Recent studies in the neuroscience of emotions reveal that there are connections between cognitive and emotional functions. In other words, training programs are more successful when they take into consideration the relationship between learning and emotions. Effective training and development changes the brain, and mobile training content needs to be inclusive of what is actually required for this change to occur. Mobile learning programs will be more effective, efficient, and successful when engaging, experiential brain-based activities are included.

So you’ve started your journey into building learning experiences, no matter the screen size. You’ve already built and feel confident about your eLearning, large-screen digital learning, and learning objects. However, your brand is critically important, so how do you create a consistent look, feel, and experience for learners across your entire learning ecosystem?

Responsive and adaptive designs are extremely popular in the world of mobile learning, but they are also very commonly misunderstood concepts. Today’s mobile learning professionals need to understand what responsive and adaptive designs really are in order to plan and implement them effectively with HTML5-based solutions.

Most of the discussions around mobile learning are about how to develop for mobile. In the rush to go mobile, we’re skipping a step—deciding if we even should go mobile. So much mobile training is developed that isn’t needed in the first place, or that won’t solve a business need or fill a performance gap.

For instructional designers who need to create interactive content that can be consumed across a variety of devices, especially mobile, the availability of suitable technologies proves problematic. Many educational technologies have a tendency to be overly simplistic and lack the robustness found in their commercial counterparts. But despite the simplicity of these tools, faculty often tends to revert to novice status when interacting with technology. 

Now that mobile learning development is becoming more accessible to enterprise learning professionals, use cases are more common. Learning and development departments are deploying mLearning at an increasingly greater rate so they can reach their audiences with “just-in-time, just enough, and just for me” training deliverables. With the new wave of mobile learning, another issue has surfaced that really is not so new: Because mLearning introduces many unique aspects of context, usability, and design, there are now many instances of poor user experience (UX).

No training is more important than for those with the lives of others in their hands. Increasingly, continuing education courses are being offered to medical professionals and others in mission-critical roles online and through mobile devices. The convenience of mobile instruction is undeniable, but are learners retaining information as readily as they would through a desktop browser or in-person?

Current studies show that more than five billion people will be using mobile devices by 2017, making smartphones and tablets more prevalent and accessible than desktop or laptop computers. Mobile learning has the ability to be a truly global solution for education delivery. Many companies who embraced the eLearning movement years ago are now facing new challenges in reaching mobile learners. 

One of the most powerful catalysts to engagement is involving employees in the decision process when solving your organization’s most pressing challenges. By opening up these important conversations, employees feel as if they are an important part of the business and have contributed to the achievement of meaningful results. Mobile technology provides us with an excellent portal for engaging learners and having them co-create learning content.

Any time you’re in a meeting, class, or at a conference and look around the room you’re likely to see a number of people seemingly paying more attention to their mobile phones than to the topic at hand. These devices are not going away. The challenge we now face is keeping our face-to-face audiences engaged while competing with the myriad of mobile devices. The solution to this challenge is to leverage the devices themselves.

Sales coaching is receiving a lot of attention these days, because research indicates that it can greatly increase revenue and reduce inefficiencies in the sales process. But sales coaching is about a lot more than just providing support and guidance to sales reps. There are strategies and frameworks required to achieve real success, and there is mobile technology available to help make it happen. All of this might seem overwhelming, but it does not have to be.

Learning is more than just the distribution of information. Motivation, memorability, and personal meaning should be required ingredients for a successful learning moment. An additional ingredient required for mobile learning is the fidelity of interface design. Touch-based designs can help, but as a mobile designer, you are pitted against the high-fidelity game and social media apps that are just a button away.

Mobile learning isn’t just for re-packaging eLearning. It is about going to where the learner is ... out in the real world, beyond the computer. The tried and true method for reaching people in the real world has been the QR code, but we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what can be done with this simple tool. Because it can open any content, the QR code affords the designer an opportunity to make a lot of things happen for the learning experience.

Recent investigations questioning the potentially preventable nature of fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan make combat lifesaving an even more critical area of focus in training and developing the future leaders of the military. Because soldiers are always on the move, mobile devices can play a big part in supporting their training. 

In today’s mobile world where learners may be accessing learning solutions on many different devices and screen sizes, it’s challenging for instructional designers to “storyboard” a solution that works universally. Many may struggle to determine if they need to design three totally unique solutions: one for phones, one for tablets and one for desktops and laptops. Is storyboarding even feasible in this situation? 

It’s hard enough to get learners to engage with the content of your eLearning course. The issue is compounded even further when learners can’t figure out how to use the course or it’s too difficult to use on a mobile device. All too often, new eLearning designers put their focus solely into designing the learning content, while at the same time ignoring the interface it’s encapsulated in. This leads to confusion on the part of the learner and disrupts the learning process.

Classroom programs don’t often translate well online. As a result, people watching programs online are often bored and do other things while “watching” the programs. They use the programs as “background noise,” and as a result, do not learn the information presented. This problem increases as more organizations push content to mobile devices.

Compliance training is a universal issue and requirement for all types of organizations. It can be tricky to design and create compliance training that’s easy, available, and engaging to all learners, yet satisfies statutory legal and HR requirements. Traditional eLearning programs have gained an unfavorable reputation for being uninspiring and complex, stuck on a restricted platform such as desktop.

The instructional design process is iterative. Going from analysis with subject matter experts (SMEs) to design and back can consume precious time and resources. Developing learning materials away from the customer can sometimes yield surprises during pilot and deployment.

Onboarding of new employees to ensure they are prepared to perform is a critical undertaking for any organization. When the call is to effectively onboard temporary employees, a new wrinkle is added, as onboarding activities can take too much time in relation to the length of their contract.  

Rent-A-Center has always prided itself on being a pioneer in the rent-to-own industry. In an effort maintain its competitive advantage and significantly increase its customer base, Rent-A-Center decided to occupy the smartphone space. This initiative would require an innovative and revolutionary training strategy to introduce this product line.

In recent mobile learning research, college-bound students initially showed a preference for learning environmental science in the classroom through lecture or reading assignments rather than through hands-on learning activities. Though students had access to mobile technologies, they used the mobile technologies for classwork the same way they could use a desktop: searching and reading electronic documents. The classroom teacher and researcher intended to leverage mobile learning technologies to break out of this mold, helping students engage the subject of environmental science first-hand through using mobile tools in the natural environment.