mLearning Trends

Enterprise mLearning Predictions for 2012

2011-12-30T13:00:00.000-08:00

Here on the last day of the year, I offer my predications for the big and shaping trends we’ll see in the enterprise mobile learning space for 2012. As in the past, this year’s list includes predictions across a gamut of new technologies, consumer/buyer trends plus a few anticipated seismic shifts in the world of business that should collectively reshape the landscape for the adoption and accelerated growth of mobile learning for businesses.

So, in no certain order, here are my predictions…

1. Mobile Learning Goes Mainstream. Or perhaps this is more a case of the classic “frog in boiling water” scenario. Whatever it is, this one is music to my ears after many years of toiling away to make mLearning a reality for the enterprise. The acceptance of mobile learning within the business community probably won’t happen with much fanfare, it will just happen and be accepted as a “norm” wherein the market no longer asks “should we offer learning to our employees (or partners or customers) via mobile device?” and will simply state “we need to offer learning to our workers via their omnipresent mobiles!” The reasons will be plentiful but largely driven by better/cheaper/more ubiquitous technologies and everyone’s acceptance of the fact we all use our phones (tablets, et al) to improve both personal and business communications and to be more productive.

2. Access Points Diversify. There will be more types of devices and ways to connect with our mobile learning world in 2012. And I am not just talking about the classic iOS vs. Android vs. other argument but the fact that different classes of hardware will start to get into our learning mix too. By next December, the average corporate learner will likely have a capable smartphone and their desktop/laptop PLUS a media tablet and/or eBook reader and perhaps even a smart TV back at home that is web-connected and runs apps. The ability to move seamlessly from one device experience to another will be critical with complete synchronization of our learning progress, status, achievements, etc. no matter where or when we choose/need to learn.

3. Mobile Web vs. Mobile App Debate Intensifies. Is enterprise mobile learning best delivered via native mobile apps or using mobile web apps? I agree the technologies to create, deploy and manage HTML5-based mobile web apps will greatly improve in 2012 but I don't feel they will mature to the point they can replace all native apps – at least in most of the primary enterprise use cases for learning that’s managed and tracked. The many advantages of mobile web apps – like cross platform OS support for iOS, Android and others – will still be mitigated in key areas like security, off-line storage, sync updates, access to device features like cameras (although this is improving in the spec) plus critical infosec concerns like SSO support when disconnected and remote wipe capabilities that just don’t work in mobile web apps yet. We do sense that mobile web apps will start to take their rightful place when looking to support an organization’s external learners (e.g., partners, customers) where ease of install/access are paramount and the required features can be limited to what’s essential instead of everything that’s required by IT, security and management. We also think hybrid apps that mix the best of native apps and mobile web apps will have a bigger impact on enterprise mobile learning thoroughout 2012 than just pure mobile web apps for that same market.

4. Flash Falters, HTML5 & ePUBs Gain in Popularity. 2012 will be a pivotal year in the way enterprises must think about designing, producing, delivering and managing their content strategies, and mobility strategies will alter many of our current tool kit and business process choices. Adobe’s move to stop developing Flash Player plug-ins for mobile web browsers set a BIG BALL in motion that quelled the desire for many Instructional Designers to use pure Flash or popular rapid development tools outputting Flash-based content as their unified content delivery strategy. Part of this shift was driven by the fact that Flash-based content actually didn’t perform/behave well on most Flash-enabled handsets and tablets especially when the content was local rather than on a server. Much has been said and written about the next wave of HTML5-based authoring tools or updates that will transform yesterday’s authoring tools into tomorrow’s more flexible and functional authoring systems and I suspect we’ll have nice working versions of the top five offerings able to create content that’s both desktop and mobile device friendly by mid year with commercial ready offerings from Adobe, Articulate and a host of others.

I also think many teams will begin to rethink their content creation and delivery options resulting in new ways to chuck up or package content that’s friendly to both online and mobile consumption scenarios. One trend is to move away from monolithic, structured 20 to 30 minute courses that worked fine online via a PC towards the notion of shorter, standalone learning objects that can be more easily discovered, accessed and consumed at the time of need from any device/app. Another counter-balanced trend gaining momentum will be the use of eBook style delivery formats that make it easier to produce and manage long-form content that is far more feature rich than static PDF files. Growing interest in the ePUB content formats, especially media-friendly ePUB-3s, will allow learners to gain more from and interact better with the content packages themselves and enable cool functionality like highlighting, like better indexing/threading and both personal and shared note taking all with the same level of access control and tracking that’s generally only found today with an online eLearning course.

5. Gamification Accelerates mLearning Adoption. Once everyone has the right devices and organizations accept the mandate to provide training, performance support and business communications via mobile, what will compel learners to participate and keep them engaged when there are so many distractions like Facebook, Twitter, Farmville and mobile shopping? Gamification seems to be a likely answer to that question. Not that companies need to even create “games” per se; rather, the trend will be towards gamifying our standard formal learning actions and informal social interactions through the addition of point systems, achievement leveling/scaling, overall leader boards, badging systems and tangible reward/incentives. Increased awareness of who’s ahead and how can others beat them to the finish line will drive learner engagement and overall organizational behavior and mobile access to these learning materials and communities makes it easier to participate and stay connected whenever the mood suits us.

6. Fewer but More Capable Tablets. I suspect the annual Consumer Electronics Show (“CES”) event in Las Vegas next week will have far fewer tech OEMs wading into the tablet pool as compared with January 2011. Apple’s iPad will continue to be the market leader in 2012 though a collection of tablet devices based on Android (in older Honeycomb to newer Ice Cream Sandwich flavors), Microsoft Windows 8 and possibly even RIM’s PlayBook 2.0 OS will continue to eat away at Apple’s market share as organizations seek to take advantage of the tablets for media consumption, user-generated content creation and in situ selling supported. Interest in using tablets for business purposes comes across business sectors large and small alike too and we see the broader trend of tablets replacing laptops in many instances and even becoming shared devices in certain use cases (e.g., retail sales, in field tech trucks, departmental loaners) but requiring enterprise level controls and security too.

7. Cool Mobile Tech Sparks Learning Innovations. The latest mobile devices support a wide array of new features that will ignite some nifty innovations in the learning space throughout 2012. As people and companies replace their older BlackBerries, iPhones and Android devices, their new equipment will sport cool next-gen functions like dual core processors making big media and big data easier to manage on our smaller devices. We will benefit from faster data speeds using LTE (“long term evolution”) or true 4G radios enabling quicker access to high value content as well as video access to our experts and web conferencing access to scheduled ILT events. And more advanced operating systems combined with embedded chips will provide support for new forms of proximity computing using Near Field Communication (“NFC”) thus allowing new kinds of location-based services for learning. I feel the positive effects of the aforementioned evolutions will be more pronounced than similar advances in areas like augmented reality that will remain costly to design, produce and manage.

8. Market Consolidations Continue/Accelerate. The big will continue to eat the small as larger vendors seek to increase their market appeal to both customers and investors. According to Bersin & Associates, 2011 already saw several of the tier one Talent Management vendors actively engaged in expanding their market reach and the portfolio offerings through strategic acquisitions and mergers and these moves make the resulting companies far more attractive acquisitions to the larger enterprise software whales that rule their respective oceans. SAP’s planned takeover of SuccessFactors and Oracle’s move on RightNow (approved this week) all are harbingers of more market consolidation as larger companies look to flesh out their cloud, mobile and social strategies.

Summary. That is what I see in my crystal ball. It should prove to be an interesting year for all of us involved in the training & development and technology spaces and I, for one, look forward to seeing how these cited advances and many others we can’t foresee today will influence how we all interact and learn.

Happy New Year 2012!

Enterprise Mobile Learning 2011 - Year in Review

2011-12-28T13:05:00.000-08:00

a.k.a. How On Target Were My 2011 Predictions?

It’s time once again to take stock of what happened in enterprise mobile learning and see if any of my 2011 predictions hit their intended targets. One year ago today, I offered nine predictions running the gamut of hardware, software, industry players and general market movements based on trends we were experiencing in the commercial mobile learning marketplace; here’s my analysis of where these predictions landed twelve months later.

Prediction #1 - mLearning Engagements Expand. If 2010 was the year of the pilot, 2011 will be the year of the deployment. As I stated in the previous post assessing my 2010 predictions, the size and complexity of mobile learning projects/programs will continue to expand across all geographical and line-of-business boundaries. I think case studies from enterprise organizations on the leading edge will abound by year’s end for successful mobile learning initiatives by thus providing the “I want to do what they did!” examples the industry has waited for over the past many years. Case studies featuring accelerated ROI with tens of thousands of learners (or more!) using different types of devices in multitudes of languages across diverse geographies are sure to drive awareness in mobile learning and generate interest from organizations of all sizes seeking to achieve their own successes and become more innovative in the way the train and support their ever-mobile learning communities.

On the Target – But Barely. 2011 proved to be another year more focused on the pilot project rather than the production deployment for enterprise mobile learning solutions. True, most of our partners and customers who launched mLearning initiatives in 2009 and after all seemed to be ramping up their efforts to include other divisions and geographies but pilots remained “the norm” for newer accounts. There are certainly fewer obstacles holding back broader enterprise deployments of mobile learning solutions but an array of challenges remain including limited budgets, limited experience, the scarcity of flexible AND AVAILABLE authoring tools (see #5 below) and general macro-economic concerns every company is harboring.

Prediction #2. Device Diversity is the “New Normal”. After years of BlackBerry dominance in the pockets and purses of enterprise personnel, iOS (Apple) and Android-based mobile phones and tablet devices will supplant RIM-supplied smartphones as the primary desired (and likely used) smart devices for mobile learning – at least in North America. This shift will be driven by a combination of factors including learner (and executive) demand, IT acceptance and infosec approval plus a movement towards the adoption of “bring your own device” use policies within the enterprise...

Bullseye! This one was spot-on and even I was amazed how quickly the omnipresent BlackBerry wireless handset, the standard issue weapon of choice for mobile enterprise workers, started to lose its’ place inside every corporate pocket and purse. Not only did we witness many IT organizations allowing non-BlackBerry devices like iOS and Android handsets onto their networks, several historical “BB only shops” moved to cut the venerable BlackBerry totally out of their long-term device strategies. The BYOD movement certainly gained momentum in 2011 across a simple majority of enterprise organizations we work with too.

Finally, the trend towards “single user with multiple devices” really started to resonate with mobile learners wherever the option was available for that learner to access training on whatever device they happened to be carrying, be it corporate provided or personally owned, and enablement of the notion they could switch between their handset, tablet, eBook reader or desktop/laptop to seamlessly continue a training interaction whenever the mood struck them.

Prediction #3. Mobile Apps Become Essential to Enterprise mLearning. As stated in our previous post, the mobile learning “app” has proved its superiority over less compelling mobile web-delivered training materials. True, mobile apps are harder to create and to support but the value derived from an installed app proves far more beneficial and powerful for the typical enterprise customer, especially those looking to support their own defined workforces versus a broad general audience…

Near Bullseye. I still think the Mobile App is King in the enterprise mobile learning space although the drum thumps of HTML5-based mobile web apps can be heard faintly in the distance. We still contend there’s no real comparison between a native app and any web app equivalent especially as it relates to core functionality that IT teams really care about like security, encryption, remote wipe ability, off-line access, support for device features (cameras, recorders), data synchronization, content tracking, and the overall playback experience. We should know – we offer a mobile web app and virtually no one opts to use it when the native app is also available given the lack of content types and features supported today.

HTML5 web apps might be ideal for consumer-centric marketing efforts, mobile games and some social tools but these experiences are one-dimensional compared with the full-on, multi-functional mLearning experiences mixing formal and informal interactions, performance tools, ready access to information and experts, gaming systems and more. We’ll certainly see the features and functionality of HTML5 maturing through 2012 along with access to better and faster networks (LTE, 4G, Wi-Max) but, for now, we still feel the best customer/user/learner experience happens via a native but customizable app framework. After all, would you rather check your email, Twitter or Facebook on your smartphone using your device’s native email/twitter/FB app or launch your mobile web browser to stay connected? Vendors (and consultants) touting the “myriad benefits” of the mobile web over the mobile app are everywhere but most are latecomers playing mobile catch up and haven’t spent the requisite time needed to learn and master the native app IDEs that are central to success today.

Prediction #4. Pad/Tablet Use Explodes! The emerging pad/tablet market will gain further momentum and an increasing number of enterprise organizations will start to support/provide the larger form factored devices to their field sales, technical and professional staff. Given the fact these devices slot into our device lineup somewhere between the typical smartphone and a laptop in terms of size and capabilities, many organizations will start to drop the laptop and supply BOTH a tablet and a smartphone for every mobile worker/learner – and don’t be surprised if these are supplied by different vendors too like having a BlackBerry (or similar) handheld AND an iPad (or similar) tablet.

Bullseye #2! The adoption of tablets, initiated by Apple’s iPad but closely followed by several others, proved to be a true driver for enterprise mobility in general and mobile learning is a real beneficiary of this trend. We witnessed more than two dozen companies who had purchased 200+ tablets for their workforce because it was cool rather than with a plan in mind – this situation drove ample opportunity given employee training and workforce development are universally needed and desired by every organization and tablets are viewed by many as the first practical mobile device to overcome the plethora of perceived limitations in mLearning (e.g., tiny screens, static content, awkward user experience, others).

The other interesting tablet trend we experienced in 2011 centered on heterogeneous versus homogenous device selection criteria; either the customer wanted their mobile learning accessible on any tablet (iPad, Android Xoom, RIM PlayBook, Kindle Fire, whatever!) or they locked down their choice to just one platform (iPad only, Android only, PlayBook only) based on a combination of factors including support for existing content and sometimes just price. Wherein more deals were “iPad only” in the first half of the year, an increasing number of mLearning programs went non-iPad in the latter half of 2011. As tablets get ever more popular, and people start bringing their own to work in their briefcase or satchel, we think this form factor will be the key ingredient to driving mobile learning adoption and leverage into the enterprise.

