Session 202 – Mobile: Exploring the Future of Learning – Buck Bard, OSIsoft Contents © 2014 by Buck Bard – All rights reserved

Page 1

June 23 - 26, 2014

San Diego, CA

The Future of Mobile Learning Links are provided for additional reference information about topics or for content shown in the session presentation.

Objectives In this session you will learn:

Why mLearning often fails

How is mLearning fundamentally different while still supporting adult learning principles

How to go beyond form-factor in our designs

What are the intersection points between social media and mLearning

How to start to develop your own mLearning Strategy

mLearning: A study in failure? Obviously, if you are spending your valuable time and money attending a Mobile Learning Conference you have a stake in making mLearning a success. But that success, to date, has been elusive;. Mobile Learning has, for the most part, been a road of successive failures. Many mobile learning projects never realize their design aspirations, and some crash and burn altogether. Why? Well, for a number of reasons. One major cause of failure is inappropriate choice of mobile device for the delivery of content that was not designed for the form factor. How many times have you clicked on a link on your device and you get to a busy web page designed for a huge monitor or a pdf that won’t shrink? Too many learning development groups simply take content designed for the desktop and cram it into a mobile device form factor. You can’t just take eLearning designed for a desktop format and display it on a mobile device. Just because you can deliver something to a mobile device doesn’t make it “mobile learning.” Learning Design 101 tells us to know your audience. And that includes the tools your audience will be expected to use. You have to engineer content for display on the intended audience devices. Another major cause of failure is taking too big of a bite. Mobile learning is, well, mobile. And almost by definition the time spent learning will be broken into smaller chunks. But we still try to cram days’ work of classroom objectives into our mobile programs. We need to stop doing that. Give people bite sized objectives, things they can tackle when they’re on the go. YouTube is a perfect example. When we remastered and posted all of our CBT video content to YouTube the most common complaint was, “What order do I watch them in?” They completely missed the point. Our YouTube Learning Channel wasn’t a classroom substitute, it as performance support. And the fact was that, as proven by the analytics, almost all of our users got the video they wanted through search, they consumed a couple, and went on their way. Praise rolled in. “Just what I needed when I needed it.” https://www.youtube.com/user/OSIsoftLearning

Session 202 – Mobile: Exploring the Future of Learning – Buck Bard, OSIsoft Contents © 2014 by Buck Bard – All rights reserved

Page 2

June 23 - 26, 2014

San Diego, CA

We need to stop thinking of mobile learning as a classroom substitute. Finally, a lack of integration with other systems. Lack of context. How many developers can integrate their mobile learning content with their LMS? Can you jump from your application right to some sort of mobile help in context? Your mobile learning content needs to be integrated into whatever learning strategy your users need, and not be some parallel offering that they need to figure out when to use. Your mobile learning solution isn’t something you “dabble in.” It needs to be front and center with the rest of your content. So what if you could get everything right? What if you designed content that worked on all mobile devices and integrated into your other systems? You would still be behind the curve…

How to go beyond form-factor in our designs When we think of the term “Mobile Learning” today the first thing that comes to mind is a phone and/or a tablet. But why? It’s because we operate with our experiential biases. The first phones had a pop out keyboard. Ask yourself why? Is it pleasant to type on those tiny keys? Most phones and tablets have the ability to understand speech, yet almost no one uses them. Think Siri. Let’s look at some examples of going beyond the computer. I know Kung Fu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vMO3XmNXe4 In the Matrix series people are given new skills in the Matrix by simply “uploading” them to their in-system personas. Seems far-fetched. But is it? Technology today has made incredible leaps that were, just a few short years ago, just science fiction. Take the ears for example. They are a novel application if a biosensor by Silicon Valley company NeuroSky. From the NeuroSky web site:

NeuroSky is at the forefront of biosensor innovation with one goal in mind: to make biosensor technology available on a mass-market scale, to power a variety of wearable products that improve human health and wellness. Our heritage in electroencephalogram (EEG) science.

http://neurosky.com/ http://www.necomimi.com/ With sensors that can read our minds do we really need evaluations anymore?

Session 202 – Mobile: Exploring the Future of Learning – Buck Bard, OSIsoft Contents © 2014 by Buck Bard – All rights reserved

Page 3

June 23 - 26, 2014

San Diego, CA

But that’s just reading data. What about enhancing performance? From Wikipedia:

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a form of neurostimulation which uses constant, low current delivered directly to the brain area of interest via small electrodes. It was originally developed to help patients with brain injuries such as strokes. Tests on healthy adults demonstrated that tDCS can increase cognitive performance on a variety of tasks, depending on the area of the brain being stimulated.

