What Are the Benefits of mLearning?
The future of learning is mobile. This should be quite obvious, as a good amount of learning and knowledge transfer happens via smartphones in our digital age, and this trend is only going one way – UP!
Mobile learning, or mLearning as it is more popularly known, has already made its way to the larger corporate organizations, and has become a norm in their eLearning programs. It is one of the few eLearning trends to have become an eLearning essential in a relatively short amount of time. But what makes mLearning so successful? Corporate organizations, which have achieved success in their employee training app and development programs after the introduction of mLearning, say that mLearning offers a plethora of benefits that make it an instant hit.
In this article, we’ll look into those benefits and try to make a believer out of you (if you’re not one already)!
Ultimate Flexibility
Of course, the first and ultimate benefit mLearning provides learners is the flexibility to not only access and complete courses anywhere, anytime on their smartphones, but also to learn using videos, podcasts and other popular multimedia assets and resources. The modern hectic lifestyle requires that individuals learn on-the-go, and mLearning facilitates exactly that. When learning is not restricted to a specific place and time, it becomes less of a tiring convention and more of a rewarding experience.
Higher Engagement
The modern learner is accustomed to using smartphones. As they spend a fair amount of time on their smartphones every day, they engage better with courses that are delivered to them in a mobile format. Also, mLearning courses are usually chunked into bite-sized pieces (known as microlearning or bite-sized learning) in order to keep the eLearning content crisp and concise, and thus engaging. In fact, microlearning has been adopted so enthusiastically precisely due to the rise of mLearning.
Improved Completion Rates and Retention
The improved completion rates that follow the adoption of mLearning in a corporate organization are a direct result of the flexibility offered by smartphones, as well as the bite-sized courses. Flexibility allows learners to access content whenever and wherever they desire, which leads them to access courses in the instance they struggle to recall something. This revision of courses (however momentary or small) leads to higher retention, especially because the content is already crisp and short enough to retain. A seamless learning experience with no restrictions of time and place, along with engaging concise content is also bound to improve completion rates.
Multi-Device Support
mLearning courses are created using responsive design, which means that it supports all kinds of devices i.e. laptops, desktops and tablets, by definition. This enables the interface to adapt to multiple device sizes, which ensures that the courses do not look abnormal or misaligned across different devices. This also “future proofs” the content and design, in preparation for the advancement of mobile technology.
Collaborative Learning
As mLearning takes place on a smartphone and is readily accessible whenever the learner wants, courses which require collaboration or teamwork can be easily implemented in any organization that uses mLearning in their training strategy. Learners can also access online communities in real time to ask questions of their colleagues or like-minded learners like them.
mLearning is the future of learning, and it’s safe to say that eLearning might take place exclusively on smartphones sometime in the near future. Thus, it would be wise to grasp this eLearning essential before it completely takes over the learning sphere.
If you would like to learn more about how to build the most effective employee training strategy!
If you’d like to know more about how EdApp’s mlearning training portal can help your internal training practices, get in touch at enquiries@edapp.com. You can also try EdApp’s Mobile LMS and authoring tool for free by signing up here.
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Author
Guest Author Daniel Brown
Daniel Brown is a senior technical editor and writer that has worked in the education and technology sectors for two decades. Their background experience includes curriculum development and course book creation.