Prediction #5. Authoring Tools Will Evolve. Flash will still not be supported on iOS devices in 2011 but this fact will matter far less over time. Apple’s insistence on never wanting to support Flash content on iOS devices will drive innovation across the authoring tool market that is sure to benefit everyone in the Training & Development field. I feel the time is just around the corner than “Publish to HTML5” options appear within the leading content authoring tools making it easier to design, generate and support compelling interactions and animations without needing a Flash Player on-board the device. On balance, the downside to this means we will actually need more tools to create content that spans all the mobile devices we are targeting for training delivery given most older enterprise mobile devices support neither Flash nor HTML5 due to their very dated browsers. If we lived in a world where everyone had brand new (and updated) devices, mobile learning would be easy but they don’t so it isn’t.

Near Bullseye. The prediction was right but the market timing lagged a bit as the leading authoring tool vendors accepted the fact Flash content wasn’t going to rule the mobile learning market the same way it did the online learning space but the practical reality was it harder for these established vendors to design and ship their next generation, mobile-friendly alternatives to their waiting customers than I thought. As 2011 draws to a close, Articulate’s new Storyline offering is about to be released but without the promised “Publish to HTML5” option in its inaugural flavor. Adobe’s Q4 announcement that it planned to stop developing Flash Player plug-ins for future mobile web browsers was huge and then they directed they were redirecting their own focus towards adding HTML5 output options in Adobe Captivate and their other popular learning market tools also took many by surprise especially given the timing; they essentially burned their ships with these announcements given the needed tools to support their new notions were far from commercially available.

Other capable suppliers have jumped into the void left open for now including some nice offerings like dominKnow’s Claro package, Rapid Intake’s mLearning Studio, Impatica’s Impaticafor PowerPoint version 5, Brainshark’s Slideshark (iPad only), Xyleme Pastiche, edCetra Anan, and a few more. All that said, it is worth noting that HTML5 content is not a 100% solution either given most of the HTML5-based outputs we're testing don’t run on every mobile device – the older the device the less likely it will run – and the content itself isn’t scalable in the same way Flash content always has been meaning certain handsets with super high resolution displays -- like the latest Samsung Galaxy Nexus -- will render courses optimized for last year’s Samsung Nexus One with a huge border around that content.

Prediction #6. Private Social Networks Win Over Public. It was no surprise to many of us that Facebook was the most heavily trafficked web site in 2010 and displaced Google for the first time in many years. There’s no denying the power and reach of social networking in the technology space but we remain convinced that PUBLIC SOCIAL sites like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube all have diminished value as part of an enterprise learning community when compared with the various PRIVATE SOCIAL sites and applications now available. We strongly agree having anytime/anywhere access to our business social network can provide great value, that having tools to share information like pictures and videos and podcasts generated by users instead of business functions can bridge learning divides, and that weaving informal into formal makes us all better equipped and informed. We believe that public sites like Facebook and Twitter (amongst others) will not end up becoming the hubs where the learning organization wants their community to gather and share insights due to the lack of security, privacy, oversight and control that are relevant today and even more essential tomorrow. As such, most business-centric social interactions must to seamlessly integrated into the enterprise learning environment and at every mobile access point too.

Target Missed! I missed this one completely…perhaps planting the arrow in my foot instead of the target given public social networks like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter still reign supreme over virtually all private social networks. That said, the trend towards enterprise social collaboration is still one to watch and will probably become something of a reality in the coming year as companies like Yammer and Jive Software (who delivered one of the most successful tech IPOs of 2011) have proven that enterprises want to build and manage their own internal and proprietary social networks and that security is key to marshalling our intellectual assets as they ricochet around our social circles.

Google’s new Google+ offering aims to start making inroads into enterprise social interactions as well and the message layer social functions of Microsoft’s SharePoint platform are perhaps the only mobile friendly features of that platform ready to work on today’s most popular mobile handsets and tablets. Suffice it to say, mobile and social are becoming intertwined so this prediction may just need another year.

Prediction #7. Market Consolidations Will Occur. Some form of consolidation will come to the mobile device/handset sector as a few of the key but descending players –namely Nokia, Microsoft, HP and RIM – aligning themselves together to try and overcome the momentum of the two ascending players – namely Apple and Google. We wouldn't be shocked to find Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 OS appearing on upcoming Nokia handsets or tablet devices, or RIM getting acquired by Microsoft or another tech titan like IBM Global Services in a deal akin to HP acquiring Palm in 2010.

Bullseye #3. As crazy as I thought this prediction was last year, it proved to be center-of-the-target with several large transactions and events occurring throughout the year. Indeed, Nokia not only decided to ship Nokia handsets with Microsoft’s Windows Phone mobile OS they actually killed off their own Symbian OS in the process; talk about burning your ships on the shore! RIM was beleaguered throughout 2011 with tepid market perceptions about its aging handset line and its not-ready-for-prime-time PlayBook tablet resulting in their stock being off 75% from historical highs and even rumors of a possible buyout in the future. Google surprised everyone by buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5B in 2011 and plans to jump square into the hardware game to better control the Android experience. We can all trust there will be more market consolidation next year across both markets and industries as mobility becomes a central tenant in every overall IT strategy.

Prediction #8. Here Come the Experts! The growth of mobile learning in 2011 will beget a slew of newly-minted mobile learning and mobile content experts, boutique consultancies, mobile development shops and “me too” vendors all claiming they possess the knowledge, expertise and experience we all need to make us successful in mobile; take most such claims with a grain of salt…

Middle Ring. A few popped up but not as many as I predicted. That said, every vendor and consultant is now a tablet-carrying, smartphone talking resource and where there’s money to be made, there’s plenty of shingles to get hung out. Content shops are definitely getting into the game and offering expertise in the design and delivery of content and games for tablets like the Apple iPad. The web sites of virtually every top tier LMS/Talent Management provider now touts their mobile capabilities and makes sure their customers (and investors!) know they’re in position to take advantage of any mobility opportunities that come their way. I also find it interesting the concept of mobile now gets injected into the conversation as early and often as possible in industry announcements and press releases. For example, the byline of press release detailing SAP’s recent acquisition of SuccessFactors clearly states the importance of mobile in their decision to acquire (and pay handsomely for) SFSF’s cloud and mobile-centric offerings but the actual depth of that mobile offering is weak in comparison to other available solution sets.

Prediction #9. New Features and New Possibilities. One of the greatest joys and challenges of being in the mobility space is keeping up with the constant pace of change and innovation. In our experience, learners within and teams supporting enterprise mobile learning environments are all interested in finding ways to derive the benefit of new features and functionality offered on better and faster devices. Our own development roadmap is expanding with the many possibilities afforded through upcoming advances like (a) geo-location, (b) near field communications (“NFC”) that may help contextualize learning at a specific location or assist in the bi-directional exchange of pertinent data, (c) augmented reality delivering just-in-time learning opportunities via interactive overlays, (d) the use of gaming scenarios integrated within a structured mobile learning experience, and (e) tighter integration between learning and a devices universal in-box function. And along the way we plan continue to innovate and iterate on “mil-spec” mobile security, authentication/single sign-on, cross-platform integration tools, and interface customization features that will benefit all our customers and partners.

A Hit and a Miss – for Now. We start each calendar quarter with some solid ideas of what we’re going to be working on as a development team – or at least what we planned to work on – but the real world tends to bend your arrows as they leave the bow (so to speak). My predictions about working on near field/NFC and augmented reality/AR functionality certainly got sidetracked for a variety of reasons (lack of devices in the first case and lack of market interest associated with payment in the second) but that didn’t matter and those missions remain on the long-term road map. What did we fill our time doing?

We actually scored direct center hits on several fronts with these efforts:

We succeeded in our efforts to make our entire platform more enterprise IT friendly with enhanced security functionality, single sign-on integration and more sophisticated APIs to tie our tools into other 3^rd party platforms (e.g., LMS and TM platforms, CRM, ERP, SFA platforms too).
Our quest to support the universal inbox concept matured far beyond our vision for it with the outcome of a extensive scripting library we developed that makes it much easier for our customers to integrate whatever learning tasks they’ve defined with not only the learner’s inbox but provides pipes that connect to other 3^rd party applications as well.
We added device-specific Mobile Apps to support several new tablets including Android 4/Ice Cream Sandwich, Cisco Cius, Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook eReaders, and RIM’s PlayBook.
We’ve now added a new gamification layer to our enterprise mobile learning platform – think support for badges, leader boards, rewards/incentives, levels, etc. and these are available to learners whenever they are online or mobile. While all of these advances are great in and of themselves, the most demand we’re experiencing is coming from the interest in using these new gamification features.

Conclusion. All tallied, not a bad showing on my 2011 predictions. It is safe to assume that 2012 will prove to be an even more interesting, challenging and rewarding year for everyone involved in enterprise mobile learning. Thanks for reading this far down the page and in advance for sharing with others as you feel appropriate!

All the best to everyone in 2012. And watch for my new predictions later this week too!

Robert :?)

New mLearning Authoring Tools – Wave #2

2011-03-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

Another month, another trip to Orlando it seems and last week had me attending two different shows down near the Mouse House; Learning Solutions 2011 and CTIA Wireless 2011. This first post will focus on LS2011 and I’ll post again on CTIA tomorrow.

The Learning Solutions 2011 Event. The eLearning Guild’s LS2011 event was well attended and features 50+ vendors and more than 1300 participants from the training and development industry. The Guild continues to put on a great show although the focus on mobile learning at this show is somewhat muted given their upcoming mLearnCon event in San Jose is being held in less than 3 months; the next show will certainly be “all mobile all the time” and a better bet for both the experienced and the curious as it relates to enterprise mobile learning. That said, interest in the various products and sessions and “morning buzz” gatherings that related to mobile all seemed well attended and topical.

I was able to spend time with several different vendors who are all preparing to deliver their own mobile learning offers into the marketplace in the coming months. Much of the need and innovation behind these new products is in direct response to the growing market perception that mobile learning either has or will hit the “tipping point” this year for enterprise adoption and the fact every organization is now faced with questions about how they’ll deliver on this potential and the various expectations being promoted by scores of training departments, sales teams, engineering groups and senior managers waving iPads and Android tablets.

Of the 45+ vendors exhibiting at LS2011, about a dozen had some form of mobile messaging clearly on display and there were certainly a few standouts as follows:

Claro from dominKnow. Luke Hickey and team over the dominKnow took center stage in the LS2011 exhibits area to herald the launch of their next generation authoring platform called Claro. The new web-based HTML5 authoring package looks and performs quite well and delivers an impressive array of authoring features that can produce exceptionally nice looking mobile content for the various web kit-based mobile devices and tablets including Apple’s iPad and the full range of Android-based tablets. Published modules are packaged as SCORM objects and deployed with nominal hiccups for local/disconnected playback via an installed CellCast application on our test iPhones, iPads and Android devices. We now plan to take the next few steps down the technical integration front to make it easy to publish and deploy a Claro-generated course directly into our CellCast Manager/mLMS platform with “one click” simplicity. Contact them directly to sign up for the official beta of Claro too!

Storyline from Articulate. I actually got to check out the new Storyline application from Articulate running in pre-beta form this past week and it is impressive and promising on many fronts. Whereas I expected Articulate to simply add some sort of option to "publish to HTML5" to their already popular Presenter add-in to PowerPoint, they actually decided to go a whole new direction and build an application from scratch that looks/functions in much the same way as PowerPoint but the created content is then published in tablet-friendly deliverables. There were plenty of tools to create interactions (ala Engage-style functionality) as well as define animations and path-based motions which all rendered well in the final outputs. And, of course, you can import existing PPT/PPTX presentations right into the new app and manipulate all the sides while still leveraging most of the defined interactions (e.g., slide to slide hyperlinks). For a pre-beta application, it seemed generally polished and stable too meaning it will be great addition to many ID tool kits in the future for those targeting deliverables to high resolution iOS and Android screens -- not sure this will work on many if any BlackBerry devices though. Articulate expects to issue a select number of public beta invitations sometime in the latter part of Q2 and we’re hoping to participate and provide active feedback for these new tools as they prepare to come to market. See a screen shot of the application on display from the show below.

mLearning Studio from Rapid Intake. As detailed in a recent post, Rapid Intake’s new mLearning Studio tools are preparing to hit the market and will enable IDs to publish their content as either Flash or HTML5 packages. Check it out here.

Questionmark Mobile Apps from Questionmark. Questionmark was highlighting ways to publish their standard assessments into mobile friendly formats and SCORM packages that can be delivered to and accessed via mobile apps. OnPoint plans to run these offerings through their paces in the coming weeks to see how it all works and performs. Check it out here.

OnQue from Impatica. Mike Doyle and the Impatica team continue to advance their efforts to produce some great tools that can help publish mobile friendly virtual learning environments to tablet devices like the iPad. Their latest offering renders content that includes a video stream, a slide deck, notes and other learning resources using a consolidated time line metaphor all using HTML5. Check it out here.

Simwriter from NexLearn. Finally, I had a chance to see one of NexLearn’s simulations – normally a Flash-based deliverable – running on an Apple iPad tablet using a new new delivery format they are working on. We are already in discussions about how to package, deliver and manage these simulations for disconnected on-device playback and hope to have a way to support them in the coming weeks.

I suspect there will be three times as many interesting and compelling offer announcements across a full range of products and services in the coming months culminating with activities surrounding the mLearnCon event in late June. These are interesting times indeed!

