What is Mobile Learning?
Mobile learning, also called M-learning or mLearning, is any type of content that is developed or consumed on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, and including anything from podcasts to full eLearning courses.
According to Pew Research, virtually all Americans — an overwhelming 96% — currently own some kind of cellphone, an increase of 35% since 2011. Regardless of the industry, organizations need to pay attention to these numbers and prioritize designing for mobile consumption.
Meeting the Needs of the Modern Learner
Persona: Jan is a seasoned office manager at a large insurance company.
Select each picture to see how Jan interacts with mobile learning throughout the day.
The world is mobile; therefore, content has to be flexible, responsive and small enough to consume on the go.
Whether searching for just-in-time information or taking a formal learning course, this type of varied mobile interaction isn’t out of the ordinary in today’s workforce.
More than ever, people are weaving learning into their daily activities and require cross-device accessibility. Therefore, it is vital that organizations shift their learning ecosystems to adapt to the modern learning landscape and adopt a mobile-learning-first approach to meet the modern learner’s expectations and deliver the right information at the exact point of need.
Benefits & Advantages of Mobile Learning
- Convenience: It’s a convenient way for users to access content exactly when, where, and how they want.
- Engagement: Content interactions can be personalized to drive motivation and improve engagement.
- Collaboration: Learners can communicate with vast user communities through online forums and chat tools.
- Effectiveness: Smaller, more digestible chunks of information help improve retention & prevent cognitive overload.
- Accessibility: mLearning content is equally accessible to all users regardless of location.
- Cost Effectiveness: Existing content can be reused, minimizing time to market & reducing development costs
Future-Proofing Your Content for Mobile
Content Must Be Small
Microlearning and mLearning go hand-in-hand. Small chunks of content allow users to access information in and outside of work. Whether through a video, Instagram or Facebook feed, email, or course topic, all content needs to be micro to provide a positive mLearning experience.
Content Must Be Searchable
Today's learners expect information to be at their fingertips. No one wants to sit at a desktop computer and spend hours looking for information in a database. With attention spans dwindling, organizations need to make sure their mobile content is searchable and in context.
Content Must Be Responsive
Responsive design means that the interface will adapt to multiple device sizes, whether it’s a desktop computer, laptop, smartphone, or tablet. The content must be compatible for mobile devices and mLearning, and detect the appropriate screen size and adjust the content to scale.
Xyleme Streamlines Mobile Learning
Xyleme’s Learning Content Management System (LCMS) is built for mobile. With fully-customizable and mobile-ready out-of-the-box templates, our web outputs are truly responsive — automatically adapting the content layout to the specific screen size being used. And because content is separated from presentation, content is unlocked from a single, restrictive format.
M-Learning content can be synced and reused in a variety of outputs, eliminating duplication and rework. Whether it is a web output, instructor-led guide or PowerPoint deck, Xyleme’s single-source publishing allows content to be transformed into a wide variety of layouts and configurations — all of which are mobile friendly.
Xyleme’s industry-leading LCMS helps major multinational organizations create and manage learning content across all formats. Thanks to Xyleme’s LCMS, our users successfully reduce content development and maintenance time, easily reuse content and publish to multiple output types, effectively personalize content at scale, and objectively assess content and learner performance with robust, built-in analytics dashboards.
