mobile learning (mlearning) pltg: december 2012

M o b i l e L e a r n i n g ( m L e a r n i n g )PLTG: December 2012

Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

The desktop has been reduced to just one of many screens for which we have to develop learning. The proliferation of mobile devices in the workplace presents a new opportunity to reach prospective students. However, creating content for mobile devices requires an overall shift in the way we develop courses. Not only will we have to embrace new tools and formats, but we will also have to recognize that learners will consume a course on their iPhone differently than they would from their desktop.

© EncoreTech, Inc. 2012! of 23


Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

Mobile Learning is a big and important topic. For today’s talk, I’ve organized our discussion into three different sections.

• What is mobile learning (mLearning)?

• What tools can you use to create content for mobile devices?

• What are the step-by-step instructions for getting it done?



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

What is mLearning?

I surveyed member "rms to "nd out two key pieces of information:

• What mobile devices are you supporting?

• Are you currently developing learning for mobile devices?



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

What mobile devices are you supporting?

Firms are supporting just about every mobile device on the market: “if you can pack it in, we will support it.”

• This is a dramatic reversal of policy from just a few years ago.

• Some "rms have embraced a BYOD philosophy

• Some lawyers carry multiple devices

• The line between business and personal devices is disappearing

• The iPad was the most frequently mentioned device

• Some "rms have given iPads to their associates.



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

Are you creating learning for mobile devices?

There is an awful lot of confusion around mobile learning. One responder said “they pretty much just "gure it out on their own.” A number of respondents thought that mobile learning meant teaching people how to use their mobile devices.

• None of the respondents were consistently creating content speci"cally for mobile devices.

• Respondents complained that they just didn’t know how to get started.



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

As we can see, mLearning is still in its infancy stages as we work to catch up to the change in policy.

So let’s begin with a good de"nition for mLearning. The eLearning Guild describes mLearning as:

• ”Any activity that allows individuals to be more productive when consuming, interacting with, or creating information, mediated through a compact digital portable device that the individual carries on a regular basis, has reliable connectivity, and "ts in a pocket or purse.”


http://www.elearningguild.com/

http://www.elearningguild.com/


Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

This de"nition seems dated. Although you might be able to get an iPad in your purse, cramming one into your pocket is going to be tricky.

For me, mLearning has to meet two criteria:

• First, it has to be playable on a mobile device, such as an iPad, iPhone or Android device.

• Second, it has to be accessible when the learner is mobile. In other words, when they are disconnected from the office.



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

In other words, mLearning has an “anytime, anyplace” aspect to it.

Both of these criteria can be incredibly challenging to meet. For a lot of us, the distribution of mLearning is actually more complex than the creation of mLearning. How do I get it into their hands?



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

Is that all there is to it? Is mLearning simply eLearning that runs on mobile devices? I don’t think so. The traditional show-me, try-it and test-me formula utilized in a lot of eLearning doesn’t translate to mLearning. For me, mLearning is much more personal than eLearning.



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

mLearning is causing us to embrace a whole new set of standards and "le formats.

• Legacy formats like WMVs and SWFs are being replaced by MP4s and HTML5

• Increasingly content has be optimized on a per device scenario. If you want to create content for the iBookstore you can use iBooks Author; however, you will not be able to publish that content to a Kindle, or even an iPhone. iBooks Author creates rich, interactive books that can only be consumed on an iPad.

• If you embrace the MOBI format you will run into the same difficulty in the opposite direction. Your content will play on the Kindle devices, but not on iDevices.

The use-case scenarios for mLearning and eLearning are completely different. When will learners turn to their mobile devices?

• Convenience. It’s what they have with them and they want to take advantage of “down time”.

• Performance Support. They are disconnected from their typical support network and need help overcoming a problem.

• Second Screen Strategy. The mobile device allows them to continue working on their dedicated machine as they watch a tutorial.



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

Can you repurpose existing eLeaning? Maybe, but you’ll need to consider a number of extenuating circumstances and adjust the source content accordingly.

• Access: Most users access eLearning from behind the "rm’s "rewall, or via a remote session. How will users access the mobile version?

• Course Length: eLearning that is served up by the LMS supports bookmarking. Learners can "nish the course over multiple sessions. mLearning is packaged more like a video. Courses need to be viewable in a single sitting.

• Structure: Most eLearning courses are linear--a logical progression of ideas. On mobile devices people are accustomed to “scrubbing” through a video to get to the relevant parts.

• Reporting: eLearning is often delivered via a Learning Management System. Therefore it’s easy to assign pre-requisites and report on compliance. mLearning is typically “just-in-time” support. Learners are using it to overcome speci"c problems.



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

Instead of going from eLearning to mLearning, work in the opposite direction. Design your content to play nicely with mobile devices. Just importantly offload non-emotional topics to learning outside of the classroom. (The Flipped Classroom.)

• Short and focused on the subject matter

• Make it just. “Just-in-time” “just-enough” “just-for me”

• Simple to navigate and interact with

• Rooted in everyday work&ow; teach to the task

• Informal in tone and structure

• Interactive and/or socially aware--to a degree. A quote from RJ Jacquez: “Maybe forcing learners try every click in a try-it simulation is almost an insult to their intelligence, perhaps we are we not giving our learners enough credit about what they already know about software, and not enough freedom to discover things on their own.” Interactivity has to be simple, or learners will move on.

• Playable on a variety of devices

• Accessible from outside the work environment



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

Where can you turn for inspiration? YouTube. YouTube is a gold mine for just-in-time information.

• Over 3 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube and 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

• Try searching YouTube for help with an Excel function like SUMIF. How many results? Which one is at the top of the search results? How long is it? How is the information presented?

• Where could you consume this tutorial? Anywhere.

• How is interactivity handled?