New mLearning Authoring Offerings - Wave #1

2011-01-31T12:36:00.000-08:00

As detailed in my list of mobile learning predictions for 2011, a collection of smart and savvy authoring tool vendors offering solutions for online training delivery will start to introduce specialized tools that will enable some form of single sourcing that outputs mobile-friendly content with little or nominal effort over and above what's already been invested to create online courseware and training materials. It took no longer than the end of January for new product announcements to be made by two of the leading authoring tool vendors who are now offering both Flash and HTML5 course publication output options to instructional designers using their respective applications. Let's take a quick look at both companies and their respective offerings:

Rapid Intake's mLearning Studio. Garin Hess and his team over at Rapid Intake have announced a new suite of tools called mLearning Studio that will allow content authors to output SCORM-conformant courseware along with included assessments as either web-friendly Flash courseware or mobile-friendly HTML5 packages with the click of a button. I got to play around with some early content samples and found their mobile packaging to be clean, flexible and very well structured for playback on compatible mobile devices based on Apple's iOS or on Android-based mobiles or tablets. We are still experimenting to determine if the produced content can be easily managed when downloaded and secured to a mobile device for offline playback using the app-based approach but online delivery works quite nicely with gesture-based navigation, nice media support and engaging assessment capabilities. Moreover, we really like what we see in their "version 1.0" effort here and look forward to seeing where they can take it all when supporting legacy mobile devices like the ever popular BlackBerry in the enterprise as well as newer smartphones like those based on Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 OS that don't fully support the HTML5 spec as of yet. Rapid Intake is considering releasing their mobility options as both a standalone mlearning authoring tool as well as via an extension to their core Unison offering. You can learn more about the upcoming release of mLearning Studio in a video featured on their web site here.

Harbinger Group's Raptivity. Raptivity is a well regarded "rapid interactivity builder" application used by many companies to "add some spice" to their online learning courses through the delivery of interactive exercises. To facilitate wider mobile delivery of these interactions, Vikas Joshi and his team over at Harbinger have added new functionality that allows IDs to output defined interactions as either Flash or HTML5 packages that can then be assigned and taken via online or offline delivery. No word yet as to whether the mobile-friendly Raptivity interactions can also be embedded into a Rapid Intake mLearning Studio-based mobile course but given these two companies have interacted fully in the past, its logical to think they will at some point. You can learn more about the new mobile-friendly Raptivity offering here.

We are excited every time new tools are introduced and these two organizations are leading the way in 2011 by delivering viable options for mobile learning content creation and delivery where there's much to gain and not much at all IDs need to learn to make the jump from online to mobile for their learning communities.

mLearning Tech A’plenty Released at CES 2011

2011-01-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

It is the first week in January and the annual International CES (“Consumer Electronics Show”) is in full swing out in Las Vegas – just as if Santa Claus came twice within a two-week period for gadget freaks and tech nerds alike. This year’s event is as big as ever with 100K+ attendees roaming through 2,700 vendor booths across multiple sites. In the midst of all the new 3D TVs, streaming home entertainment, futuristic toys and smart appliances, the primary market focus of this year’s show seems to be on mobility with smartphones, tablets and apps taking center stage in many of the main keynotes and featured front-and-center in larger vendor booths. And many of these advances drive the potential and increase the affordances of mobile learning and performance support across the enterprise.

Better Devices. It is starting to feel like the smartphone is finally going to start replacing the feature phone inside every knowledge worker’s pocket or purse; I’m not saying my mom is going to replace her Jitterbug anytime soon but she’s a grandmother not an enterprise employee. For those of us with the means and the desire, the choices are plentiful and reasonable in most markets and the up-trending Bring Your Own Device movement is starting to influence IT departments to allow newer Apple iOS, Google Android and Microsoft Windows Phone7 devices to coexist on the highly restricted/locked down networks IT has operated in the past. As security and control issues for enterprise-grade mlearning solutions are mitigated to infosec’s satisfaction, BYOD policies can actually save organization tremendous amounts of money every year. CES showcased a myriad of Android smartphones and tablet devices for consumers from Motorola, HTC, Samsung, LG, Sony Erickson, Dell and many others plus specialized offerings from Cisco Systems on the enterprise end of the spectrum to Vizio on the consumer end; that said, most every contemporary Android device can install/run an “app” and that brings an opportunity for learning closer to any worker in the time of need.

Tablets devices are all the rage at CES as vendors from across the world all seek to cash in on Apple’s success with their iPad. Tablets ranging in size from pocket minis to full-sized and dockable slates are featured everywhere with many supporting the newer Android 3.0/Honeycomb OS, Windows 7/Phone 7 and even some Linux variations. Tablets from the “tier one players” will obviously have an impact on the market and the fact that many of them run Flash content makes them ultra-appealing for mobile learning situations. The real question is whether the application ecosystems that surround each of these new devices can overcome the market lead Apple’s current (and future) generation iPads already enjoy. I suspect we’ll see Apple conceding some nominal but measurable market share to the new crème of the crop and this will drive most enterprise organizations to need to support multiple tablets in much the same way they support multiple smartphones for their enterprise mobile learning initiatives. I anticipate seeing projects with lots of iPads alongside several Android tabs and a smattering of BlackBerry PlayBooks all coexisting in one learning deployment. Thus, great things are coming along with increased complexity for content creation, management and distribution since the cool Flash content won't play across the range of devices an enterprise must manage for their mobile learning programs.

Way Faster Networks. To me, the more significant advances introduced at CES 2011 were the formal introductions from the leading carriers of their much anticipated “4G”, high-speed networks. All four of the major US wireless carriers (ATT, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and Sprint) plus several others announced support for next-gen device communications resulting in faster access speeds. These faster networks drive the need/desire for more capable smartphones and tablet devices that can leverage the network benefits. What’s needed are better applications to serve as the third leg of the new “technology stool” and enterprise mobile learning represents one of the real world examples that can take advantage of these faster networks, better devices and richer learning experiences anytime and anywhere.

In summary, this year’s show seems bigger and more impressive than many in recent years and I believe many of the products and services introduced this week will play a critical role in the adoption and proliferation of enterprise mobile learning here and abroad. And the gadget geek in me really looks forward to getting a new device (or four!) in the coming weeks and months as we push the future of tech into the future of learning.

GeoLearning Acquired by SumTotal: The mLearning Impact?

2011-01-05T07:44:00.000-08:00

The enterprise learning market witnessed another big consolidation event today as SumTotal Systems announced it acquired GeoLearning thus further positioning SumTotal as the largest platform provider for LMS and talent management solutions in the industry. According to leading analyst Josh Bersin, the combined entity will grow SumTotal's "total market share to 12.5% ... (and) makes SumTotal approximately 50% larger than the #2 LMS player (Saba), clearly establishing their leadership in the market." Interesting news indeed.

So, what does this move mean to the enterprise mobile learning market?

From my perspective, both companies have worked on "baking and serving up" a mobile learning strategy to one extent or another but both have placed a higher priority on building out their talent management suites rather than their mobility solutions -- for good reason too as that's where the money has been in recent years as mobile has been taking shape. SumTotal's ToolBook authoring tool, now in version 10.x, is a well crafted desktop-based application that we've used many times in the past to help design and produce mobile learning content that can be packaged for delivery with many different enterprise mobile learning platforms including our own, Intuition's and others. There are also nice hooks in place to allow mobile-ready courses to be accessed by mlearners via the SumTotal LMS using a mobile web browser but SumTotal has yet to take the leap from basic "mobile web" delivery into the more sophisticated and polished "mobile app" methods.

GeoLearning, on the other hand, has made solid strides in recent months with their GeoMaestro Mobility Solution to design and develop their own mobile apps (for iPhone, iPad, Android and WebOS/Palm-based devices) and provide a continuum of mobile authoring, delivery and reporting via their GeoMaestro suite to the benefit of their customers now considering mobile learning for the first time (and who isn't?). I certainly applaud their efforts to get into the pool but I can state with conviction that any "version 1.0" effort only represents the first steps on a long journey as we move into the highly complex arena of mobility with its vastly different technologies and delivery models when compared with delivering online content in the enterprise LMS space. In short, "getting a course on a phone" is relatively easy while the 250+ other things the enterprise is now concerned with represent the challenges that need to be addressed to ensure the learning experience is fully functional, appropriate, customizable, secure and fully scalable. But actually getting a version 1.0 out the door IS an important start! Geo's new "client-side" tools/apps may represent a key ingredient for SumTotal's push into the enterprise mobile learning market but, unfortunately, the official press release doesn't mention mobile in any shape or fashion.

SumTotal would be well served to take a quick and hard look at the GeoLearning tools and figure out how they can start to leverage them under the bigger umbrella this consolidation represents as it will serve their combined customer base well. And the increased visibility and adoption of mobile learning across the broader market is good news for everyone in the enterprise mLearning space as more and more companies seek solutions that can meet their current and future requirements.

Enterprise mLearning Predictions for 2011

2011-01-02T06:24:00.000-08:00

It is time once again to ponder the research, extrapolate on recent experience, and attempt to read the tea leaves so we can predict the future of enterprise mobile learning in 2011. After such an exciting and rewarding 2010, my predictions for the coming year seem broader and more varied given the fast changing dynamics of the marketplace and accelerated adoption of mobile learning by organizations of all sizes.

1. mLearning Engagements Expand. If 2010 was the year of the pilot, then 2011 will be the year of the deployment. As I stated in the previous post assessing my 2010 predictions, the size and complexity of mobile learning projects/programs will continue to expand across all geographical and line-of-business boundaries. I think case studies from enterprise organizations on the leading edge will abound by year’s end for successful mobile learning initiatives by thus providing the “I want to do what they did!” examples the industry has waited for over the past many years. Case studies featuring accelerated ROI with tens of thousands of learners (or more!) using different types of devices in multitudes of languages across diverse geographies are sure to drive awareness in mobile learning and generate interest from organizations of all sizes seeking to achieve their own successes and become more innovative in the way the train and support their ever-mobile learning communities.

2. Device Diversity is the “New Normal”. After years of BlackBerry dominance in the pockets and purses of enterprise personnel, iOS (Apple) and Android-based mobile phones and tablet devices will supplant RIM-supplied smartphones as the primary desired (and likely used) smart devices for mobile learning – at least in North America. This shift will be driven by a combination of factors including learner (and executive) demand, IT acceptance and infosec approval plus a movement towards the adoption of “bring your own device” use policies within the enterprise. Sure, companies may still provided workers with an old BlackBerry (on a 2-year contract), but increasingly more people will opt to use their own iPhones/iPads or Android handsets or tablets once their devices can be secured and supported within their organizations.

3. Mobile Apps Become Essential to Enterprise mLearning. As stated in our previous post, the mobile learning “app” has proved its superiority over less compelling mobile web-delivered training materials. True, mobile apps are harder to create and to support but the value derived from an installed app proves far more beneficial and powerful for the typical enterprise customer, especially those looking to support their own defined workforces versus a broad general audience. I will agree that accessing mobile learning content via a device’s embedded web browser can be an effective and useful delivery modality (and is improving every year) but the overall experience is generally watered down and less effective and engaging. Conversely, mobile learning apps provides better and more varied content, are FAR more secure, work anywhere the learner needs to learn and can integrate better into the way learners think about and use their mobile devices. Remember, there’s a reason we all use an app on our smartphones to access email, check our calendar, search our contacts and watch media clips instead of trying to log into a server somewhere to accomplish those same tasks.

4. Pad/Tablet Use Explodes! The emerging pad/tablet market will gain further momentum and an increasing number of enterprise organizations will start to support/provide the larger form factored devices to their field sales, technical and professional staff. Given the fact these devices slot into our device lineup somewhere between the typical smartphone and a laptop in terms of size and capabilities, many organizations will start to drop the laptop and supply BOTH a tablet and a smartphone for every mobile worker/learner – and don’t be surprised if these are supplied by different vendors too like having a BlackBerry (or similar) handheld AND an iPad (or similar) tablet. The challenge for T&D and IT departments becomes how they will support the use of multiple devices for each worker with issues ranging from “single sourcing” content production (write once/deploy anywhere) to content distribution to security to cross-platform tracking and synchronization (think: completion of an assignment on a learner’s BB device must then be reflected on their iPad device ASAHP).

I speculate RIM’s first generation PlayBook tablet will also ship to mixed fanfare for enterprise mobile learning customers due to the lack of available applications supporting off-grid learning. After almost 18 months, RIM’s AppWorld site has only grown to around 15K “apps” for BlackBerry wireless handhelds and none of these current apps work on the upcoming PlayBook tablet meaning a whole new series of apps must be written – the classic “chicken & egg” problem. Meanwhile, next generation iPads and Android 3.x devices – each with tens of thousands of available apps – will help fuel continued adoption of Apple and Google-designed tablets in the learning space.

5. Authoring Tools Will Evolve. Flash will still not be supported on iOS devices in 2011 but this fact will matter far less over time. Apple’s insistence on never wanting to support Flash content on iOS devices will drive innovation across the authoring tool market that is sure to benefit everyone in the Training & Development field. I feel the time is just around the corner than “Publish to HTML5” options appear within the leading content authoring tools making it easier to design, generate and support compelling interactions and animations without needing a Flash Player on-board the device. On balance, the downside to this means we will actually need more tools to create content that spans all the mobile devices we are targeting for training delivery given most older enterprise mobile devices support neither Flash nor HTML5 due to their very dated browsers. If we lived in a world where everyone had brand new (and updated) devices, mobile learning would be easy but they don’t so it isn’t.

6. Private Social Networks Win Over Public. It was no surprise to many of us that Facebook was the most heavily trafficked web site in 2010 and displaced Google for the first time in many years. There’s no denying the power and reach of social networking in the technology space but we remain convinced that PUBLIC SOCIAL sites like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube all have diminished value as part of an enterprise learning community when compared with the various PRIVATE SOCIAL sites and applications now available. We strongly agree having anytime/anywhere access to our business social network can provide great value, that having tools to share information like pictures and videos and podcasts generated by users instead of business functions can bridge learning divides, and that weaving informal into formal makes us all better equipped and informed. We believe that public sites like Facebook and Twitter (amongst others) will not end up becoming the hubs where the learning organization wants their community to gather and share insights due to the lack of security, privacy, oversight and control that are relevant today and even more essential tomorrow. As such, most business-centric social interactions must to seamlessly integrated into the enterprise learning environment and at every mobile access point too.

