Benefits And Challenges Of Mobile Learning

Benefits And Challenges Of Mobile Learning
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Summary: Certainly, you'll agree with us that the usage of mobile devices is on a continuous rise in today's world. However, in case you're not aware of that, a recent study reveals that about 45% of the world's population owns a smartphone.

What Is Mobile Learning And Why Is It Important?

Also, the study reveals that about 61.28% of the world's population (4.8 billion) owns a smart and feature phone. This is different from what it used to be in the past. Furthermore, according to a study by Fluentco, about 75% of Americans say they use their smartphones most often to check email. Given these trends, you'll agree that mobile learning is one of the effective techniques that can help you to deliver a better learning experience. In case you're interested in developing mobile-friendly training content, it's worth knowing that the learning strategy has its benefits and challenges.

In this article, we'll be sharing with you everything that you need to know about mobile learning, including its benefits and challenges. And without further ado, let's dive right in.

According to Geddes' definition in 2004, mobile learning or mLearning is a learning approach that enables learners to acquire any knowledge or skill through using their mobile devices, anywhere, anytime. Although mobile learning has been around for a while, the advancement in technology has made it even more essential for all organizations to use in today's world.

According to a study, most employees and learners now prefer to get online information via their mobile devices. That's because, with mobile learning, you need not worry about the time or your location, so far you have your smartphone and internet connection. As mentioned earlier, mobile learning has a lot of benefits and challenges.

Before going into the challenges, let's quickly look at some of the benefits of mobile learning below:

1. Increase In The Rate Of Course Completion

One of the benefits of mobile learning for organizations is that it helps achieve better course completion rates. How do I mean? It's no longer news that we're in the age where time is a very important factor for everybody. With mobile learning, you won't have to worry about time.

That's because you can always learn anywhere and anytime using this learning strategy, as it allows for flexibility. Furthermore, by giving your learners the ability to access your eLearning content wherever and whenever they want you'll be able to achieve successful course completion.

2. You Can Use It To Diversify Learning

Another benefit of mobile learning is that it can be utilized to diversify learning. With that, it means you can deliver the learning in various ways, including through microlearning, webinars, online courses, and face-to-face workshops. Speaking of microlearning, which is the delivery of eLearning bite-sized content, there are lots of benefits attached to it. Furthermore, this eLearning trend is a natural fit for mobile learning. With short modules, learners can easily acquire knowledge via their mobile devices and apply it to their jobs.

3. Improves Knowledge Retention

Mobile learning is important as it helps to boost employee retention ability. For instance, the use of short videos as your mobile learning content can help your learners retain knowledge and recall information easily.

Challenges Of Mobile Learning

Now that we've mentioned some of the benefits of mobile learning, let's quickly have a look at its challenges below.

1. Data Privacy And Security

In case you're considering mobile learning, one of the challenges that you'll likely encounter is data privacy and security concerns. However, you need not worry too much about this, as there are ways you can go about addressing the issue. With mobile learning, learners are often encouraged to access training using their mobile devices. Online training programs tend to expose sensitive information regarding the company and its learners to the outside world.

As such, for an organization to start a mobile training course, it must first address the issues attached to mobile traffic. One way to do that is to check for vulnerabilities in your server and address them. Furthermore, you may also make it compulsory for all the learners to install a certain antivirus before accessing the training program.

2. Compatibility Of Your Content

Another challenge that you'll likely encounter with mobile learning is content compatibility. Most times, content created for eLearning purposes doesn't always work on mobile devices. In this case, you'll have to refurbish or recreate them so they can be accessed by mobile learners—this is mostly time and effort demanding.

Apart from that, mobile devices come in different sizes, meaning that you'll also need to create such content in various formats. Surely, you'll agree that this can bring about challenges and confusion.

3. Small Screens Can Cause Big Pains

Another challenge of mobile learning is that the continuous reading of text on small screens can hurt the eyes. However, you need not worry too much about this as there are solutions to address this issue. One of them is the use of Virtual Reality add-ons. Apart from that, you must ensure that you make your learning content as short as possible in order to reduce the extension in their viewing times.

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Wizcabin
Cloud-based automated elearning course authoring software to create beautiful interactive elearning courses automatically from simple storyboard. Save up to 70% time to produce device friendly, interactive elearning courses.