• How is zoom managed?

• How long will you listen before you jump to a different lesson? Why did you move on? Why did you stick around?



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

This wraps up the "rst thing I want to tackle today, which is an understanding of what exactly quali"es as mLearning, how it’s different from eLearning, and what are some best practices to keep in mind when designing content.

Next, let’s take a look at some speci"c tools for creating content for mobile devices.



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

There are a number of companies who want to be front center in the mLearning revolution. For this talk, I’m going to focus on three companies that will de"nitely have a say in how this all shakes out.

• Adobe

• Articulate

• Apple

These aren’t the only three companies with a horse in this race--TechSmith comes to mind as another company that’s doing some good stuff with Camtasia Studio 8.

• Sample: http://www.screencast.com/t/x039C0uEE3ng

A small company called Tumult has a great product called Hype that creates interactive HTML5 webpages.

• Sample: iBooksRevisited.html

Those are two great examples of some of the work being done by companies other than the big three I want to focus on today.


http://www.screencast.com/t/x039C0uEE3ng

http://www.screencast.com/t/x039C0uEE3ng

http://tumult.com/hype/gallery/iBooksRevisited/iBooksRevisited.html

http://tumult.com/hype/gallery/iBooksRevisited/iBooksRevisited.html


Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

Let’s start with Adobe. Adobe has been a major player in the development of eLearning from the very beginning. With tools like Dreamweaver, Authorware, and Flash on the high-end, and tools like Captivate and Presenter on the low end. However, the transition to mobile learning has been challenging for Adobe. That’s because of Adobe’s deep commitment to Flash and the SWF format.

It’s Captivate that I want to discuss, because the vast majority of software simulations are created using Captivate. (70% of eLearning professionals identify Captivate as their tool of choice.) Up until Captivate 6, Adobe didn’t really have a reliable solution for getting projects onto mobile devices with any level of interactions intact. If you wanted to repurpose a lesson created in Captivate 5.5 (or earlier) for mobile devices, you essentially had to hide all of the slides that included interactivity and publish it as a media "le. And then you had to use the Adobe Video Encoder to get it into the proper format.

Captivate 6 supports publishing directly to HTML5. Still, not all interactions are supported: The following objects and slides are not published in the HTML5 output: Text and SWF animations (only the "rst frame is visible). Animations in imported PPTX "les are also not supported, Rollover captions, images, and slidelets, Mouse click animations (only one default click effect is supported), Question pools, question slides (Matching, Short Answer, Likert, Fill in the blanks), and random question slides, Slide transitions, Slide background if a SWF "le is used.

Captivate doesn’t have a dedicated player for the iPad or a simple solution for distributing content.



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

All of the news isn’t bad, Captive 6 does bring a lot of worthwhile new features--including panning and zooming, to the table. Let’s take a look at the Captivate 6 development environment and walk through some of the key functionality.

Three major priorities:

• HTML 5 support for mobile solutions to have it play back on iPads.

• Making sure the content can be created in an aesthetically pleasing way without costing a lot

• Support for high de"nition video



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

Now let’s talk about Articulate. Articulate has a suite of products called Articulate Studio that have been around for yearw: Presenter, Quizmaker and Engage. Presenter has been hugely successful as an add-in to PowerPoint and Presenter 8 by Adobe is a direct response to Articulate Presenter. The big story from Articulate this year is Storyline.

Storyline is Articulate’s answer to Captivate--and the "rst real competitor we’ve seen to Captivate dominance in the software simulation market.

Storyline builds on what Captivate has historically been able to do with simulations, but signi"cantly trumps Adobe in several key areas.

• Interactivity. Storyline excels at building rich interactive functionality.

• Mobility. Storyline’s mobile app is outstanding. It’s almost as if the assessed the current state of HTML5 and realized that it simply wasn’t good enough. Developing an app to handle playback puts Storyline in the enviable position of having a reliable solution for both mobile devices and mobile people.

• Articulate is Windows only.



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

Articulate builds software that is not only aesthetically pleasing but also intuitive and easy to use. Unlike Presenter, Storyline doesn’t sit inside PowerPoint; however, if you’ve ever used PowerPoint the work&ow is going to seem very familiar. Key features of Storyline:

• Fantastic learning assets

• Simple interactivity through Triggers, Slide Layers, States and Variables

• Next generation screen recording

• HTML5, Flash and dedicated iPad app

Articulate’s Mobile Player for the iPad is a potential game changer and a simple way to get content onto iPads. Unfortunately, it’s just for iPads. Which brings me to Apple.



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

Apple is so visible in the mobile space that you can’t have a discussion about mobile devices without touching on the enormous in&uence the iPad and and iPhone have on our decisions.

Apple’s lack of support for Flash completely changed the mobile landscape.

The iDevices have become the go-to testbeds for mobile devices. Does it run on the iPad/iPhone?

Apple doesn’t have a tool speci"cally marketed as an mLearning tool; however, they do have iBooks Author.

iBooks Author is an incredible easy way to create dynamic, interactive books for the iPad.



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

If you are targeting your traditional print material for the iPad, iBooks Author is worth taking a look at. Key features include:

• Attractive built-in layouts and templates

• Interactive animations

• HTML5 Widgets

• Support for video

• Quizzes, notes and study cards



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

As you can see, there are a number of outstanding tools at our disposal when it comes to creating mLearning. In the "nal session, I thought we’d put some of these tools into play, as we work to create a fully function lesson for mobile devices--in 30 minutes!

• Selecting a project

• Selecting a tool

• Storyboarding

• Assets

• Production

• Publishing



Jeffrey Roach

Notes:

Contact Info:

Jeffrey [email protected]@jeffreyroach


mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mobile learning (mlearning) pltg: december 2012

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