7. Market Consolidations Will Occur. Some form of consolidation will come to the mobile device/handset sector as a few of the key but descending players –namely Nokia, Microsoft, HP and RIM – aligning themselves together to try and overcome the momentum of the two ascending players – namely Apple and Google. We wouldn't be shocked to find Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 OS appearing on upcoming Nokia handsets or tablet devices, or RIM getting acquired by Microsoft or another tech titan like IBM Global Services in a deal akin to HP acquiring Palm in 2010.

8. Here Come the Experts! The growth of mobile learning in 2011 will beget a slew of newly-minted mobile learning and mobile content experts, boutique consultancies, mobile development shops and “me too” vendors all claiming they possess the knowledge, expertise and experience we all need to make us successful in mobile; take most such claims with a grain of salt. The stark reality is the practice of mobile learning is vastly different than what online learning has been to this industry for 15+ years and just owning a few iPhones or Android tablets or RIM PlayBooks and surfing the web for a few days doesn’t yield any tangible experience when looking to help someone plan, structure, build, deploy, support and integrate a new mobility strategy into an overall enterprise learning program. Expertise using just one authoring tool, or design method, or supporting one kind of mobile device translates poorly for replicating an inaugural success into different work environments. Whenever you're encountering/considering tools from mobile vendors, remember the adage anything labeled "version 1.0" is probably more akin to "version 0.82 (beta)" and the proven iteration you'd bet your business on is probably "version 2.0" or higher. Buyer, beware!

9. New Features and New Possibilities. One of the greatest joys and challenges of being in the mobility space is keeping up with the constant pace of change and innovation. In our experience, learners within and teams supporting enterprise mobile learning environments are all interested in finding ways to derive the benefit of new features and functionality offered on better and faster devices. Our own development roadmap is expanding with the many possibilities afforded through upcoming advances like (a) geo-location, (b) near field communications (“NFC”) that may help contextualize learning at a specific location or assist in the bi-directional exchange of pertinent data, (c) augmented reality delivering just-in-time learning opportunities via interactive overlays, (d) the use of gaming scenarios integrated within a structured mobile learning experience, and (e) tighter integration between learning and a devices universal in-box function. And along the way we plan continue to innovate and iterate on “mil-spec” mobile security, authentication/single sign-on, cross-platform integration tools, and interface customization features that will benefit all our customers and partners.

So now it’s time to sit back and watch it all play out for the next twelve months. We look forward to the many opportunities to will come our way this coming year and to overcoming the myriad challenges that pop up in our path as we help make mobile learning a positive reality and measurable benefit for all the customers, vendors and institutions out there looking to leverage mobile learning in 2011.

2010: mLearning Year in Review

2010-12-27T11:34:00.000-08:00

A.K.A. How our January 2010 Predictions Played Out!

As we reach the first anniversary of this blog’s introduction, we thought we’d take stock and figure out how things are going by revisiting our list of predictions for enterprise mobile learning in 2010. On balance, it was an interesting year and there were far more expected outcomes than there were actual surprises. That said, the degree with which some of our past predictions came to pass proved quite varied whereas some truths were validated akin to a “base hit” in the game of baseball whereas others were “doubles” or “triples” and even a “home run” and “strikeout” or two!

So here are the predictions from 12 months ago and the tally (score) for "runs batted in" -- or at least attempted -- during the 2010 mLearning season:

Traditional "e"-learning vendors will all jump into the "m"-learning and social networking spaces with "first generation" offerings they believe will address the mobile requirements of their customers and prospects; these early efforts will prove largely ineffective as evidenced by their many iterative and incremental updates, retries and course corrections.

Validated (“Double”). Indeed, many traditional eLearning vendors ventured into the market though not in the volume or with the fanfare we had postulated twelve months ago. In fact, each of the “Four Horsemen” who rule the enterprise – namely SumTotal, Saba, Plateau & Geolearning – gave it a go in some way although no one outside their immediate customers or PR agencies seemed to notice. Several more of the Tier 2/Tier 3 LMS vendors also “tossed their hat in the ring” (or towards it anyway) announcing some way of publishing content so it could appear via a mobile browser on the iPhones, iPads and Android device trying to capture a few of their most “loyal fans” in learning land.

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Rather than getting easier, the mlearning landscape will actually grow wider/deeper and far more complex as enterprises are forced to include/support several disparate mobile devices and changing end user demands; this scenario will drive further demand for enterprise-grade content authoring and delivery platforms for mobile learning.

Validated (“Triple”). From our own experience, enterprise mLearning engagements were more complex and multi-faceted given the fact the average deployment was bigger, more varied in terms of content and devices supported, and customer/partner expectations were far higher. As predicted, the methods and tools needed for mobile content authoring and delivery also matured a generation or two over the “season” and a few new use cases for mobile learning appeared too. Along the way, OnPoint was asked by one of our wireless carrier customers to provide the first enterprise mobile authoring environment supporting completely separate staging/QA and production servers but allowing for content syncing to a single, secure mobile application instance on one device – a feat tantamount to hitting one over Fenway’s Green Monster but soon realized after some cleaver programming.

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Mobile learning will meld with social networking on every learner's mobile device making the two technologies a fully integrated experience; support for these two technologies will be an essential part of every mlearning vendor's core offerings.

Validated (“Single”). Mobile Learning and Social Networking each attained much higher hype levels across the Training & Development during the 2010 “season” and both concepts were featured topics in articles and conference sessions alike. While 2010 was certainly the year that Facebook assumed its place atop the infotech mantel and the social context of just about everything training action was contemplated, the ways and means to leverage the popular and very PUBLIC social networking and social media applications like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube and others seemed less than adequate for more security conscious enterprise organizations. OnPoint stepped up to plate here – to satiate pent-up demand in some and spark new interest in others – by introducing an integrated set of social features that blend “formal with informal” with support for PRIVATE mobile discussion forums, access to blogs and wikis, and support for mobile captured/user-generated content. Admittedly, most customers are still trying to wrap their minds around the myriad possibilities for mobile/social but many of the emerging use cases are proving to be both fascinating and rewarding.

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Tablet-based content delivery of mlearning will win our "hearts & minds" over netbook-based content delivery thanks largely to the arrival of Apple's much rumored "iSlate" tablet offering. Others vendors will quickly follow/respond.

Validated (“Grand Slam Homer”). The industry finally witnessed the arrival of Apple’s highly anticipated tablet onto the field in Q1 and upon shipment somewhere around “opening day”, the appropriately named “iPad” set a standard by defining a new device category and capturing 95% of that market with 14+ million units sold in less than nine months. Reaction from Apple’s competition has predictable at the marketing level (“Yeah, we’ve got one of those too!”) but generally tepid on the delivery front (“Coming soon!” or “Wait until you see the next version!”).

From a content perspective, these new tablets take smartphone-oriented mobile learning and give it a better user experience plus they enable new and compelling long-form content types like readable PDFs as well as far more flexible ePUBs/eBook-style documents. From an enterprise developer’s point of view, the iPad proved easy to support as we quickly re-factored our CellCast Widget for the iPhone to support new user interface standards/suggestions and it all just worked! We have been pleasantly surprised at the way this new device not only captured the hearts and minds of the business and learning communities with the many new affordances it brings but also in the way organizations have simply gone and purchased 50 or 250 or even 500 iPads for execs or field workers without any plan as to how they’ll use them (or communicate with or secure them); in short, the iPad is busting down IT’s door and forcing enterprise organizations to support mobile devices beyond just the BlackBerry.

The iPad isn’t the only game in town though as Android-based devices like Samsung’s popular Galaxy Tab and RIM’s upcoming PlayBook provide alternatives that fill in some of the iPad’s perceived gaps (e.g., lack of Flash support). There will certainly be 30+ tablet devices to choose from by mid 2011 and all will help to grow the market and a select few will actually succeed as products. The recent release of our CellCast Widget for Android Tablets has been well received by customers especially with the inclusion of a new Flash Player template we produced that transforms Articulate Presenter content into something that sizes and plays well on Android mobiles. And while the upcoming RIM PlayBook shows potential for mobile learning delivery, we’re disappointed that the many years of development work needed to produce our BlackBerry apps yielded nothing as be began to build new Playbook apps. Sometimes the “fresh sheet of paper approach” is a good thing but here it proved quite frustrating given the fact our moves to support iOS and Android-based tablets didn’t require us to start from scratch resulting in a “swing and miss” the first time at bat.

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The acceptance and adoption of "cloud computing" resources for mobile learning will become commonplace as IT budgets remain strained and the complexity of mobile authoring and delivery continues to increase - especially in larger, more complex environments.

Validated (“Triple”). This one plays on the current trend and seems to be gaining slow but steady momentum to claim the pennant. Our experience in 2010 found ALL of our new customers and partners went “hosted” instead of installing enterprise (“behind the firewall”). Given OnPoint’s hosting center is SAS70/Type II certified and we’ve proven we can keep an organization’s data safe and highly available, the many concerns IT/InfoSec harbored in past seasons no longer seem to be causing rain delays. More significantly, our growing hosted customer base now includes financial services, pharma/healthcare, government and many of the world’s leading carriers and tech OEMs who are now confident to outsource their mlearning services “into our cloud” even though they often support 1,000s to 100K+ servers of their own.

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Mobile learners will begin to expect (and demand!) the ability to seamlessly manage and synchronize assignment access, delivery, review and completion between their desktop PC and their mobile device(s).

Not Validated ("Pop Fly Single" – but Caught!). The impact here is yet to be measured or realized due to the fact that most enterprise organizations haven’t implemented let alone identified their mobile learning strategies yet. As such, the need to seamlessly manage the interaction between mobile and online learning delivery is only something that’s perceived as a challenge (or necessity) to the early adopter crowd and requires their mobile learning efforts to be fully integrated with their backend LMS platform; those select few enterprise customers entering large scale deployments are realizing the gains from true anytime, anywhere learning.

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Mobile learning projects delivered in established and emerging global markets will outnumber those delivered in North America (USA/Canada) due to greater interest, faster uptake and willingness to leverage mlearning on both basic feature phones as well as advanced smartphones.

Not Validated ("Strikeout"). Time has proven us wrong on this prediction as it relates to OnPoint’s direct and channel business efforts around the world. Up until 2010, the market for smartphones globally – especially those addressable for enterprise mobile learning efforts – seemed to be maturing much faster outside of North America with carrier interest and prospecting activity levels in Asia Pac, South America and EMEA leading the interest shown here. Sure, we had interest from enterprise training teams wishing to do their inaugural mobile learning pilots coming in from everywhere but the projects that seemed to go faster and grow larger were mostly here in North America and spanned industries as well as devices. We attribute these outcomes to two facts: (1) North American carriers were selling (and subsidizing) more smartphones and tablets devices as logical replacements to their subscribers’ aging feature phones and (2) the lack of any measurable interest in Nokia/Symbian-based devices across North American meant the “app craze” focused on those devices made on “this side of the pond” (e.g., Apple iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mo/Pho).

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In the smartphone realm, mobile web-delivered content will prove to be a less compelling mlearning experience as compared to mobile application-delivered.

Validated (“Home Run”). The mobile learning “app” has won the day in the race for mobile device content delivery over the less interesting mobile web for a variety of reasons and we feel we’re qualified to weigh in with our opinion here given we’re one of a select few vendors who actually provides support for content delivery in either method through one unified platform. Indeed, mobile apps are harder to create and to support but the value derived from an installed app proves far more beneficial and powerful for the typical enterprise customer, especially those looking to support their own defined users rather than their more macro vendor/customer/partner ecosystems. True, accessing mobile learning content via a device’s embedded web browser is an effective and useful delivery modality but the experience is generally watered down to what works at the lowest common denominator level. Conversely, the mobile app experience provides better and more varied content, is FAR more secure, works anywhere the learner needs it (including when there’s no communications signal) and can integrate better into the way learners think about and use their mobile devices. In our opinion, those vendors touting the virtues of the mobile web over the mobile app have yet to figure out how to build and support mobile apps especially in multi-device deployment scenarios so buyer beware. We agree the mobile web experience is improving and so are our own offerings in the corner of the field – we just don’t think the mobile web experience can “hit against” the mobile app experience and win the game.

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Security will become a MUCH bigger issue for mlearning deployments and all vendors will need to step up their game to ensure content/IP protection and integrity while making access easier.

Validated ("Home Run"). This is played out to have just about as big an impact on mobile learning as the app-based tablet did (above). Securing not only the content and the whole end-to-end experience for the mobile learner became a mission critical dynamic for virtually every enterprise mobile learning engagement this year and rightly so. The very nature of a mobile device – meaning it travels everywhere with the learner in their pocket or purse – means anything staged for delivery at the moment of need is also living far outside the physical confines of the enterprise security gates imposed by the organization. Whereas an online course accessed via a portal can be launched most any time too, that same sensitive or proprietary content never finds itself in a position to be casually viewed by a learner late into the evening at a party pr by an unintended audience if their device was accidently misplaced, stolen or even innocently shared (e.g., “Yeah, check out this new product we’re selling next month!”). Security proved to be a primary development and delivery focus throughout 2010 – both on device and on the server – and we can confidently state the mobile learning experience is now actually MORE secure than the desktop learning experience much to the pleasure and comfort of the IT department.

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The arrival of Adobe's Flash Player v10.1 for (most) smartphones will prove far less significant of an event due to the fact content navigation and onscreen interactions will prove difficult on most of the currently deployed enterprise smartphones.

