Many people today view mobile phones as more important than their toothbrush or deodorant. Some statistics estimate that people reach for their phones more than 150 times per day. This new world order requires massive changes from both enterprises and the learning organizations that support them.

Building learning programs can be a complex endeavor, especially in a multi-device environment. Simply porting eLearning and traditional face-to-face experiences to mobile often isn’t a viable solution. There are other ways to effectively facilitate mobile learning. 

What is the business case for deploying content to mobile devices? Everyone knows that mobile learning can be used to deliver content no matter where learners are, enabling a far wider reach and greater access to learning than ever before. But time is just as important as place when it comes to offering content on smartphones and tablets. Integrating mobile into your learning strategy really can help learners reach competency faster, but what works best, and how do you make the case?

Clients often ask for mobile learning solutions without considering whether mobile learning is the best fit for the business, instructional needs, and technology constraints. For a mobile project to be successful, instructional designers and managers need to be grounded in the fundamentals of mobile learning strategy. What questions should you ask when determining whether a mobile solution is the best fit? How do you educate your clients on the advantages and disadvantages of mobile learning?

The world of training and development has changed. Today’s technologies provide dozens of new affordances that can be used in learning and development that were simply not available in the days of training being done in classrooms with instructors and three-ring binders. But making sense of these new affordances, and the opportunities they provide, can be a challenge.

As the use of mobile devices is increasing, individuals have access to information anytime and anywhere to perform authentic activities in the context of learning. This provides the opportunity to bring education to any location, without the need to physically move to an academic institution or training facility.

Mobile devices offer an enticing array of opportunities for learning and development, so much so it seems as if it’s a “no-brainer” for training departments to add mLearning. But there are four key issues that should be taken into consideration before just jumping into mLearning: technology, people, content, and business value. All of these can have a critical impact on the potential success of any plan to add mLearning to an organization’s overall training and development program.

Mobile is one of the biggest trends in workplace learning. But mobile what, exactly? Pinpointing exactly what mobile means in the context of your organization isn’t easy. You also need to answer the why of mobile. To do that, you need to view mobile in the context of all the current trends in workplace learning.

The DeMaND Project is a consortium project funded by the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training program that trains students for careers in skilled trades, including welding, construction, HVAC, electrical, CDL, and heavy equipment. The project works with students from areas with chronically high unemployment and generational poverty. Students have difficulty entering the workforce and retaining employment. The project needed a mechanism to help students learn about job opportunities and stay connected with their instructors and one another, and to support students toward employment.

You’re a top-performing company. You’ve started using a couple of mobile apps at work. How do you turn some inspired use of mobile into a broader strategy? One of the key components of this is creating an internal corporate ecosystem for mobile. So how can you get started? Should you build or buy? How do you navigate around issues with IT security and legal?

A killer app has been defined as any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, a gaming console, software, or a programming language. Where is the killer app for massive open online courses (MOOCs)? Even though higher education is available for more learners now than ever before and at little or no cost, MOOCs and other innovative online formats for higher education are struggling with completion rates. Online engagement will continue to struggle unless purpose is addressed.  

While widely used for performance support and learning outside the classroom, and increasingly within K-12 classroom-based environments, mobile devices have not been widely exploited for use in adult classrooms. Even though use cases are not always obvious, the affordances of mobile devices offer great opportunity for supplementing classroom-based learning.

Instructional designers are constantly in the process of considering which tools to use in order to best meet the training and development needs of their clients, customers, or learners. Without carefully reviewing the affordances of technologies, instructional design professionals could negatively impact the effectiveness of their educational intervention, lose time, or create a poor design. 

The modern learner complains that they don’t have enough time to do their job, let alone make time for formal training. Many workers are developing their skills and knowledge one problem at a time. They are untethered, empowered, and looking for on-demand access to learning—how do we get them the content they are demanding? 

More and more companies are creating mobile strategies and mobile applications to integrate with their existing businesses. Training groups are being tasked with getting users up-to-speed on mobile applications and are facing unique challenges with incorporating mobile devices and applications into the traditional classroom setting.