Wearable Tech The future isn’t the devices we carry with us. The future is wearable tech. You think Google Glass is the cutting edge? You’re wrong. There are biomechanical researchers working right now on the ultimate in wearable tech. It borders on bionics. Google, the makers of Glass, are developing a contact lens system that can measure diabetes using your tears. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/introducing-our-smart-contact-lens.html Researchers are going even further by integrating video into them. The contact lens as video input will soon be available at a fraction of the cost of a laptop computer. http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/10/researchers-contact-lens-lcd-display/ Can you imagine the learning content you could develop that would be presented in a “Heads Up Display” fashion? Could that be the end of monitors and TVs as we know them? Rings and bracelets are common now, but sensors will get smaller and need less power. Someday they may even gain their power from the faint electrical impulses in your skin. Clothes that can post to your social media. Small projectors that can show an image on a wall no bigger than a shirt button. The technology is only limited by the imagination. And finally, for the ultimate in mobile learning Discover Magazine reports there is research going on right now that can record a rat’s memory as it is being created, the memory is erased pharmacologically, and then played back to the rat. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/06/20/brain-implant-restores-memories-in-rats-by-recording-playing-them-back/#.U3pFDPldWSo Primate tests to follow. The ethics of man-machine integration are irrelevant, science will do what they can do simply because they can. It is no longer a matter of technology, but of simple resolution. I know Kung Fu….

Session 202 – Mobile: Exploring the Future of Learning – Buck Bard, OSIsoft Contents © 2014 by Buck Bard – All rights reserved

Page 4

June 23 - 26, 2014

San Diego, CA

What are the intersection points between social media and mLearning I believe the entire discussion of Mobile Learning is guided by one concept:

Mobile is Learning Embedded into your everyday life. A common question posed is, “Is the classroom dead?” Most people answer with the same myopic bias that they use to view mobile learning and answer YES! But I have a better answer. The classroom isn’t dead, it’s turned inside out. The classroom is now all around us. The classroom is everywhere. And Mobile Learning will become the norm, where it hasn’t already. Social networks will play a real role in Mobile Learning. Not the silly things on Facebook. But real networks where learners will go to for content and interact. These will be the classrooms of the future. Sal Khan has only scratched the surface. MOOCs and SPOCs are springing up everywhere. Some companies are closing their training centers and going all in online. Terry Vyas, Senior Director, Eloqua University gave a talk recently at a TSIA conference on doing just that. All of their courses are delivered online, in 4 hour chunks, in a series just like an HBO series would look. They’ve been fantastically successful with this model. SaaS Education: More like HBO and Less Like Enterprise Education http://www.tsia.com/documents/SaaS_Education_More_like_HBO_and_Less_Like_Enterprise_Education/ (You will have to login as a member of the organization to get this information).

Instructional Developer as Curator One of the ideas making traction is the idea of the Instructional Designer as curator. This has a strong integration with social, as many of the resources that can be assembled will be found on the web and will need a place to be concatenated. Does letting go scare you? Let go of the control issues. Your learners are already doing this, so why not join them. Read more on the web and at : http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1313/assembly-line-instructional-designers-as-content-curators

Session 202 – Mobile: Exploring the Future of Learning – Buck Bard, OSIsoft Contents © 2014 by Buck Bard – All rights reserved

Page 5

June 23 - 26, 2014

San Diego, CA

Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) Professional (or Personal) Learning Networks are creations of community around oneself to promote and engage a system of life-long learning. It is based on a theory of “connectivism.” Paraphrased form Wikipedia:

Connectivism is a hypothesis of learning which emphasizes the role of social and cultural context. The relationship between work experience, learning, and knowledge, as expressed in the concept of ‘connectivity, is central to connectivism, motivating the theory's name. It is somewhat similar to Bandura's Social Learning Theory that proposes that people learn through contact.

It’s really just saying that connections we’ve typically made in the classroom are now all around us. As we move forward we won’t separate our “learning” phase from our “working” phase of our lives. Learning will follow us everywhere, through time as well as space. Read more about learning through networks at: http://www.teachthought.com/technology/learning-through-networks-is-the-future/

Session 202 – Mobile: Exploring the Future of Learning – Buck Bard, OSIsoft Contents © 2014 by Buck Bard – All rights reserved

Page 6

June 23 - 26, 2014

San Diego, CA

How to start to develop your own mLearning Strategy

Step 1: Dream BIG Ask yourself the following questions:

What is important to you and your business?

Who are the important stakeholders who can help you succeed?

What is your mission?

Given unlimited resources what would you implement?

How can I create a Culture of Mobile Learning?

Try to define, as best you can, what a successful Learning Model would look like for your specific audience and from a mobility perspective. When you have that you have the end point.

Step 2: Where are you today? “Stand in the place where you live, Think about direction, wonder why you haven’t” - REM

Take an honest assessment of where you are at in your current environment. At this point a SWOT analysis is a great idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis

Step 3: Take up Cartography Draw a roadmap. Literally. Sometimes the best way to communicate a vision is to create something graphical. Create a roadmap with where you are on one end and your goal on the opposite. This can be a strong motivator as you move through your plan.

Buck Bard has been designing and delivering learning solutions for over 25 years. Buck currently manages a software company’s team responsible for developing learning solutions for the classroom, mobile, and virtual environments. He holds a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) certification from the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). buck@theytastefunny.com http://tastefunny.blogspot.com/