Validated (“Triple”). The hype surrounding mobile Flash reached fever pitch in 2010 although little tangible effect was felt on the field of play. The controversy swirling around the lack of Flash support on the new iPad and the existing iPhone/iPod touch devices certainly drove greater awareness of the classic mobile learning content paradox – that Flash content created for the desktop doesn’t work on most smartphones. Those just arriving at the mlearning party in 2010 for the first time seemed to find this situation especially annoying given the fact these new tablet devices had such nice screens and Internet services all ready to be tapped. And much of the promise of Adobe’s Flasher Player v10.1 seemed to fall short of the mark as Android was really the only mobile device OS to ship with a fully functional version of that player in 2010. RIM stated in late 2009 their support was likely to appear in BBOS6 but that didn’t happen. Microsoft focused its energies on ways to leverage its own Silverlight support within the new Windows Phone 7 environment before it adds Flash Player support. And Apple’s public feud with Adobe promoting the coming HTML5 specification over Flash on all iOS devices was much covered too. (NOTE: The lack of Symbian-based smartphones in the North American market meant that while Flash content on Nokia devices was possible, it just wasn’t happening much).

In those cases where Flash content actually is supported on a mobile device, not all learning content proved to be appropriate or work as expected. In our experience, sending a single “SWF” file provided strong results but attempting to push out (or access over-the-air) a Flash-based learning module on a device didn’t impress many learners (or content authors) without some basic rethinking of the content produced. The full gamut of popular rapid development tools likes Articulate Presenter, Adobe Captivate, Techsmith Camtasia Studio and many others produce content as multi-file/multi-folder outputs that tend to run sluggishly on even the most advanced mobile devices and currently offer no alternative mobile-friendly templates with skins/buttons optimized for the mobile learning experience. As stated above, we needed to create our own specialized templates that bridge the gap between publishing for the online world and the mobile world and found solid success supporting environments with newer Android devices.

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By year end, HTML5 will make rich media playback on mobile devices more practical and compelling too making Flash-based content on mobile less of a need.

Not Validated ("Stikeout"). Here’s another prediction that didn't play out as we thought it would. Indeed, HTML5 does hold great long-term promise but the specification is still very much a work in progress (due to be ratified in 2013) and only a reasonable few (read: newer, more expensive) mobile devices fully support the spec as written in today’s program. Adobe was the first to add (relent) HTML5 publication support to their Creative Suite 5 offiering and other tool vendors are starting to follow suit like Trivantis with the latest Lectora Publisher but don’t expect those tools to output learning content that works on the legacy smartphone devices you have across your enterprise. We expect more tools will provide publication to HTML5 support in the coming weeks and months of 2011.

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The first several "sizable" enterprise mlearning projects using Apple iPhones and Android-based smartphones will be delivered into the marketplace as mitigated security concerns make way for a superior on-device experience versus today's standard corporate-centric BlackBerry, WinMo and Symbian (Nokia) interfaces.

Validated ("Triple"). This surely happened and several of our largest enterprise pilots and subsequent deployments were based on either iOS devices, Android devices or some combination of both. In fact, many cases where existing customers mandated BlackBerry-only deployments relented and started allowing iOS and Android-based devices into their mix. The current is moving strong and deep towards multi-device environments now that security and content transcoding (“write once/deploy anywhere”) tasks have been largely mitigated or eliminated altogether. And the trend towards “bring your own device” is also driving the multi-device mobile learning culture as workers are allowed to select and use whatever device they prefer at work to suit their tastes and carrier preferences.

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Augmented reality applications for mobile learning will begin to appear but because solution development is expensive, technically challenging, and device dependent, AR will capture more headlines than actual budgets.

Validated ("Triple"). We continue to read a lot about it but haven’t witnessed any practical use cases deployed out in a production learning environment for training-centric Augmented Reality. Maybe next year.

Well, that’s how the game played out in our minds for 2010. Keep an eye out for an upcoming blog post containing predictions for 2011 already shaping up to be a tournament kind of year with lots of new technologies, companies and services stepping to the plate.

Batter up!!

CellCast Takes Top Honors at DemoFest 2010

2010-11-23T04:03:00.000-08:00

We're pleased to officially announce two awards for OnPoint's CellCast Solution gained from our recent participation in DemoFest 2010 held in conjunction with The eLearning Guild's annual DevLearn 2010 Conference in San Francisco. The awards were given in support of our entry titled "mLearning: Learning on the Go" in the Sales Training category that OnPoint jointly submitted for consideration with CellCast customer Verizon Wireless. Our winning entry in the Sales Training category also was recognized as "Best in Show - Vendor" for the entire event.

The annual DemoFest contest is a “people’s choice” style competition where participants vote for the courses or applications they consider the most innovative solutions or approaches to various e-Learning challenges. Participants see a wide variety of demonstrations and have a chance to talk to the designers and developers about the tools, technologies, and processes they used to meet their project’s goals and objectives.

OnPoint worked with Verizon Wireless on a project designed to provide their outbound sales teams with greater and easier access to regular sales practices, production/solution previews, and updated business communications; the solution utilized OnPoint’s CellCast® mobile learning platform to make that content available via a variety of company-issued smartphones. By making content available beyond the standard classroom or desktop-delivered experience, Verizon Wireless was able to provide enhanced access to just-in-time training in a shortened time frame via the customized mobile application on users’ smartphones, including Android ®, BlackBerry® wireless handhelds and Windows Mobile ® devices. The end-to-end mobile solution provided by OnPoint compliments Verizon Wireless’ existing enterprise LMS platform and extends their blended learning environment to their ever-mobile sales professionals. Key objectives of the project included the ability to create and deliver a broad array of content types to a variety of mobile device platforms, along with full integration between OnPoint’s CellCast platform and Verizon Wireless’ enterprise LMS—all while meeting strict security guidelines mandated by Verizon’s IT and Learning/Development management teams.

And while it is certainly wonderful to gain recognition for our efforts and technologies from the learning community at large, the real "icing on the cake" was the fact we won and share this recognition in conjunction with the outstanding team we've worked with at Verizon Wireless. Without the commitment and forward-looking vision of great customers, our efforts to create great tools or technologies would have a hard time finding tangible meaning or purpose. VZW helped us "up our game" considerably on so many fronts and helped to "raise the bar" on what's possible -- and soon to be expected -- in enterprise mobile learning!!

And final kudos to the entire OnPoint Digital team of designers, developers, engagement managers, sales and marketing staff for their daily contributions that make this sort of recognition something we can all share.

Here's a link to the official press release containing all the details:

http://bit.ly/e7Q8Bo

mLearning Feature Sets: Possibilities Wide & Deep

2010-10-31T07:18:00.000-07:00

It has certainly been a "month of Sundays" since I last posted to this blog and I offer apologies for not sharing more throughout what has proved to be a very busy and productive summer and fall season. I thought it would be good to offer a series of new posts around some of the messaging we'll be sharing with the gathered mobile learning community at DevLearn 2010 in San Francisco, California which starts later this week. To kick off this series of updated posts, we thought we'd start out with an overview of the wide and varied feature sets we've witnessed our customers and partners addressing in the so called "mobile learning space." As discussed recently with Judy Brown, ADL's mobile learning expert and industry Mobile Maven, the concepts underlying mobile learning run wide and deep. In our experience, enterprise customers serving the exact same markets will often select and apply vastly different feature sets to achieve their own stated mlearning goals and objectives.

The Feature Sets - A Range of Possibility

The variety of available mobile devices enables a myriad of potential uses for the preparation, delivery and tracking of learning for mobile workers; and the more capable the mobile device, the wider the array of possible content delivery methods. As shown in Figure 1 below, we classify these possibilities into the five different classes of learning content and focus much of our R&D efforts into how we can help our customers and partners to leverage each type to broaden the learning experiences for their targeted mobile audiences.

Figure 1

1. Basic Communications. Basic voice and messaging communications represent the primary reason and easiest cost justification for enterprise mobile device purchases. For most organizations, the ability to contact a person either through a phone call, an email or a text message remains the principal use case for equipping a manager, salesperson or field technician with a company-supplied device. Everyone knows how to use their issued device without much (or any) training and these devices facilitate the completion of typical knowledge worker tasks just about anywhere. And as highlighted in previous posts to this blog, the basic communications features found on virtually every phone can be used to distribute a variety of mobile learning content types that enable anytime/anywhere learning for enterprise workers.

2. Training Delivery. Indeed, knowledge workers can learn new things and acquire new skills leveraging properly designed and formatted content on a supported mobile device. Common learning experiences include learning a new skill, refreshing a recent training or reclaiming forgotten knowledge. Just like desktop learning methods, the variety of content types possible in the mobile realm – especially with more capable smartphone devices – are broad and varied and include videos, podcasts, mobile versions of traditional “page turner” courseware/modules, animated slide presentations and more. All required and optional assignments can be accompanied by integrated tests/quizzes/surveys to measure learner assimilation or opinions. Most mobile learning content tends to be packaged in shorter, bite-sized deliverables for easier and more frequent consumption.

3. Information Access. In many cases, learning while mobile may not be about assigned content at all and be much more about providing just-in-time access to a variety of on-demand resources and reference materials which can be read and mined for relevant information at the time of need. Examples of on-demand content span access to appropriate (and compatible) web sites and RSS feeds, mobile-friendly publications in traditional Adobe Acrobat/PDF format and long-form materials in more contemporary eBook and ePub formats.

4. Social Networking. Sometimes the best way to learn is for a learner to connect directly with an actual expert or an entire extended learning community. The growing popularity and acceptance of social networking in support of enterprise learning is driving organizations to identify and implement effective ways to build and manage these communities to harvest institutional knowledge and extend the reach of the best ideas and people out to others wherever they are and whenever they need it. The real trick is to harness the power and potential of the popular social network methods and sites (e.g., Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Yammer) but channel all relevant social interactions into a private monitored and managed network that properly vets and leverages organizational value. Mobile devices -- especially smartphones – are well suited to package, deliver and manage these social interactions as part of the overall fabric of a blended learning environment.

5. Content Creation. Finally, easy-to-use features are available on both basic feature phones and advanced smartphones that can enable an organization’s content consumers to actually become content creators using their own mobile devices. User-generated content can be authored in many different formats using recorded voice for audio podcasts such as a customer testimonial, camera snapshots for visual imagery of a competitor’s product capture “in the wild” or a short video of a subject matter expert detailing a practical process or procedure they’ve mastered that can benefit others across their learning community.

As you can see, there are many possibilities and potential feature sets to leverage across any organization seeking to broaden the range of mobile learning services and solutions they wish to deliver to their target audience. Thankfully, there's no one-size-fits-all answer to which of these feature sets work best or should be implemented first -- each team just needs to pick what's right for them and addresses their own objectives.

CellCast mSCORM Player Announced

2010-06-13T07:37:00.000-07:00

We're pleased to announce the availability of the CellCast mSCORM Player, the latest extension to our CellCast Solution platform for enterprise mobile learning delivery. This new functionality allows mobile workers to access learning content deployed as standard SCORM v1.2 and v2004 SCORM packages (as generated by a variety of 3rd party authoring tools) and allows for full content playback and tracking in both online AND offline settings. We launch with support added to most of our core CellCast Widgets including all Android-based devices, Apple iPhones, iPad and iPod touch media players, BlackBerry devices (running BBOS 4.5 and higher) and smartphones running Windows Mobile v6.1 and v6.5. We also expect to add support for Symbian/S60 later this summer.

We have to admit we weren't the first ISV to jump onto the "SCORM + Mobile" bandwagon; after all, the very nature of the current SCORM v1.2 and SCORM v2004 specifications suggest a mobile learner needs to be "online" whenever they launch a SCORM assignment to ensure connection between their mobile device and the content source/server running a SCORM API. Given OnPoint's dual strategy of supporting content consumption via mobile web AND native app (preferred!!) delivery models, the priority to add "SCORM support" slipped several times due to the technical complexities imposed by the web browsers of most mobile devices. But our larger enterprise customers and prospects kept begging the question: "What's the deal with SCORM on mobile?" so we set off in earnest to devise a workable strategy. Deep thought and hard work yielded an elegant cross-platform solution in the form of a new mobile content player that met all of our requirements and integrated nicely with our core platform and tools. And for those select mobile devices that support Flash-based content, playback of mobile SCOs produced with tools like Articulate Presenter and Engage now works as well although the experience isn't ideal just yet due to the screen size limitations on most mobile devices plus memory allocation issues and slower-than-desktop processing speeds which hamper rendering.

Special thanks goes out to Mike Palmer, our resident SCORM guru and the architect of our innovative CellCast mSCORM Player, who discovered a viable way to design a cross platform player that overcomes the myriad security restrictions virtually all mobile browsers impose on the operating environment of smartphone devices. Once perfected, Mike's player was integrated into all of other CellCast Widgets in a matter of a few days expanding our range of mobile SCORM support quickly and easily. Our efforts along the way have also been greatly assisted by Jason Haag and Judy Brown over at Advanced Distributed Learning ("ADL") who offered insights and advice as to where SCORM + Mobile is today and listened to our list of aspirations for where we hope it evolves in the future.

Click the link below to view a short 3-minute demonstration of the new CellCast mSCORM Player on a Windows Mobile device; the clip was prepared by Mr. Palmer from "down under" in New Zealand who delights us with his Kiwi accent.
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

Growth Accelerates CellCast Solution Innovations

2010-06-11T10:03:00.000-07:00

We're pleased to report the adoption and use of mobile learning by enterprise customers has been accelerating throughout first half of 2010 -- yeah!!; And as with any measurable change in market direction, this new-found momentum comes with advantages and challenges alike. The bigger the customer and/or engagement, the more revenue that deal can contribute and the easier it is for us to expand operations and assemble an even stronger team. But the bigger the enterprise, the more apt these customers are to want (even demand) more sophisticated features and service offerings to ensure their mobile initiatives are scalable, secure and standards-based.

