8 Best Practice elearning Tips for Mobile Learning
Whether through the use of mobile phones, laptops, tablets or desktops, you are connected to endless information and resources and have probably used mLearning or eLearning at some point.
Right now, you may be thinking ‘so, how is mLearning different from eLearning?’.
Well, eLearning taps into connectivity, but mobile learning truly lives it. It brings the very best of eLearning to the most versatile of platforms.
eLearning agencies recognise the power that mobile learning already has, as well as the exponentially greater power it is due to have over the next few years. It’s a booming business and Learners are benefitting tremendously from the shift to mLearning!
Technology has driven innovation; helping people live better, learn better, teach better and explore better. Today, over 3 billion people worldwide own a mobile phone. It is forecast to continue growing by hundreds of millions of new users over the next few years, and every single one of them is a potential Learner. Our team at TheLearning LAB has put together the 8 best eLearning practice tips you have to know if you’re venturing into mobile learning. Want to know more? Keep reading!
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8 best eLearning practice tips for mobile learning
1. Focus on eLearning User-Experience
Your users deserve a smooth-running, easy-to-navigate and flawless learning experience. Anything less gets in the way of their learning process, and your course rapidly loses value.
Is the course clearly segmented into modules? Do you offer easy navigation from one module to the next? Is there a user dashboard view with their personal learning progress?
Does your eLearning strategy incorporate UX to the brim? Give your Learners ease, and you’ll be rewarded with engagement.
2. Keep eLearning courses bite-sized
Mobile learning is all about convenience. Long, convoluted modules are definitely not the way forward. Keeping it short and sweet, ensuring your Learners can get through a section in their 10-15 minute commute, helps them make the most of the course whilst their attention span is at its most astute.
Bite-sized content is a vital aspect of providing a successful mLearning course.
Keep in mind that according to MIT research, eLearning videos are at their most optimal when no more than 6 minutes long - you can imagine what this means for other, generally less engaging content types!
3. Optimise eLearning performance
Not everyone has 5G and the most rapid, state-of-the-art smartphone that only just came out. Your content needs to run without a hitch regardless of connectivity and the age of the mobile device - so you need to optimise! Your content should run smoothly even in less-than-ideal conditions.
Also remember to keep download sizes small for e.g. extra reading in the form of pdfs, infographics and other downloadable content.
Frustration is the enemy of productivity and learning, and not much is more frustrating to a Learner than watching their phone say download pending for half an hour!
4. Make it interactive
One-sided, monotonous learning doesn’t captivate anyone. Passive learning, such as reading a text, doesn’t do it for most people. Interactivity is the key to unlocking your Learners’ potential, providing them with animations, interactive eLearning video content, gamification and interactive quizzes will combat boredom by throwing monotony out of the window and replacing it with stimulating content. Not sure what interactive learning involves?
TheLearning LAB produces every type of interactive mLearning content you can imagine, so you don’t have to do this alone!
TheLearning LAB eLearning agency
5. Track data - and use it!
User feedback plays an essential role in the decisions you make for the future of your course design. You need to tailor your learning content according to the needs of the users, and to continuously improve your product, you’ll need to gather feedback.
Why not have a comments section dedicated to Learner requests, suggestions or issues? Better yet, provide your Learners with a direct contact email in case of any issues. When Learners provide feedback, you need to be ready to assess what the feedback means and how you should approach improving their mobile learning experience.
Does that feel like a lot to take on? No worries, an agency such as TheLearning LAB, specialised in eLearning and all it entails, will be able to keep tabs on even the most intricate of analytics - and implement the needed changes!
6. Update, update, update
The world never stops turning, and course information never stops changing, expanding and refining. Outdated course content is one of the worst mLearning mistakes you can make, right up there with failing to start with a strategy in mind! Continue to innovate, enhance the content with the latest technology, and revisit the information provided to your Learners.
There’s no other way to say it: without updates, your course becomes yesterday’s news in no time.
7. Be smart with eLearning content
Your course aims to educate, boost and engage your Learners; not make them feel as though you see them as incompetent, nor that their time is expendable. Stick to the Learning Objectives defined in your strategy, minimise tangents and unnecessary padding and present the information at a gradually increasing level of difficulty.
If your Learners are likely to enter the course at significantly varying levels of ability, provide an entry quiz which will bump them up to their appropriate learning level! Your Learners should feel empowered and ready to tackle the next step, without being overwhelmed. Don’t forget what we said earlier about bite-sized learning!
A detailed, best-practice-based Strategy is your winning ticket to creating a successful mLearning course.
TheLearning LAB agency, eLearning and mLearning for the real world.
8. Minimise scrolling
Keep text sections short, make sure videos and other interactive content are frequent occurrences, and use layouts which encourage users to click through to the next section rather than endlessly scrolling through a stream of information.
Using slides rather than pages (especially if they are numbered or flanked by a progress bar!) will let your Learners know how far they’ve gotten and what they have left to do. Give them oversight and control over their learning, and you’ll get engagement and self-development in return.
Ready for the mobile elearning experience?
It might sound like a lot to take in when you read a list like this, and you might be wondering how your organisation can get it all right. Keeping up with these kinds of best-practice recommendations in addition to knowing about the latest trends and technologies, undertaking the production of the content, quizzes, videos, and graphics isn’t a layman’s job.
TheLearning LAB has over 15 years of experience in the industry, and our 360° approach to providing eLearning and mLearning solutions ensures that your vision is translated into the very best learning opportunities for your Learners.
Contact our agency, based in Geneva, and let us help you design the innovative and engaging mLearning content your Learners need. We tailor content to the individual needs of the organisation and Learners; we don’t do blanketing, mass-marketed content, because we know that Learners are individuals and personalisation generates authentic engagement and high-quality learning.
