5 Points Corporate Organizations Need To Focus On For A Successful Mobile Learning Program

5 Tips For A Successful Mobile Learning Program
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Summary: Corporate organizations have finally understood that they need to bring Learning and Development to their employees’ smartphones if they wish to train and develop them effectively. In this article, we'll discuss a few points they need to focus on for the success of their mobile learning program.

5 Tips For A Successful Mobile Learning Program

The modern individual uses his/her smartphone for everything from communication, socializing, shopping to looking for information and whatnot. Almost every industry has an app that lets consumers connect directly to them and/or buy their product or service. Corporate organizations have been slow to embrace mobile learning, but as of now, every organization that actually cares about employee development has a mobile learning program. However, even though a number of corporate organizations have a mobile learning program now, not all of them see the results they expected. The reason for that perhaps is the fact that they implemented mobile learning without proper research, and failed to take into consideration certain important points, which will be discussed in this article. If you’re one of those organizations that fail to understand what’s wrong with your mobile learning program, this article might help.

1. Is Your Program Centered On The Target Learners?

Mobile learning was created keeping in mind the modern learner. But, every good learning program needs to be built around the target learners’ needs, preferences, challenges, and potential roadblocks. In order to do that, the organization’s L&D team needs to create a Learner Experience map for each of its employees. Although this means that every employee’s learning paths and goals must also match or at least concur with the organization’s business needs—nobody said that creating an effective mobile learning program was going to be easy. eLearning designers need to analyze, assess and plan better to achieve that.

2. Should Your Mobile Learning Program Be Mobile-Friendly Or Mobile-First?

A mobile learning program can either be mobile-friendly, which means that all digital learning is functional on a mobile but is optimal for a desktop device. Or mobile-first, which means that the digital learning modules and courses are designed specifically for mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, and it only gives a low priority to desktop and laptop devices. A mobile-friendly learning program is apt for organizations where most employees have access to a desktop computer most of the time or are made up of employees who are not as smartphone-savvy as to learn solely through mobile devices. While a mobile-first learning program is apt for organizations that mostly have a smartphone-savvy, modern workforce who stays on the move for most of their working hours.

3. Which Tools And Technologies Should You Use?

Creating a mobile-learning program requires eLearning designers to use contemporary eLearning tools and technology to provide learners with the best learning experiences. First off, eLearning designers need to get their hands on the right authoring tool, preferably one which is cloud-based, in order to design and edit/upgrade mobile-learning modules and courses on the go. Secondly, the organization needs an LMS (Learning Management System) or LXP (Learning Experience Platform), preferably cloud-based, which learners can access via their mobile devices. If the organization wishes to offer even more advanced features or resources to their learners, they can even create their own mobile app. However, doing so requires a lot of research and expertise, so organizations need to make sure they know all about mobile learning and, preferably, they have been using mobile learning in their Learning and Development program for quite some time.

4. How Will You Deliver And Track Mobile Learning To Your Learners?

This is where an LMS or LXP will come in handy. However, older LMSs do not support mobile learning, so make sure you get one that supports a number of mobile device formats. An LMS or LXP which supports HTML5 will solve a lot of problems at once, as courses designed in HTML5 are inherently responsive. As mentioned before, you can create a mobile app for your organization yourself if you have the budget and the resources. Most LMSs and LXPs track learner progress, but if you’re creating a mobile app make sure you integrate xAPI (Experience API) in it.

Creating an effective mobile-learning platform requires a great deal of planning and effort. But success in doing so will result in an increase in learners’ retention of information and increase usage as well as completion rates, which accelerates the performance and growth of the employees and thus the organization.

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Originally published at cblpro.com.