How To Gain Maximum Engagement Through Mobile Learning

Smartphones have become an integral part of the modern individual’s life, which has led to every industry making sure that their products and services are available to the modern individual at a tap on their smartphones.

Mobile learning too, is a result of the learning and development (L&D) industry understanding that they need to bring the learning to the learners, instead of trying to bring learners to the learning. A lot of corporate organizations have begun using mobile learning along with other digital learning strategies to make sure that their training modules can be accessed by learners anytime and anywhere, thus removing the barriers of time and location. However, not all corporate organizations claim to get the advertised results out of mobile learning.

They say that while mobile learning is effective, they are not able to engage their employees as expected, which results in only a little more increase in employee skill, knowledge and productivity than before. If you are experiencing similar problems regarding mobile learning with your employees at your organization, you are at the right place.

In this article, we will discuss ways how you can gain maximum engagement through mobile learning.

1. Offer Personalized Learning

To deliver maximum engagement as well as learning to the learners, combine mobile learning with other modern digital learning strategies that augment both engagement and learning. Personalizing the learning experience is not a difficult task, and would require the digital learning designer to take a few steps, including:

• Setting up a user profile of every individual employee/learner
• Tracking and saving the progress of each individual learner
• Giving them the choice to create their own avatar (character) within the digital learning courses, which can be given a name, whose appearance can be changed and/or upgraded etc.
• Giving them the choice to change backgrounds, themes and colors in the digital learning course.
• Providing learners with the digital learning courses that match their needs, interests, job-role etc., which can be gathered using a survey beforehand.

2. Offer Just-In-Time Learning

We live in times when every individual wants information instantly. They have the whole vast internet to look up information. In such an age, corporate organizations need to able to provide employees/learners with just-in-time learning so that they do not turn to other sources of knowledge, which might or might not give them the correct information or the actual information they need. Just-in-time learning requires the L&D team of the organization to do a number of things, which include:

• Implementing microlearning, i.e. short, concentrated modules with deal with one learning objective or skill, and are no longer than 5 minutes.
• The learner should have easy access to the learning portal on their smartphones, and shouldn’t be require to log in every time (a mobile app would be perfect).
• Learning should be self-paced i.e. the learner can customize the learning experience and consume the courses anyway they want, without any time restrictions.
• Make sure to send reminders and notifications to learners through your learning portal or app to notify or remind them of new courses, to complete an unfinished course.

3. Gamify Your Digital Learning Courses

Mobile learning works best with gamification to engage employees to the max. Most modern individuals have played games either in the past or still play games on their smartphones. Everyone enjoys mobile games as they are a great way to keep oneself engaged. But why do games have this power? This is because of the elements these games are made up of. Using these same elements in a digital learning course gamifies it, and thus provides it with an engagement factor. For example, game-elements like points, score, lives, levels, bosses, power-ups, badges and rewards are all elements you’ll see in games, but when used in digital learning courses provide maximum engagement to learners. This also gives them the added motivation of having fun while learning, which ensures that they’ll play the gamified course and learn whenever they have free time, for example when they are commuting from and/or to work, when they’re sitting at home after returning from office, or when they’re on a break in the office.

Mobile learning is just a gateway to a number of digital learning strategies that all combine to offer the best possible learning experience to modern learners. Corporate organizations must understand that and learn to provide their learners with a combination of such strategies which make learning fun, engaging and educational all at the same time.