The process of getting online learning from planning to posting can be arduous, time- and resource-consuming, and require hundreds of hand-offs between team members. Every measure must be taken to expedite each step along the way in order to make online learning relevant and timely to learners and therefore provide organizational benefits equal to costs. Adding mobile deployment to this equation only further complicates it.

Grainger was seeking a way to get a safety message to customers via our sales force without the training impacting face time. This created the challenge to train 3,000+ salespeople to enhance their selling approach and deliver this new message to thousands of customers in a consistent fashion, in a compressed time frame, and with limited time away from selling. To accomplish this, we needed to deploy a next generation blended learning program delivered just-in-time to an on-the-go workforce.

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?

The SCORM specification is now over 10 years old and is showing its age. The need for mobile training content, distributed e-learning, and flexible data tracking are just some of the elements missing from SCORM. The Experience API (xAPI) has laid the foundation for a new generation of SCORM. Now that ADL has adopted the CMI-5 specification, it is clear that CMI-5 is the solution to many of SCORM's problems. 

While the popularity of mLearning has been growing, supports are needed to help trainers and educators discover apps and seamlessly integrate them into their curriculum and LMSs. At the same time, developers might find it problematic to use technologies like the xAPI due to the overhead required to adopt it in their apps and LMS systems.

For most organizations, starting to explore adding mobile to an organizational learning strategy can be confusing. Some organizations see mobile learning as nothing more than HTML5. Some instructional designers think mobile learning is a concern only for developers. Still other organizations think mobile is nothing more than a different publishing option from an authoring tool. It’s only when you start walking down the path that you realize just how wrong those assumptions, and countless others, truly are.

Building a native HTML5 mobile game can take very complex code to build. This is especially challenging if you want to add elements like flex and responsive layouts, natural motion that interacts with user actions and the device’s accelerometer, take user input, and more. While you may wish to build this type of interactive learning experience, you may not always have the resources, development team, or knowledge to build these types of games.

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.