As a result, our design and development teams have spent the first half of the year improving our core applications, device experiences and the underlying platform our customer and partners need to make mobile learning a reality for their own employees and customers. And somehow we've completed three years worth of effort in a six month time frame (once again!) to stay ahead of current demands and stated requirements. The tangible results are myriad and amazing. A high level summary of what comprises makes our CellCast Solution version 3.x offering would include:

Improved Delivery Methods
Advanced Mobile + Social Features
Highly Scalable Architecture
New Content Authoring Capabilities (incl Flash)
Support for Learning Standards (SCORM)
Enhanced Enterprise Security Features
Expanded Localization/Language Support

In the days leading up to the mLearnCon Conference in San Diego, California (held mid-June 2010) and the weeks to follow, we plan to provide more detailed background and previews on each of these advances and highlight why we're proud and our customers/partners are happy with all these positive results. For now, here's a short summary of what our blog follows can look forward to learning about in future posts.

Improved Delivery Methods. One of the true value propositions of the CellCast Solution platform is the broad reach achieved from basic feature phones on one extreme to advanced smartphone devices on the other. CellCast can deliver 18 different kinds of mobile learning content ensuring there are reliable and cost effective ways to reach virtually everyone in an organization's extended ecosystem in one way or another (likely several) from just one integrated platform. Authors use "write once/publish to many" methods and tools to create content for delivery via text messaging, voice, mobile web or native app, and can leverage support for every major mobile device used in business. Our next blog post will highlight some of the new CellCast Widget improvements and devices we now support.

Advanced Mobile + Social Features. Not doubt about it, social content and informal learning are playing a larger role in enterprise education and the blended learning experience. To assist customers wishing to leverage these market trends, CellCast now provides an array of both Social Media ("SoMe") and Social Networking ("SoNe") features that promote the creation and distribution of user-generated content as well as providing AND MANAGING access to internal/private social networks (e.g., blogs/microblogs/wikis) and external/public social networks and feeds the establishment of managed private networks (e.g., Twitter, Yammer, Jive, RSS feeds). Access is permission-based and easily controlled/monitored as well as measurable to ensure proper use and conduct using company-owned devices and personnel respectively.

Highly Scalable Architecture. Mobile learning pilots may may only span a limited audience but enterprise deployments can likely expand to thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of mobile learners. Our updated CellCast Solution platform now scales to meet these ever-increasing demands using the industry's most efficient methods for content compression, distribution and synchronization.

New Authoring Capabilities & Functionality. It seems that every engagement we undertake includes 80% "situations we've seen and mastered" and the other 20% seems to be the "here's something that's never been attempted before - can you do it?" sort of situation. As such, our customers and partners have helped to continue to push the envelope in the ways and means that mobile learning content is designed and delivered. Recent experiences with HTML5, branching logic in PowerPoints, Flash-based mobile content (today only on Froyo-based Android and newer Windows Mobile devices), even conversions of desktop bound content created in tools like Articulate Presenter/Engage/Quizmaker, Adobe Captivate and Dreamweaver and Trivantis Lectora Publisher have helped shape the way we deal with new and existing content and make it as mobile friendly as possible.

Support for Learning Standards (SCORM). The bigger the customer/engagement, the more sensitive they are about support for training industry standards too. Take SCORM for example; what we thought impractical a few recent months has now proven to be both possible and even compelling! Our new CellCast Widgets now provide full SCO-level tracking and reporting for SCORM v1.2 and 2004 content packages played on mobile devices in BOTH online AND offline modes using our new CellCast mSCORM Player. Its simply fascinating to witness a SCORM package built for the desktop/online delivery running on a BlackBerry, iPhone, Android or Windows Mobile device even while on an airplane or out of wireless coverage areas.

Enhanced Enterprise Security Features. The requirements for ensuring the security and integrity of enterprise content has become a common theme in recent months as business accelerates its adoption and use of mobile learning. CellCast now provides enhanced end-to-end security features covering every supported mobile device and the myriad of available security options now includes content encryption features (even on iPhones and Android devices) as well as other IT-friendly services like federated authentication/single sign-on integration, remote device wipe capabilities, and even time-based access restrictions.

Expanded Localization/Language Support. The farther the CellCast Solution travels (via multinational customers and global partners/resellers), the greater the need to provide support for languages and localization. User-facing interfaces are now available in 12 different languages (including character-based like Russian, Japanese, traditional and simplified Chinese) both via the mobile web and within the CellCast Widget; sorry, we can't help with the automatic conversion of your content though - that's your responsibility!

You can see we've been busy. And we look forward to showcasing many of the features in the coming days in support of the mLearnCon Conference and over the summer. Its an exciting and interesting time to be in the mobile learning business indeed!

mLearning Featured at WES 2010

2010-05-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

Our team just returned from a full week down in Orlando, Florida participating in Research in Motion’s 2010 Worldwide Enterprise Summit (“WES”) Conference which proved once again to be a spectacular event and learning experience for all in attendance. Plenty of attention was paid to the fields of mobile Learning and mobilized content delivery to the ubiquitous BlackBerry – or as RIM refers to it – the “preferred smartphone for business” and this year’s event once again set the gold standard for “Best Conference Experience/Value” in what’s been an otherwise tepid tradeshow circuit these past few years.

Participation at WES is open to anyone interested in “The World of BlackBerry” though this year’s attendees (6,000+ and up 20% from 2009!) tend to fit one of four profiles including: (1) business or IT teams from larger enterprise accounts, (2) technical or channel resources from global carriers/wireless providers, (3) application developers and enterprise solution architects, or (4) market analysts, bloggers and techno freaks interested in experiencing what’s hot in BlackBerry. Virtually everyone we encountered throughout the four-day conference seemed to have either a mission to learn or a budget to invest (many had both!) and opportunities abounded!

Who’s not in attendance at WES? Thankfully, RIM’s international event wasn’t filled with casual tire kickers or non-practitioners just wasting time or trolling for free giveaways. In fact, more than half the attendees flew in from outside North America (with heavy participation from Europe and Asia Pacific) and they were there to really gain some advantage after enduring 10 to 20-hour flights!

Sessions of Interest

While there were no huge (unanticipated) product announcements from RIM, the highlights of the show included two new BlackBerry devices (the CDMA BlackBerry Bold 9650 and the BlackBerry Pearl 3G/9100) that are both highly polished and ultra fast. And we’ll all soon put that speed to good use as RIM announced the upcoming availability of their BBOS version 6.0 platform coming sometime in Q3 2010. BBOS6 will provide a raft of new (and some long overdue) enhancements to the interface and web browsing experience and also serve to support new features like Flash Player 10.1 also slated for delivery later this year. For mobile learning developers and users alike, these advances and the new devices that will run them will help to ensure the BlackBerry remains a leading device in the smartphone arsenal for mobile learning delivery.

The discipline of Mobile Learning was spotlighted in several of the main sessions including a well attended session titled “WB-11 Developing and Distributing Media-Rich Content for Mobile Workers” in which I was a featured panelist along with Keith O’Loughlin from Intuition. Chalk Media, formally a direct competitor and now a subsidiary of RIM, also presented a few sessions on mobile content creation and delivery to both general audiences and channel partners and a short series of Chalk Pushcasts were deployed to WES attendees via their BlackBerry smartphones helping to make syndicated content delivery a front-of-mind experience for all interested parties.

The Solutions Showcase

The official Exhibit Hall for WES 2010 was the Solutions Showcase area and a record number of sponsors signed up this year and manned their “popsicle stands” to meet interested parties from the RIM ecosystem. The OnPoint team was able to meet and talk with a great number of current customers, partners and prospects and demonstrate why mobile learning in general and our CellCast Solution in particular are gaining in market acceptance and popularity. We were especially pleased with the interest from MVNOs/carriers and VARs we visited with and their expressed commitment to begin leveraging mobile learning to train their own employees and partners: interest seemed to come equally from North America, LATAM, EMEA and APAC alike as the global market heats up from mLearning. We look forward to the opportunities that mature in the coming weeks and months from our active participation in the Solutions Showcase. Martin Brown, our MD from Sydney, Australia, was certainly glad to made the trip over too!

Exceptional Value & Production Quality

Even though RIM brought in US$10M or more from the sponsorships and paid registrations from the 6K attendees, they spared NO expense making the event special and inspiring for everyone. Everything from the keynotes to the sessions to the exhibition hall to the catered meals (breakfast, lunch, snacks and evening entertainment) was top notch and greatly appreciated. Speaking of the keynotes and sessions, there were 4 full days of scheduled presentations from RIM’s top brass, technical leadership, top customers and strategic partners. Evening entertainment included on Tuesday included British song siren Joss Stone as well as Will.i.am from the Blackeyed Peas and a few others with plenty of fun and games and drinks to lubricate conversation. And no lack of bootleg video and audio recordings from the BlackBerry device virtually everyone was carrying with them 24x7. Not to be outdone, a few of the tier one carriers sponsored their own on or off-site shindigs too – we got to attend the ATT Private Party at the Hard Rock Café which featured San Fran band Train singing their popular catalog for the 300 lucky invitees.

Final Analysis

The 2010 event was my third WES as an attendee but our first as a company/sponsor and we were certainly not disappointed. The crowds were bigger and seemed more interested in finding ways to leverage their current investment in RIM/BlackBerry and smartphones in general for improved business communications and training. With the continuing flood of new technologies and fully capable devices, the months and years ahead all bode well for mobile learning to finally take flight and soar in the enterprise.

CellCast Solution Wins Gold Brandon Hall Award!

2010-04-30T10:33:00.000-07:00

We were pleased to learn yesterday that OnPoint's CellCast Solution won the Gold Award from Brandon Hall for 2009 in the "Best Advance in Technology for Mobile Learning Authoring" category. Congratulations to our entire team for all their continuing efforts and outstanding achievements and kudos to all of the other winners across every competed category; we all work/exist in an industry where innovation is alive and well!

Click HERE to see the entire list of 2009 Excellence in Learning Technology winners and their awarded prizes.

Dissecting Saba's New "Anywhere" Product for Mobile Learning

2010-04-14T09:14:00.000-07:00

I happened upon a tweet last week while trolling my Twitter in-box that heralded a product announcement from Saba for their new "Saba Anywhere" offering which they described as follows: "Saba Anywhere is a mobile platform that lets people take their learning on the go." The press release continues with details on how flexible, capable and secure the new offering is so I read on with great interest. Instinctively, I reasoned another one of the "Big 10" LMS/Talent Management platform players was finally joining the mLearning party introducing their own well conceived and highly polished solution for the creation, packaging, delivery and tracking on mobile-friendly content to on-the-go workers via their omnipresent smartphone devices. If you're thinking this announcement/product branding meant the same thing, a little further investigation would prove you wrong too! The marketing post outlines the following:

At first blush, this all sounds great! But peeling back the onion a bit reveals the plain fact the supported mobile device all this "mobile-accessible" content is delivered to and consumed on is a standard Windows-based laptop or desktop computer. Thump!

Okay, that's interesting news on a few levels but the likelihood today's typical enterprise mobile employee/executive traveling around for business doesn't have an enterprise smartphone in their pocket/purse in addition to their enterprise laptop computer taking up space and adding heft in their briefcase is increasingly slim-to-none. Furthermore, a recent Mobile Workforce Report conducted by iPass on "Employee Device Preference" revealed that 63% of respondents preferred to whip out their smartphone for work-related tasks versus cranking up their laptop computer to conduct those same biz chores. If booting my laptop takes me 2+ minutes and acquiring a suitable wireless signal takes another 1-2 minutes in some appropriate hot spot, by the time I'm finally ready to get down to learning something I may have already missed the window of opportunity. Contrast that experience/hardship to using your at-the-ready smartphone that enables true "Anywhere" and anytime learning and we begin to question the potential of this strategy. Not to mention that smartphone-based learning can happen whether I'm seated patiently in a lobby waiting to see a customer/prospect, or standing in a queue ordering lunch or smashed into a commuter train heading home after a long day -- try opening your laptop and taking your course in those environments!

Agreed, the desktop/laptop course experience is richer (more Flashy) today versus the mobile experience and considered by many to be easier to view and consume compared to some mobile content, but true engagement and learning are not only possible but highly achievable on the current crop of next generation mobile devices like the BlackBerry, Apple iPhone/iPod touch and iPad, Google Android and Windows Mobile smartphones that now proliferate across the enterprise. Yesterday's desktop/laptop-optimized content may need to be rethought and re-factored as well but the set of available tools and methods to accomplish these tasks improves daily...the rate of change is accelerating like nothing I've witnessed before and the mobile device (READ: smartphone) will soon be the dominate platform for content delivery (and training delivery) globally.

Much of what the Saba team gleaned in designing and bringing their new Anywhere offer to market can likely serve as foundational knowledge for the next anticipated step in their evolution towards true mobile learning. They can even re-purpose their adopted product tag line too when that time comes ("...Complete your training anywhere, anytime, regardless of network connectivity.").

CellCast Widget for iPad - The Video!

2010-04-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

I took the opportunity to do a live screen capture of our new CellCast Widget for Apple iPad today to better illustrate the key features and functionality we've included in our first release supporting Apple's revolutionary new tablet device. This presentation, captured using Camtasia for Mac and converted to an MP4/Flash format for easier web viewing, demonstrates a series of the core features that allow our customers and partners to plan, create, deploy and track a variety of learning content and performance support materials to their mobile workforce using the widest array of mobile devices possible.

In the video, we demonstrate how a combination of iPad-compatible M4V videos, MP3 podcasts, animated PowerPoint presentations and other mobile friendly web content are pushed down to a secure learning framework and enriched with tracked assessments, targeted messaging/notifications and mobile-accessible social networking platforms. All user interactions including who/what/when/where/how long are fully tracked and managed in a centralized database which can also be fully integrated with an organization's Learning Management System or Sales Force Automation system as needed.

If you've already got an iPad and you're interested in evaluating the new Widget yourself, please drop me a line at rgadd @ onpointlearning.com and we'll set you up with a demo account to play with all the new features and functionality.

CLICK HERE to launch the demonstration video.

CellCast Widget for iPad Released!

