Mobile Learning: What Is It? How Can You Use It?
Take training, learning and development further with a platform designed specifically for mobile learning.
Nowadays, it’s common for employees to spend more time on their phone than at a work computer. Forward-thinking companies recognise this and are looking for a mobile learning management system to meet this change in behaviour. What’s needed is a mobile LMS.
Why Use a Mobile-First Learning Management System (LMS)?
Using a mobile LMS is more than just moving away from the PC. It’s a dedicated system that uses smartphone technology and microlearning to deliver learning strategies that provide better results than desktop eLearning. It’s also about being able to use gamification to motivate learners in a way that feels natural to them… while making sure they genuinely enjoy lessons. It’s about delivering prizes and achievements directly to learners and letting them redeem actual rewards for their hard work.
mLearning needs to be compatible with both Android and Apple mobile devices while remaining perfectly formatted within any computer-based web browser. This gives you total flexibility when it comes to lesson delivery.
Daily Notifications
With mobile learning, microlessons are downloaded straight to users’ smartphones so they can both learn at a time that suits them best and do so at their own pace. Push notifications inform learners of new lessons, deadlines and prizes.
Your Learning is Always Up‑To‑Date
With a rapid authoring tool it’s possible to give employees new information (or update old lessons with new material) as soon as it becomes available. Mobile learners will always be armed and ready with everything they need to know, when they need to know it. The days of suffering old and out-of-date case studies are over.
The average, traditional eLearning course takes months to develop. Conversely, rapid authoring makes it possible to develop an entire course in days. By using tried-and-tested learning templates, that have been created by expert instructional designers, you can author mobile learning in the morning and distribute it in the afternoon.
With m learning, updating old courses with new information can be done in just a few minutes. Better yet, no knowledge of coding, scripting, or any other complex concept is required. There’s no need to get any external contractors or agencies involved in the process – saving you time, money and stress.
Rise of Millennials and Generation Z in the Workplace
Smartphone market penetration is strongest among those under 40 –
over 97% of millennials own one. By onboarding, upskilling and training employees with mobile learning, you’re ensuring that delivery and engagement with learning material is well-suited to younger generations – they’ll appreciate the familiar delivery mechanism and they’ll actually want to use it.
Employee turnover is expensive for employers and over a quarter of surveyed employees cite lack of opportunities for growth as a key reason for leaving an employer. Traditional eLearning is infamous for being cumbersome and unengaging – often based on antiquated technologies that haven’t changed much since the turn of the Millennium. When it does function on mobile devices, the user experience is typically poor and distracts from learning.
Learning Through Mobile, From Day One
From the moment you on-board an employee, they can become a learner. They can learn where to go and who to contact before their first day and they can reflect on their work with a quick booster lesson on the way home.
Experienced employees benefit too. Accessing mobile training that covers the latest products, procedures and compliance policies can keep them in step with a constantly evolving marketplace. They are able to learn, review and become more competent sales associates with just a few taps each day. They will constantly be empowered to improve, even when they’re not at their posts.
With prize-based motivation delivered directly to their pockets, learners are motivated to return over and over to review past content and access all available rewards. They can also see how colleagues are performing which gives them extrinsic motivation to continue with their learning while encouraging friendly competition among staff members.
Simple-To-Manage mLearning
Managers can view mobile learning progress directly from a web-based analytics portal.
With it they can access the detailed data required to encourage and motivate their teams. Notifications can be sent to learners when new content is available so managers can encourage participation when they need to. Important lessons can also be automatically repeated over time by harnessing the highly-effective methodology of spaced repetition.
Responsive Design
All mobile learning content must be responsive and function perfectly on desktop browsers, tablets and everything in-between. There needn’t be any technical configuration for this to happen; it should be automatic and work seamlessly by simply uploading your own content, questions and answers.
When designing lessons, authors can preview what they look like on any screen size they choose: they can see exactly what their learners will see. This helps make mobile learning compatible with everything. Indeed, mLearning makes it simple to create rich, dynamic lessons without installing any additional software.
Rich Media
Multimedia content is great for showing off the latest products and displaying correct procedures. Smartphones’ incredible computing power and their large, colourful screens make rich media look stunning. Adding it can be as simple as dragging and dropping or linking to YouTube or Vimeo.
Good mobile learning will warn users if any lesson has audio content so they can prepare their environment accordingly. As with regular audio apps, the ability to rewind, fast-forward and pause multimedia is essential.
A Mobile Learning-Driven Work Culture
By using m learning, you can establish a work culture that is constantly improving. The ever-increasing number of younger employees is establishing an ever-increasing need for agile learning and development. Mobile learning’s fun, engaging and simple nature will foster intrinsic motivation for your staff to increase their competencies while delivering extrinsic motivation through real rewards and prizes.
Use it with microlearning, multimedia, reminders and other advanced learning features to engage and develop your workforce like never before possible.
If you would like to learn more about how EdApp is the ideal LMS for your training strategy!
Check out EdApp’s features here. If you want to learn more about EdApp’s mobile-focused LMS and authoring tool, get in touch at enquiries@edapp.com. You can also try EdApp’s Mobile LMS for free by signing up here.
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