Learning Goes Mobile
Why 2011 Is the Year of mLearning

Despite their diversity, your employees, customers, partners, and other stakeholders share at least one thing in common: they all almost certainly use a mobile device. These gadgets’ ubiquity has led many eLearning experts to believe that in the near future, most training and educational programs will include an mLearning component.

Mobile learning also creates a new set of challenges for trainers, teachers, and content providers. Not only do they need to select what platforms and devices to support, they must also decide what formats and media are appropriate for their content and their audience’s bandwidth limitations. And, most importantly, they need to determine the best and most effective ways to enhance learning when incorporating mobile content into their courses. Because of these factors, making mLearning a part of an overall learning strategy, rather than an end in itself, is crucial for success.

Read more about developing an mLearning strategy

Make Your Content Portable
Technology Decisions Can Impact Your Ability to Repurpose eLearning Materials

The need for eLearning may be clear, but deciding the best way to deliver it can be tough. With the rise of mLearning, mobile platforms abound—from Apple's iOS, used in iPhones and iPads, to Google's Android.

These technology differences can create real content delivery dilemmas. For example, if you've spent the last decade building a library of learning resources in Flash and suddenly discover that the majority of your customers are buying iPhones that don't support Flash, it can throw a major wrench in your plans.

One way to address this is by creating open-standard learning objects (OSLO™) that increase content portability across platforms and devices.

Learn how to increase your content's portability

Case Study
4-H Launches mLearning Pilot Project in Tanzania

Many organizations are exploring ways to reduce hunger and improve economic development in Africa. But few have the depth of learning content and expertise that 4-H offers or the reach of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Getting this knowledge into the hands of the people who need it, however, can be challenging for anyone. Rural parts of Africa often lack both physical infrastructure and computer-based Internet access, making training material delivery and network building difficult. What more and more people do have access to, however, is a mobile phone.

To reach these people, 4-H turned to Monarch Media to build an online Global Knowledge Center specifically tailored for mobile browser access. The result? An mLearning portal pilot project that delivers training and community-building tools to Tanzanian 4-H leaders.

Read the case study (pdf)