Elearning has become the talk of the town as schools and universities across the world deliver education virtually. The trend has also influenced corporate training initiatives with businesses taking an increased interest in elearning solutions for their enterprise training needs.
If your business is also among them, it is important to ensure your initial online training efforts are not shortsighted. One of the best ways to build anything future-proof on the web is to make sure it is mobile ready and the case of online training is no different.
With the number of mobile users growing rapidly, the current user base of mobile devices is too large to ignore. Consider these numbers:
- There are over 3 billion active unique smartphone users worldwide
- In 2019, 56% of all website traffic came from smartphones
- 78% of adults in UK and 81% of Americans own a smartphone
It is clear that the future of the web is going to be influenced greatly by smartphone users. However, if you need more evidence that mobile learning solutions are the future of online training, consider the following emerging elearning trends and their dependance on mobile devices:
Augmented Reality
Creating an engaging learning experience is a known elearning challenge. Technological tools like augmented reality training are helping learning administrators and organisations to create immersive training experiences that have proven better at engaging employees.
Among the many Fortune 500 companies that are implementing AR in their employee training initiatives, the most popular example is that of Boeing.
The airplane manufacturer claims that by implementing AR for training their factory workers, they were able to improve productivity by 40%.
The best part about implementing AR in training is that most companies won’t need to invest in additional infrastructure. Since the technology uses a camera to superimpose virtual objects on real-life objects, it can be implemented easily and affordable using the right mobile learning solution.
Just In Time Training
As the name suggests, just in time training refers to the practice of delivering information to learners exactly when they require it. The benefits of just in time training aren’t just limited to the on-demand availability of information. Designing just in time style training is cheaper, quicker, and easier to implement. Moreover, with focussed distribution of information, just in time training ensures your company’s training initiatives are driving the maximum impact with the minimum possible efforts.
It is not difficult to imagine the importance of smartphones and other mobile devices in delivering just in time training. Think about it, most of us are virtually glued to our smartphones and rarely find ourselves without them. Hence, whenever a learner needs immediate assistance/information, their smartphone is the most convenient place to deliver it.
After all, if a learner has to fire up their desktop every time they need to refer to some information, it won’t really be just in time training.
Geofencing
Geofencing is the practice of delivering relevant information to learners based on their geographical location. The application of geofencing training can be explained with the following example:
A freshly trained manufacturing unit employee reaches the production floor for the first time. As soon as they do, the learning app on their smartphone drops a notification that carries reminders about how they can operate machinery (or do any other job assigned to them) safely.
This way, learners get access to the most relevant information at the exact time they may require it.
With GPS enabled devices present in our possession at all times, the importance of mobile devices in delivering geofencing based training is obvious.
Conclusion
As you can see, all the elearning trends mentioned in this article are best delivered through mobile devices. This knowledge, combined with the enormous number of global mobile users make for a convincing case for businesses to adapt mobile learning solutions.
