No more pilots, tests or trials: it’s time for mLearning to grow up

John Traxler is the world’s first Professor of mobile learning.  He’s been working with mobile technologies for over 12 years now, so when he talks, people tend to listen.  Speaking at the Crossknowledge Academy’s annual customer day in London this November, Traxler’s message to mLearning’s major players was bold and to the point: after 12 years of trials, tests and pilots, what we really need now is some big scale evidence that proves mLearning really works.

John Traxler

“mLearning started in an era when mobile was expensive and availability was limited. Now It’s easy, universal, robust and cheap.” says John. “We’ve come a long way, and what we’ve achieved so far has been valuable, but even today we’re still asking ourselves: what is the problem we are trying to solve? Past experience has taught us a lot, but do we know more about sustainable large scale mobile learning deployments than we did 10 years ago?  Not really”

mLearning: origins

“Our first big hope for mLearning was that it might actually deliver on the promise of eLearning” says John. Mobile’s “can go anywhere, at any time” potential was thought to be the extra chromosome that would lock eLearning into the public DNA  ”In the early days we simply carried existing eLearning principles over to mobile devices.  eLearning already available on the desktop could be accessed on some kind of hand-held device. Simply put, mLearning meant carrying about extra gadgets and gizmos so we could access content on the go.”

“Simple drill and practice exercises became an early favourite for the mLearning content creator and the gaming folklore that’s still a strong characteristic of mLeaning today took hold. Working within the scope allowed by early feature phones, quizzes and multiple choice exercises became standard fare for first generation mLearning content. Innovative as these early examples may have seemed at the time, in concept and content, no one learning via a mobile device was doing anything that couldn’t have been done on a PC.”

“Considered simply a bolt-on to established eLearning principles, mLearning was delivered via a host of add-ons and upgrade plug-ins offered by LMS providers keen to capture new market potential. The result? mLearning content ended up looking like a low resolution version of what you could be done on a big screen.”

“In retrospect it’s easy to see where things were going wrong. None of these early mLearning initiatives recognise people’s mobile habits and usage.  Learners are happy to sit in front of a PC for 15 or 20 minutes to complete an eLearning course.  But they’re not going to fire up up the same content for 30 secs in the lift.”

It’s deadtime for mLearning

“Dead time is fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces.  It might be five minutes between meetings or just half a minute at a bus stop. These at the times when a phone is probably  the only device available to us, and the ability to utilize this downtime effectively is fast becoming mLearning’s stand-out feature.”

“Now with GPS we’re moving towards a learning experience where web-based content is location aware.  We’re augmenting positioning data with knowledge banks. Mapping apps work in combination with wikis to deliver really relevant information that helps users work through the real-time situations they are in. Public transport networks fuse with real-time travel news to guide us from A to B faster and more effectively.”

“When we know where a person is we can make inferences and suggestions.  Stand on the historic site of the Berlin wall and augmented reality can render vivid images of the same location before German reunification.  Medical staff approaching an emergency area can be offered highly specific learning that prepares them for situation they will encounter within the next hours or even minutes.”

The next big goal for mLearning

“Learning on the job, augmented reality, location-based content: these are some of the key characteristics driving demand for mLearning now. But so far we have not achieved scale. We have an abundant supply of pilot projects and trials, but they need to be developed. They need to become sustainable mLeaning ecosystems that clearly deliver mainstream benefits.”

“The fact that we’ve shied away from creating clear evidence and developing proof points that onlookers can easily understand has not helped us: we have great examples of good mLearning but no strong evidence that good mLearning works.  Building the business case, developing the ROI arguments, measuring the benefits and promoting the mainstream difference that mLearning can deliver.  These are the critical proof points that mLearning needs for mass market acceptance.”

More: Download John Traxler’s presentation to the Crossknowledge Academy

Next: 12 years in the making: John Traxler’s big four mLearning certainties