2010-04-03T13:39:00.000-07:00

It's officially iPad Launch Day and we're pleased to announce our CellCast Widget for iPad was included in the inaugural 1,000 applications shipped in support of Apple's revolutionary new tablet computing device. Better yet, we're the only sanctioned iPad application listed whenever a iTunes user searches on "mobile learning" or "m-learning" in the iTune App Store -- a situation that's certainly going to change in the coming days though as others jump on board the new device train.

I just spent the week over in Texas previewing our new iPad application (along with the rest of our CellCast Solution platform) to several different partners, customers and prospects who all anticipate the positive market reaction the iPad will have on the mlearning market. Everyone concurs these iPad devices should slot into the mobile learning device market quite nicely and, as one of the mobile device market analysts stated earlier this week, should only cannibalize market share from Apple's existing iPod touch media player while replacing those sales with higher price/higher margin iPad sales!

If you're lucky enough to already have your new iPad, we invite you to go to the App Store and download a free copy of our Widget and try it out. Send me an email to rgadd @onpointlearning.com and I'll even setup a private account for you and assign several more content examples for you to play around with too.

In my next post, I'll provide a guided video walk through of our iPad application and the many features we're excited about.

Publishing our CellCast Widget for iPad

2010-03-26T17:22:00.000-07:00

The rush has been on this week as our development team worked to design a new version of our CellCast Widget specifically for Apple's upcoming and much anticipated iPad tablet device. And while we've had a CellCast Widget for iPhone and iPod touch devices for about a year a half, the new iPad platform drove some interesting changes and helped us evolve our offering for this next generation mobile learning device.

When Steve Jobs first introduced the iPad back in late January, he stated that existing Apple iPhone apps and games would work fine on the new platform and, generally speaking, he was correct. In fact, we only had to modify a select number of functions and application calls to ensure our standard widget would work on the new devices when they shipped.

However, to really take advantage of some new features and a vastly improved 1024x768 display, we decided a full rewrite was in order so we've spent much of the last 2 weeks re-factoring our original iPhone code base to create a new iPad-specific version of CellCast. Apple provided a strong "call to action" about a week ago with an email to all developers stating we had until Saturday, March 27th to submit our iPad applications -- developed using the latest Xcode v3.2 beta 5 development environment -- and that if things checked out, our application would be included as part of the official iTunes App Store offering for iPad on April 3rd, the official launch day! Keep in mind we're developing something and checking everything using only Apple's simulator (not a real device) so our first chance to see it working for real will also be on/after launch day! We have a high level of confidence it will work/run without issue given Apple's Xcode simulators are very strong and have always been quite representative of the way our apps actually perform in real life.

So, attached below are the first public glimpses of our CellCast Widget for iPad which will hopefully ship next Saturday with the first round of devices to hit the street. We are excited about how our partners and customers will use their new iPad devices to delivery on-the-go training to their enterprise workers too! Thanks to our friends at 50 Lessons and Element K for use of their awesome mobile-friendly content from our CellCast Mobile Library that was included in the demo submission to Apple.

Never a dull day in the world of mobile learning!

Figure 1 (below) - Main Interface with menu block and customer-specific branding

Figure 2 - Assignment Listing on left with selection detail in main area.

Figure 3 - High Resolution M4V video playback of assignment selection.

Figure 4 - Course module (developed in Dreamweaver) with Javascipt interactions.

Figure 5 - Post content assessment using CellCast testing engine.

E-Learning Vendors Attempt to Morph Mobile

2010-02-23T09:00:00.000-08:00

The sign should read:

"Don't touch! Wet Paint!"

I had a good chuckle today after receiving my latest emailed copy of the eLearning Guild's eLearningInsider update. A linked feature story in the update that immediately caught my eye was titled "Best Practices for Creating Mobile Learning Content" and clicking that link shuttled me over to SumTotal's corporate web site where I registered to download their latest mobile-related white paper. Ahh, the anticipation of discovering what "the big boys" are up to felt close at hand. After supplying my details, I was rewarded with the delivery of not so much a white paper as a 3-page pamphlet outlining a few simple (and somewhat helpful) "tips" for someone approaching their first mobile learning effort.

Come on, SumTotal! Calling this effort a white paper is truly a stretch and a marketing ploy that falls far short of its intended mark. In fact, it is a "white paper" only in the sense that it's three total pages include a cover that's mostly white space balanced by a final page with only 7 total lines of text (and some disclaimers/addresses) along with a single page of information sandwiched in-between providing marginal tangible value and including several incorrect statements (e.g., the stated supported video formats for smartphones are simply wrong to anyone who is actually delivering video files to Apple iPhones and Windows Mobile devices). And I'm willing to "put up or shut up" too -- click here to see what a real white paper on mobile learning looks like!

On the positive front, this action proves again that most of the "tier one" LMS vendors are all show and little go when it comes to mobile learning. Having ourselves invested more than 7 years and millions of dollars to design, develop and perfect our own scalable, enterprise-grade solutions for mobile delivery, its amusing on one hand to witness how completley far behind the big guys are on the mlearning front while also disconcerting to see how they continue to provide mis/disinformation to their customers, prospects and the broader market. The "tier ones" may not be good at mlearning (yet), but that doesn't mean mobile isn't already 100% viable and practical if approached correctly using proven tools, methods and vendors.

After many years of building awareness and false starts, 2010 will finally prove to be the year mobile learning gains wide market acceptance and proves its potential to organizations of all sizes. We fully expect each of the Top 20 elearning vendors to start talking up their "don't touch/wet paint" solutions and experiences in mobile to try and keep their customers from selecting mature and viable mobile solutions from those select vendors who have stayed focused on the promise/potential of mobile. For now, I'll sit back and continue to chuckle at whatever the tier ones convince themselves is relevant.

Content Types - Level 6: Rich Media

2010-01-27T10:44:00.000-08:00

Level 6: Rich Media

NOTE: This is part 7 of 7 and the conclusion of this continuing series; please see earlier posts for more background information.

Level 6 is the final stage of the mlearning content model comprising rich-media formats such as podcasts or video, targeted firmly at the smartphone/netbook audience. Content in either of these formats has the ability to engage, convey and capture a mobile user, and therefore the higher the production value the greater the impact the content will have.

Level 6 Content Types

The CellCast Solution supports media-based content in podcast audio and video formats. In both cases, the CellCast Server provides a simplified Content Creation Wizard that assists in uploading and creating needed media-based content. Typically the Content Creation Team will either source the appropriate media file, or create it from scratch using a variety of industry standard tools such as Audacity for podcasts or Apple’s Final Cut Pro for videos. The CellCast Server then automatically processes each uploaded source file using the CellCast Transcoding Engine – an included feature/service that encodes and generates compatible media files for each of the defined mobile devices within an enterprise. This server-based process yields professional-level content conversation results by any content creator. Typical Use Cases for Level 6 include:

Additional Considerations

Level 6 rich media content is probably the most challenging mlearning content format with respect to cost and performance. As the file sizes are typically larger (1MB or more) even when optimized for mobile device playback, the Training team needs to weigh the cost vs. benefit of deploying over their carrier network. If the data package for end users is limited then Levels 1-5 may provide a more cost effective deployment strategy. However, in cases where capacity on your smartphone plan is measured in gigabytes per month, rich media video/audio content are an ideal choice.

Another factor to consider with Level 6 content formats is download performance vs. network availability. If the user does not have access to a 3G or Wi-Fi network, then limiting the video/audio duration and size needs to be a prime consideration when preparing your mlearning rollout strategy.

Finally, with a little foresight and planning, much of the visual, rich media-oriented learning content you plan to produce to meet Level 6 requirements can easily (and automatically) be re-factored for delivery to alternative mobile learning-capable devices, including standard media/MP3 players or Apple iPods® (audio or video), using traditional content delivery methods like real simple syndication/RSS and Apple’s iTunes® application.

Summary – Level 6

Rich media content (videos, podcasts, Flash clips on supported devices) are the most engaging and entertaining form of mobile-friendly content, but each introduces higher levels of content authoring and delivery complexity for any Training team. That said, larger organizations may already have libraries of existing rich media content that can be converted to mobile-friendly content using standard utilities found within the CellCast Server platform. Several popular 3rd party tools are available across every desktop platform to assist authors in capturing and producing high quality media content. Training time for SMEs and administrators varies depending upon their experience and knowledge of media content production and deployment, but averages 2 to 4 days. Finally, the coordination and delivery for Level 6 assignments represent the most complex mlearning scenarios, but these challenges are largely mitigated using standard features found within the CellCast Server platform.

Content Types - Level 5: Courseware

2010-01-26T09:32:00.000-08:00

Level 5: Content and Courseware

NOTE: This is part 6 of 7 in a continuing series; please see earlier posts for more background information.

For most people, Level 5 content is analogous to the more traditional “online learning” or "WBT" courseware – more interactive and lengthy lesson-based or object-based learning. Until recently, this type of content, while easily accessible over the mobile web, was actually one of the most difficult types of learning to try and deploy out to a mobile device. Coupled with the myriad challenges of tiny displays, limited storage, media restrictions, cramped navigation, slow access and spotty security, mini mobile courseware attained second class status when compared to their elearning equivalents. Luckily, the explosion of the smartphone market – driven in part by the overwhelming popularity of next generation devices like the Apple iPhone®, RIM BlackBerry®, Google Android® or Windows Mobile® devices – has resulted in a viable and affordable platform that allows content developers, training departments and learning services companies to begin expanding beyond simple reference documents and page-turner modules into engaging, fully interactive courseware for mobile deployment. The learning experience may feel “smaller” and more intimate, but the ability to package, deliver and track compelling content designed with effective pedagogical structure is truly coming of age when the proper tools, devices and methods are applied to mlearning.

Level 5 Content Types

The CellCast Solution supports the delivery of content and courseware in both Microsoft PowerPoint® and simple as well as complex HTML formats. The ability to effectively produce and publish PowerPoint presentations -- including those with narration and animation -- out to supported mobile devices offers considerable benefits to organizations looking for a rapid content development option, and is particularly advantageous given the current volume of PowerPoint material used in both face-to-face and elearning training. The CellCast Solution facilitates the use of animations, transitions and embedded audio in the presentations which, if used effectively, can deliver a highly engaging learning experience. A typical Use Case for PowerPoint content might include:

The fastest growing market is data access/mobile web, with consumers being able to access the internet via their smartphone device. As with elearning, HTML provides a platform to create content from the simplest of page-turners to a highly interactive learning experience. CellCast allows teams to create very polished, easy to read and navigate HTML modules which can include any manner of static or animated graphics, simple embedded rich media elements and all packaged via CSS-based style sheets for polished formatting. Typical Use Cases include:

Additional Considerations

When using PowerPoint, the author/content publisher must remain cognizant of their mobile audience and should follow a structured design methodology when creating compelling yet mobile-friendly presentations. If a slide presentation is difficult to read on a standard computer monitor, it can certainly prove unreadable when viewed on a smaller mobile screen. We highly recommend that care be taken when including any image, audio, or animation files within a mobile course given different devices handle rich media content in very different ways. Regardless of whether your mobile content is written in HTML, authored in Microsoft PowerPoint, or built in some other mobile authoring package (e.g., Hot Lava Mobile® from OutStart or ToolBook from SumTotal), great care must be taken to optimize all content to reduce file size, thus reducing the time and expense needed to deploy these modules.

Summary – Level 5

The level of time and effort generally increases when planning, designing and creating Level 5 mlearning content and often requires the administrator to have (or learn) new content creation skills and perhaps purchase and learn new tools/applications. The CellCast Server includes functionality for building mobile content using a standard web browser and popular desktop applications like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. Available third party tools can also streamline the mobile content creation process. Training time for SMEs and administrators varies depending upon their experience and how comfortable they are learning new applications for the web, but averages 2 to 3 days. As with Level 4 content outlined in the previous post, the coordination and delivery for all Level 5 assignments requires additional setup time, widget customization, platform integration and other data-related (e.g., access, encryption, security) services.

Content Types - Level 4: Reference

2010-01-25T07:53:00.000-08:00

Level 4: Reference Materials & Static Content

NOTE: This is part 5 of 7 in a continuing series; please see earlier posts for more background information.

Level 4 formats include content typically considered “reference” or supplemental material; it is not specifically learning-oriented, though it often accompanies ILT events or online learning courseware. Reference material is also used to support traditional performance support – allowing a user to identify the appropriate action for a particular set of conditions. Reference and performance-related material can empower an employee to perform tasks with a minimum amount of external intervention or training, and when deployed via a mobile device, in “drip-feed” format, has the potential to significantly increase information retention.

[NOTE: All Level 4 through Level 6 mlearning content types require additional integration and infrastructure to handle the various forms of digital content being managed; review the Advanced CellCast Network Diagram for more information.]

Level 4 Content Types

The CellCast Solution supports the delivery of reference material in a variety of formats, including PDF, Text, and HTML. Typical reference material may already exist in this mode, and therefore the CellCast Solution provides a perfect platform to repurpose that material in a mobile format. Given the mode of delivery and the requirement to use PDF readers, web browsers and text readers, Level 4 content is more suited to a smartphone/netbook than a basic mobile handset. Typical Use Cases include:

Additional Considerations

Level 4 content types represent a cost effective means of distributing mlearning content, as the form factor is more simple (typically a one page document or search-based delivery) and the effort required to create and deploy the content to a mobile device is minimal. This is an ideal format for organizations creating large volumes of content for their employees to access remotely.

In addition to the cost benefits, the low file sizes can reduce the costs to access and download content files, maintain system performance efficiencies, and ensure a positive user experience.

Summary – Level 4

All Level 4 (and above) mlearning content requires a smartphone device or netbook computer and this fact alone adds costs for most organizations, although an accelerated ROI for these existing smartphone and netbook device purchases can easily be realized by doing more with these devices than just accessing email! Much of the Level 4 content is actually easy to prepare (or convert) from existing source materials (e.g., text files, PDF documents, images) and doesn’t require much time or effort. Administrator training to learn to prepare and convert these materials averages 4 to 8 hours. Coordination and delivery for all Level 4 (and above) assignments requires additional setup time, widget customization, platform integration and other data-related (e.g., access, encryption, security) services.

