment for thousands of years and that’s likely why we’ve developed an adaptive and social learning process. There’s no question that speaking with others about ideas and concepts helps to reinforce them within our memory.
4. Ask For Feedback
Your mobile learning platform might be missing a critical element that you don’t even know about because you haven’t asked your learners what day would like to see. This is another common mistake that course developers make. All it takes is a simple survey sent out via email to get all the information you need to improve the features of your program. Since this feedback can be given anonymously, many learners will be more than happy to tell you exactly what they want and what will help them learn in a more efficient manner.
You might find out, for instance, that your learners are bored by the narration within of your videos. Or you might find out that they prefer to have group discussions about the material.
You’ll never know unless you ask!
5. Double Down On Security
Security breaches have become much more common in the IT industry over the past few years and this is made its way over to every aspect of online communication platforms. This isn’t necessarily a cause for alarm, if you take your security seriously.
Encrypting your data is essential and providing a rotating password service is ideal. If your course or training material is held on a single server then you should consider protection against DDOS attacks, as these have become much easier for malicious individuals to implement.
6. Optimize For Multiple Devices
Some course developers make the mistake of rolling out a mobile learning application before testing the UI on multiple devices. This can be a disaster if most of your learners are want to access the material on their smart phones but the UI is only compatible with laptops or tablets. Taking the time to ensure that your mobile learning platform is cross compatible will save you a tremendous amount of headaches in the future.
7. Make Use Of Project Management Applications
This is another way to keep your learners on track as they are going through the material. You may choose to integrate a robust Learning Management System solution or take advantage of a low-cost open source project management suite if you are a small business or start-up.
Project management applications also provide another means for your learners to collaborate on material. For example, you can easily assign projects to multiple learners and have them work together to complete the assignment. The beauty of this process is that they can work together from anywhere on the planet.
So while you might have one employee working from home and another on the road, both can be working together and learning the same material in a collaborative way. Your project management application will ensure that they reach the appropriate milestones as they go.
Mobile learning is changing the way organizations approach compliance and corporate training. There are tons of opportunities for massive growth in productivity using these platforms. If you have an existing program or you’re looking to develop new one, then follow these tips and you’ll deliver a much better experience for your learners.
