Mobile Learning

Assignment:
Do you own a smartphone or a tablet or both? If you don't, why not? If you do, what do you use them for? Would you ever consider them to be your primary source of learning? Or, are they just a portable way to play Angry Birds?

What could you envision as a good application for mobile learning? What are the barriers to this approach? What would be the advantage for this approach?

Response:

I own a smartphone, but not a tablet.  I have a laptop at home and at work, and a smartphone for on the go, so I don’t really see the need for an extra device.  I’ve thought about getting a Kindle or Nook e-reader, but have a backlog of about 20 hard-copy books on my bookshelf that are on my “to-read” list, so I figure I should get through those before purchasing a new piece of equipment.  I use my smartphone mostly to check emails and facebook and play some games.  I look up things online, and use the GPS navigation feature.  My daughter’s baby monitor also has an app where I can view it from my phone, and I’ve downloaded some toddler games for her. 

I don’t use my smartphone for learning, but I have definitely found it useful to look up things on the spot, for example, if we are out running errands and want to find the nearest gas station or Mexican restaurant, I have the means to find them. 

I just don’t know if anything I need to learn for my job would be better suited for a mobile device.  My job is largely conducted at my desk, and personally, I would rather view training or watch videos on my large monitor, than try to squint and deal with intermittent wi-fi while on the train or waiting in line for my lunch order. 

But, not everyone is like me with access to a large computer monitor from 9-5, and a home laptop.  There are those workers that drive around all day, or work in retail or food services where they are in front of customers most of the time they are at work. 

For these employees, having a mobile training platform where they can watch or read something on their breaks, or listen to it in their car, would be beneficial.  I think a good application would be for small bite-sized pieced of information, almost like Performance Support.  If there is a new product coming out that they need to be able to tell customers about, then a quick product introduction video/training would be helpful to send via mobile.  If you are a server in a restaurant, perhaps the daily specials could be delivered to your smartphone, with a brief description of each item and a list of ingredients.  You could study the specials before you clock in. 

I think advantages to these approaches are that the content is in small, easy-to-digest chunks, and they can be viewed just-in-time.  Barriers are that all employees have access to a device, and have the time to devote to watching.  Playing Devil’s Advocate – I’m not sure that a mobile specials overview is any more effective than a printed piece of paper with the night’s specials.  Is the mode of delivery enough of a benefit to outweigh the costs and time commitment of putting the material on a mobile platform?  Maybe if it were weekly specials rather than daily.  And maybe if your company were a large chain in several states that has to get this info to several hundred employees.  But if you are a small clothing shop or local diner, it’s probably easier to just gather your employees in a quick huddle meeting before the start of their shift to tell them about the new products or new specials, and even allow them to touch and/or taste them, rather than just read about them or listen to someone else describe them. 

Social Learning

Assignment:

Have you had any experience in using social learning as part of your own learning experience either as a designer or a learner? What do you see are the challenges and advantages to incorporating social learning to your own designs? Please use the reflection this week to advance your thinking in these areas.

Response:

I used a discussion board tool in our Learning Management System to create a “community” for our mentors.  They are introduced to it in their orientation, and we post their quick reference guides and resources there, and posted several starter discussion questions to try to get them to share best practices or tips.  The whole point is for them to learn from each other how to best mentor new hires, however, in several years, it has barely been used, despite our best efforts to keep the content fresh and “hype” up the site as a great resource for them.  You can provide the tools, but if no one posts, then it doesn’t add any value. 

My company started using a social networking site called Connect.  We can use it to create groups of cohorts, or teams use it to create private discussions areas for their business.  But a lot of the use is just open areas for people to post and share.  They’ve used it to promote company initiatives, like our partnership with the Olympics, or our annual charitable giving campaign.  People can post their own stories or photos of their experiences and fellow employees can like, rate, and respond to the posts.  It’s been great because I can connect with other employees across the country (and world) and get perspectives that I wouldn’t normally have access to.  Some of it is just fluff, and I wonder how much productivity is wasted (we have some discussion areas on “Around the Water Cooler” for random topics, and different communities for people who like to run, bike, hike, or animal lovers).  I find myself sharing photos of my dogs and liking other people’s pet photos, but then it also offers opportunities to discuss things like animal rescue over pet shops, and people’s opinions on what age to neuter their pets.  There have been connections made where people are interested in getting a second animal and others offering their experience with how to introduce a new pet to an existing one.  So, while a valuable community has been born, not all of the activity is work-related. 

But, I have been able to use it for work-related items as well.  We have a group for Learning and Development, and different discussion rooms for some of the tools we use to create learning.  I’ve posted an example of a demo I created and got some feedback, and have posted questions on what type of equipment others in the company are using for video, etc.  Our Chief Learning Officer has a weekly blog where he posts some thoughts and asks for opinions from other learning professionals in the company.  It’s really informative and interesting to hear from others and have good debates. 

Some of the challenges I see with using our Connect platform in our own courses are:

·         Will people actually use it? If you create it as a discussion area or to share projects, if people don't actually use it, it has no value (much like our Mentor discussion board). You can make it mandatory, but what are the consequences for not actively using it? And it creates a lot more work on the program or page administrator to monitor activity and award points or grades to the connect postings.

·         What is the appropriate amount of time to utilize a connect space for a program? If you have a week-long class, is it worth it to create a space for those participants? Perhaps if it is blended with pre-work and pre-discussions, and post-work and post-class discussions, but how long do you expect people to use it? 30 days after the learning event? a year or more after the learning event? What about for a 1-day program?

·         How do you divide up the connect spaces? You could do it by cohort, so each session gets their own collaborative space, or maybe one per class, so people who went through a program in the past can see what the new people in the class are posting, or people new to the class can go back and see what prior participants said. But that goes back to the amount of time they are expected to use it and gain value from it. The latter example might be more of an example of a wiki or resource site than a learning tool, and when the information gets too broad or cumbersome to look through, then it loses its value.

Some advantages I see are:

·         Ability to share and receive information. This should increase our ability to learn from peers, instructors, and others.

·         Ability to extend collaboration and learning–before, after, or in-between courses

·         Ability for the participants to add diagrams, links, thoughts, and ideas to discussions

·         Ability for the participants to participate in learning when it is convenient for them (time zones, schedules)

·         Ability for participants to access a record of collaborative “conversations” on Connect that can be used at a later date for summarizing findings or reporting.

Overall, I think a social community is great, and find value in it.  But from a course management perspective, I’m not sure if it makes sense for the types of one-day and 3-day courses we design.  Perhaps for our longer-tailed development programs when people are in a cohort for 6 months working together, but I’m not sure social learning sites would be of value for every topic we teach.