Getting Started in Mobile Learning
Whether through corporate or personal initiative (or both) you’re feeling like getting started in mobile learning. You hear it’s all the rage and don’t want to be left out of the fun. In your mind’s eye are pictures (5 megapixel, no less!) of your training lighting up smartphones everywhere. People are smiling and your name is mentioned throughout cyberspace as a mobile-learning hero. You imagine the process as a simple modification from your skillset; I mean the webinars and end-result examples make it look so simple. You feel well-prepared (or do you?)
Over the next several weeks, we’ll cover topics to getting started in mobile learning, including the biggest roadblocks and learning points including:
- Legal, Technical, and Systemic considerations
- Solution Analysis
- Interface, User Expectations and Acceptance
- Creating Mobile-Ready Content
- Development Tools and Considerations
This is the first in a series of posts where we’ll help you ask questions to determine your readiness to make the leap.
Does your company have the foundation in place to support mobile learning? Before you can even start your job as a learning specialist, you should ensure your company has the runway ready to deliver your hard work to your employees everywhere. You may need to pick up your corporate Rosetta stone as you’ll need to speak some “tech-ese,” “legal-ese” and “budget-esque” to ensure your project can get up in the air once it’s created.
Key legal, technical and systemic considerations
While the following five topics aren’t intended to be an all-inclusive list, the answers you receive should give you a good indication of where you are as a company in terms of some key areas of consideration.
1. External access to content
Is your LMS/LRS (and/or learning content web server) available to users that aren’t connected to your network? Does it require pass-through authentication OR VPN on mobile device?
2. Employee classification
Are there any legal implications to any of your targeted learners accessing training at any time? This generally applies to hourly or non-exempt employees. If so, do you have safeguards in place to ensure they can’t access training from a mobile device unless it is during their scheduled work time and they are “on the clock?”
3. Device ownership
Who owns the devices that will be used to access training? Are there any legal implications to requiring mobile training on non-company owned devices?
4. Plan ownership
Who pays the mobile service bill? Are there safeguards or any legal language that prevents a user from using their mobile data connection (vs. Wi-Fi) if they have data download restrictions? What if a learner accesses (or claims they accessed) via mobile connection vs. Wi-Fi? Is there a process in place to handle situations where employees attempt to chargeback data overage fees?
5. Supported devices
Do you have a handle on the different devices you will need to support? Do you have a mobile-specific test methodology? Can you invest in a range of test devices? How will you support and troubleshoot learner issues when your course is live? Asking the above questions will help you get a feel for how close your company is to delivering and supporting the mobile solutions you are itching to create.
Where are you in the mobile learning space? We’d love to hear from you regarding where you are in terms of developing and deploying mobile solutions. Are you just investigating? Have you passed this phase and moved on to another? What have your experiences been? Do you need any help or suggestions on how to move forward? Ask us!
