Where Is mLearning Going?

blog_mLearningImportant

It’s a multi-device world out there. We all know it. More than 60% of online adults in the US and the UK use at least two devices every day. How many devices have you used today? So far I’ve used my personal cell phone and my work computer, and it’s not even noon.

Alaska Air knew that their pilots needed a device other than a desktop computer to access their training. After all—they’re busy flying all over the world! They might not always have access to a desktop computer. That’s why Alaska Air uses CourseMill® Mobile to deliver pilot training on iPads—and Lectora® authoring software to create mobile friendly content! Take a look at this recap from the 2015 Lectora User Conference and follow Alaska Air’s lead in creating a better mobile experience with Lectora HTML extensions.

But, mobile is more than just smartphones and tablets.

According to a Tech Pro Research survey, 29% of companies surveyed were using, planning to use, or budgeting for wearables and have included them in their BYOD plan.

Tech Pro isn’t the only company that sees wearables on the horizon. Have you heard the phrase “Internet of Things?” The Internet of Things, or IoT for short, includes things like the Apple watch or other wearables.

Craig Weiss of E-Learning 24/7 says, “The hottest item for wearables and IoT right now are the fitness trackers. Fitness in fact is super hot for IoT, which if you think about it, why isn’t it (IoT) being used for PE or school exercise classes as we speak? I can’t think of one school that uses IoT fitness for their PE or exercise class.”

As a Fitbit wearer myself, I thought Weiss’s idea was pretty genius and almost a no-brainer once I read it. For example, childhood obesity is a significant challenge in America right now. Programs like Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” fitness program are working to counter that, but could we do more? What if every child had a wearable fitness tracker and could use that to see how their activity translates into calories burned and how what they eat impacts their health?

You could take that idea even further and add a social component to fitness tracking—or any other type of training. Adding a little bit of friendly competition is an easy way to get kids interested in an activity, but you might be surprised by how well that works with adults too. An easy way to host and share web-based courses, videos, documents, and more is through CourseMill® Wave. Encourage your team to share the results of their training activities. For the youth fitness example, it could be a group of students choreographing their own hip hop routine and then sharing the video they took on a smartphone—and the number of steps their fitness trackers counted—on CourseMill Wave. For a corporate organization, it might be a video of one person demonstrating how to set up the printer to print on unusual sizes of paper—something I showed a colleague just last week!

There are so many things you can do with mLearning today! For more mobile musings, free downloads, and Lectora tips, subscribe to the Everything eLearning Blog.