How to create a mLearning strategy for your corporate training program

Develop a mLearning strategy for your organization

Due to the dynamics of the changed workplace, training delivery should meet the needs of distant students and mLearning is the way to go. mLearning solutions enable learners to take seamless training on devices.

Used properly, mLearning can help you:

• Meet learning and business expectations.
• Increase teaching motivation and engagement.
• Create sticky learning experiences.
• Facilitate the application of learning received at work.
• Offer reinforcement to offset the forgetting curve.
• Offer challenges to learners to review or refresh their learning.
• Provide practice areas that can help learners achieve a higher level of proficiency.
• To change thinking.
• Impact on behavior or drive changes.
• Promote a culture of continuous learning.

What is the use of mLearning?

mLearning fits perfectly with the 70-20-10 L&D model that organizations worldwide accept to improve the effectiveness of their training and development programs. As you embark on your distance learning journey with your peers, mLearning can help you meet the full range of your training and development program requirements. These include:

• Formal training; Through structured VILT, mixed education programs, and self-guided online training.
• Social education and instant / just-in-time learning aids; Social learning, peer-to-peer learning, point-to-point training, and providing employment assistance to learners when / where they need it most.
• Non-formal education; By providing experimental learning opportunities to support mixed / formal education programs.

What are the benefits of implementing mLearning strategies in your corporate training?

mLearning offers better learner engagement and higher completion rates. The main benefits of mLearning are:

Learning on the go

Today students do not want to learn at their office desk. The biggest advantage of mLearning is its innate ability to offer learning anytime, anywhere.

Multi-tool support

By definition, mLearning designs support all tools that learners need and use. Courses can run seamlessly on laptops / desktops and tablets / smartphones.

Flexibility for students

mLearning gives learners great flexibility in choosing the device they want to learn, when they want to learn, and most importantly, the speed at which they can consume and assimilate.

Interesting design patterns for learning

mLearning incorporates design patterns that are popular with learners and also creates good retention and recall. It also includes the formats we often use on our smartphones (videos, animated videos, interactive videos, and so on).

More options to create attractive education

Microlearning has changed the pattern of training delivery. It is increasingly being used to provide formal training and promote non-formal education. Microlearning nuggets can ideally be consumed on mobile devices. Likewise, you can incorporate mobile applications into your overall strategy to learn.

Why should organizations and L&D teams invest in mLearning?

mLearning can be used to meet a variety of training needs, including formal training, informal learning, immediate / timely learning aids, self-guided learning, and social or collaborative learning.

It ensures improved learner engagement, better completion rates, and is easier to update and reuse. Compared to classroom / ILT, of course, it costs less.

What types of trainings benefit from mLearning and Mixed Training Delivery?

Any traditionally delivered corporate training initiative can benefit from a mixed training approach. These include:

• Diversity, equality, and inclusion training
• Compliance training
• Induction and unboarding
• Leadership training
• Sales and sales competency training
• Application simulation training
• Soft skills training
• Production training
• Vocational Skills Training
• Sustainability training

How can you take advantage of mLearning to support formal training?

You can take advantage of mLearning to provide learning aids and resources that will help you complete the formal training.

Here are some techniques you can apply to your training:

• Add learning resources for informal learning (applications, challenges, and reinforcements that may offer learners to refresh / review, trigger changes in thinking, increase sensitivity, and repeat space to bring about behavioral change).
• Teaching aids to support ILT / VILT (pre-workshop readings, workshop exercises and assessments, post-workshop learning resources, and nuggets to maintain connection).
• Resources supporting social education.
• Curated resources to facilitate self-directed learning.

How can you take advantage of mLearning to support virtual training conversions?

You can add mLearning components to virtual training as follows:

• Virtual Instructor Led Training (VILT) – Add online resources in mobile-first / mobile-friendly format, before and after VILT session.
• Mixed training – Part of the training can be provided to VILT and Balance as self-paced online learning, accessible in a mobile-first / mobile-friendly format.

How do you create a mLearning strategy in 5 steps?

Step 1: Define your strategy

It is important for organizations to identify their business strategies and set goals and objectives. It helps to understand the role mLearning plays in providing the necessary training and resolving challenges, if any.

Step 2: Build a team

To implement the mLearning strategy, you have a team of experts to achieve the best results; For example, project managers, stakeholders, IT groups, instructional designers, SMEs, and so on.

Step 3: Plan the training material

Once you have set learning goals and objectives, you need to determine the type of training material that will be most suitable for mLearning; For example, videos, knowledge tests, PDFs, podcasts, quizzes, and so on.

Step 4: Select the appropriate training tools

MLearning will not be complete without proper training equipment. You need a robust writing tool that can be viewed across multiple devices with different browsers and operating systems to create high quality, effective, sticky learning experiences.

Step 5: Create a complete implementation plan

Ensure response collection and analysis to measure training effectiveness and ROI.

What are the characteristics of an mLearning strategy?

Authentic education

mLearning empowers learners better, as they can control their learning and learn in times of need.

Universal education

mLearning provides training to students on the go or while working from home. On demand, anytime, anywhere accessible; Gives them control over when and how to consume content; Enables them to consume at their own pace; Can be pulled by them, as needed (instead of pushing); And synchronize with their lifestyle.

Personalized education

By adding elements of personalization and curation (in particular, recommendations based on the learner’s consumption / interest or career advancement aspirations), you can create more focused career paths. Personal training as mLearning can help you provide customized, relevant and more meaningful learning experiences.

Remote learning

With modified workplace dynamics, mLearning solutions enable learners to take training seamlessly on devices. You can now offer a full range of corporate trainings in this format. It gives learners the flexibility to learn at any time, move sessions on devices and align at their own pace. As such, you will see more engagement, higher completion rates, and more learners going to refresh and review learning resources.

Partition ideas

mLearning provides an efficient and scalable approach to ensuring your employee training aligns with business goals – even in altered workplace dynamics.

I hope the mLearning strategies outlined in this article provide insights into incorporating them into your corporate training and benefit both students and the institution.

In the meantime, if you have any specific questions, please contact me or leave a comment below.

Originally published at www.eidesign.net.