Content Types - Level 3: Voice

2010-01-21T07:16:00.000-08:00

Level 3: Voice-based Content and Assessments

NOTE: This is part 4 of 7 in a continuing series; please see earlier posts for more background information.

Level 3 extends the mobile learning experience by providing users with anytime/anywhere access to audio-based content without needing a smartphone device or standard MP3/iPod-style media player. This makes it possible to deliver just-in-time information, training materials, data collection tools and performance support mechanisms to mobile workers using the tool virtually everyone already has in their pocket or purse – a voice-enabled mobile phone.

Any mobile worker equipped with a cellphone (or even fixed-line telephone) can receive scheduled (“pushed”) audio content from the CellCast Server (their phone rings and they answer the call to hear their most current assignment), or they can initiate a call from their cellphone (“pulled”) to access audio learning assignments and training updates whenever they have time to learn (by placing a call to the CellCast Server directly or through an embedded link found in an email or SMS message). To help measure understanding and knowledge retention, voice-based CellCasts Sessions can include spoken word assessments (e.g., tests, quizzes, surveys), allowing managers and administrators to determine who is merely listening and who is actually learning.

The CellCast Solution platform contains a highly unique set of audio content creation and deployment features not found in any other enterprise learning platform that bridge the previously separate cellular voice network with the Internet data network. This allows organizations to extend the reach of training content typically only accessible via a network-connected computer or data-enabled smartphone to anyone with a phone capable of making and/or receiving a voice call. As shown in Exhibit 1 on the next page, administrators create content from a variety of audio formats including voice recordings, music files and podcasts and then upload them to a secure, hosted CellCast Server where they are packaged and deployed to mobile learners.

Level 3 Content Types

The content options available at Level 3 span from spoken word content to episodic training modules and just-in-time updates, and even include community-generated content created by mobile workers and managers. Level 3 content is also generally fast, easy and economical to produce and deploy, requiring fewer resources without sacrificing impact or quality.

Typical Use Cases for voice-based mLearning content include:

Network Architecture for Voice-based Content

Content creation and access over voice networks, both wired and wireless, is actually quite easy. In fact, as the Use Cases above suggest, this form of content delivery is as simple as someone making or taking a phone call from a colleague or friend. On the other hand, the technical complexities of packaging and delivering that content is a little more involved and requires a seamlessly integrated end-to-end architecture. OnPoint has spent more than 4 years creating and refining a highly specialized digital voice server that handles all in-coming and out-going voice calls and accepts these connections from either the mobile or standard voice networks (view Network Architecture Diagram).

Separate connection points to the global SMS/messaging network as well as integration into an organization's private VOIP voice networks have also been provisioned to allow fast and easy access to all mobile workers across an enterprise. Finally, specialized accounting and billing services ensuring accurate attribution and collection for all related transational services.

Additional Considerations

All voice-based CellCasts require the provisioning of digital (or analog) voice phone circuits used to connect the in-bound caller or outbound server to the mobile learner. The costs for configuring and deploying these phone lines can vary greatly depending on the location (country) and carrier(s) used by an organization.

Summary – Level 3

Because all Level 3 mlearning content is audio-based, extra media production time and effort are required by the administrator and additional tools/applications may need to be purchased and learned before high quality content can be generated. Administrator training time to a level of proficiency is typically 1 to 2 days (depending on experience). Content delivery also requires additional setup time, platform integration and other digital services including dedicated voice circuits to connect callers with the CellCast Server. The incremental costs for these additional services as well as applicable transactional fees (billed by the connected minute) are directly proportional to the number of CellCast calls deployed that are accessed and connected.

Content Types - Level 2: SMS Campaigns

2010-01-20T07:48:00.000-08:00

Level 2: Interactive Messaging

NOTE: This is part 3 of 7 in a continuing series; please see earlier posts for more background information.

Level 2 mLearning content broadens the core messaging capabilities found at Level 1 and enables two-way messaging campaigns to support additional mobile use cases such as mobile testing and surveys, basic data collection and even mobile entertainment.

Standard Level 2 Content Types and Methods

The most common use case for interactive messaging functionality in mlearning is the delivery of mobile surveys and tests via SMS. A two-way campaign can either be launched via a direct call-to-action message (email or SMS) delivered directly to each registered mobile learner, or initiated by any mobile learner sending a predefined keyword to a server using a Common Short Code or Long Code (country and carrier-dependent); think of a Short Code or Long Code as a specialized and approved phone number that’s used as the delivery address for these messages. In either case, once the CellCast Server receives a texted keyword from a registered user account – specifically the user’s phone number as embedded in their SMS message – the interactive message campaign is automatically launched and sends the first question in the series to the recipient. The server then awaits transmission of an expected response from that user which is recorded into the CellCast database when received, and then triggers the delivery of the next question in the series. This process continues until all defined questions have been delivered and responded to. The supported question types for two-way interactive messaging campaigns include True/False, Choice/Single Answer, Likert/Scale, Numeric Response and Short Answer/Essay.

To clarify how the process works, consider the following interactive messaging Use Case:

Additional Considerations

All two-way messaging campaigns require a carrier-approved Long Code or Common Short Code ("CSC") as a fixed/known “address” to send and receive text messages. CSC's can be "rented" from various providers for a fee (transactional use or fixed price) and organizations can lease the own private CSC in the United States for a fee of US$500 to $1,000 per month. Outside the US, different countries/carriers may provide support for either Long Codes or Common Short Codes depending on regulatory requirements. Long Codes tend to be much cheaper and far easier to attain than Common Short Codes.

Once you’ve obtained access to the appropriate Code, every message managed as part of a two-way interaction is fee-based whether it is regarded as Mobile Terminated/MT (server sent to mobile) or Mobile Originated/MO (mobile sent back to server). Associated transactional costs range in price from US$0.025 to US$0.05 depending on the country and the carrier.

Summary – Level 2

Two-way text messages are relatively easy to define, generate, deliver and track, although the administrator needs additional training (4-6 hours) and systems knowledge to learn how to design, assign and track messaging campaigns and assessments. The marginal costs to send these messages are also a bit higher due to the fact that all Level 2 interactions use fee-based SMS messages and each question asked and answered requires two physical messages to be generated and handled inbound and outbound.

Content Types - Level 1: Messages

2010-01-19T09:52:00.000-08:00

Level 1: Alerts and Notifications

NOTE: This is part 2 of 7 in a continuing series; please see earlier posts for more background information.

The simplest form of mlearning content delivery is via one-way/inbound electronic message and there are two popular options available: short message service (also known as “SMS” or “text messages”) and electronic mail (“email”). The majority of all cellphones support SMS, provided the user has a ‘texting plan” from their carrier. Up to 140-character “texts” sent via this method are actually considered “high value” content by the recipient and are normally read/responded to faster than any other form of mobile communiqué. Smartphones with “data plans” also have the ability to send and receive email messages; in fact, mobile email access is the primary business driver and ROI justification for most organizations seeking to provide smartphones to their mobile workforce and executives.

Level 1 Content Types

All the options here are simple yet powerful. The CellCast Solution platform provides the ability to generate and send timely market updates (“Acme’s new Olympus Product will be available for customer delivery on April1st.”) and friendly reminders (“Don’t forget to attend Sales Training Webinar for the new Olympus Product Tues at 2PM.”) directly to mobile learners via their ever-present mobile devices is an obvious use of this functionality by a Training Team but a plethora of other uses are possible as follows:

Triggered Notifications and Reminders

Administrators can define and manage sophisticated notification templates that automatically generate and send personalized SMS or email messages based on pre-defined business rules and conditions. For instance, an SMS can be sent to a mobile learner asking them to confirm their understanding of a current policy or procedure, or reminding them to complete an important assignment (see Figures 1-2 below). If that user’s status is still marked as “not attempted” or “incomplete” the next day, triggered reminders can be automatically generated and sent to the learner until that specific assignment has been marked as “completed”.

Organizational Results and Escalations

An additional benefit of a Trigger-based Notification platform is the ability for the system to generate and send out important status updates to managers, supervisors and other affiliated parties based on predefined business rules. For example, if a manager has twenty direct reports who all need to complete their annual Safety Compliance certifications by the end of the current calendar month, they can likely benefit from an email message outlining which of their subordinates has yet to complete their mandatory training (see Figures 3-4 below).

Scheduled Learning Content (2 Types)

Training teams can plan, schedule and deliver message-based content to mobile learners using the Notification Series feature of the CellCast Solution platform. The two most common uses for this feature are learning reinforcement and serialized content delivery.

Type 1: Learning Reinforcement. According to industry professionals, most people forget as much as 80% of the new concepts/policies they learned while attending an instructor-led training session or completing an online course within 30 days of completing that training. To help keep new concepts fresh and top-of-mind, Training teams can define and manage message-based reinforcements sent out at predetermined time intervals, say every Friday at 2 PM, to a salesperson’s email account or mobile device (see Figures 5-6 below).

Type 2: Serialized Content Delivery. CellCast’s Notification Series feature can be used to package and deliver regularly scheduled message-based learning content as part of a serialized training campaign. Common examples are “Sales Tip of the Day,” “New Product of the Week,” and “English Phrase of the Day” campaigns. In each case, subscribers can opt-in to receive relevant content on their mobile device and messages can be either plain text or can include web links to launch other media-based content as desired (see Figures 7-9).

Additional Considerations

Most Level 1 Alerts and Notification use cases are either very low cost or free. The Notifications feature of the CellCast Solution platform is a standard function. However, when sending SMS messages, a nominal transaction fee of US$0.03-.05 is assessed for each message generated/delivered due to the fact all SMS messages must be sent directly through the carrier or an approved SMS aggregator. There are no transaction fees to send electronic mail messages to any CellCast user, and these messages can contain either plain text or rich media elements as defined by the Training team.

Summary – Level 1

One-way text messages and emails are easy to design, generate and send, requiring minor preparation and less than 30 minutes training for the average administrator. The marginal costs to send these messages are also low–emails are free, and text message delivery carries a nominal transactional fee for each SMS sent both to the originator and the recipient.

mLearning Content Types - Overview & Intro

2010-01-19T09:21:00.000-08:00

To assist regular readers of this site in better understanding what's possible in the mobile learning space, the next seven posts will all be part of a series exploring the various mLearning content types and delivery methods we are seeing in the enterprise space. We hope these posts prove informative as well as instructional and we plan to include illustrative examples to better "tell the story" of what's possible and practical. We'll begin today with the first two posts including an series introduction followed by a exploration of simple message-based content.

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mLearning Content Types & Delivery Modalities- Series Intro

There are three classes of mobile devices – basic cell phones, advanced smartphones, and ultra-portable netbook computers – and these devices vary greatly in the type of content they can receive and display. To better understand the array of content that can be authored and delivered to these three classes of devices, the Mobile Learning Content Delivery Model (Table 1 below) outlines six unique types of mobile-friendly content typically deployed to mobile learners, spanning simple message-based notifications and alerts accessible by anyone at Level 1, to highly engaging on-device or streaming media services only accessible via smartphones and netbooks at Level 6.

As shown in Table 1 below, mlearning content at Levels 1 - 3 works with any mobile phone (basic or smartphone) while mlearning content from Levels 4 - 6 requires a smartphone or netbook device and wired/wireless data service. There are also stark differences in the time, effort and expense required to create and deliver mlearning content at each of these levels (with some interesting surprises too).

Obviously, if your environment has 100% smartphones and/or netbooks, you can feel confident that all content types discussed herein can be supported. However, if your audience includes a mix of device types including basic cellphones, you’ll need to consider what type of content you will be able to deliver for each class of device to be supported. There is no “one size fits all” solution in the mobile content arena.

In the next post, we’ll take a more in-depth look at the six levels to better understand how each contributes to a well-conceived overall mobile delivery strategy.

mLearning Testing Tools & Methods

2010-01-18T09:50:00.000-08:00

As active practitioners and consultants for enterprise mobile learning initiatives, a frequent question we get asked is “What kinds of tools can you recommend to help us test our mLearning content before we release it to our mobile workers?” It is a great high level question and the answer is both complicated and multifaceted as each deployment environment comes with its own unique requirements that inject their own set of delivery complexities. If you’re fortunate enough to have a highly structured and standardized delivery environment where everyone has the same BlackBerry Bold/9000 wireless handheld or your users have two or three different brands of Windows Mobile devices, your testing efforts can prove to be straight forward. But the bigger your audience is, the greater your challenge can become. And this may mean that full and comprehensive testing can take you as long as the content authoring effort itself – at least for simple content!

Building & Testing for a Broad Audience

Depending on the “device diversity” of your environment, you may need to create mLearning content for a wide audience who carry an even broader range of mobile devices ranging from basic feature phones to a selection of today’s hottest smartphone devices; in order to do so, you’re going to need to get your hands dirty too. More to the point, you’ll need to test and verify the functionality, effectiveness and overall user experience of mobile learning content by trying it yourself on real devices under real world conditions whenever possible. And if you want to ensure the best possible experience for every class of mobile learner, you’ll need to build a collection of working mobile devices, simulators/emulators and testing tools to span the potential reach of your target audience. Leave “no stone unturned” by testing the full end-to-end experience from distribution/delivery to installation/loading to access/playback to reporting/analysis. We commonly see teams making assumptions that because something worked fine on one device – even one from the same device OEM – it should work on others and that’s not always the case. These variations are often the result of myriad factors like different processor speeds, available device memory, device OS versions, encryption settings, etc.

From our experience, there’s no 100% substitute for actually using a physical, operational handset to perform all your testing but this method may not be practical and/or affordable for some teams/content developers. On the good news front, the longer you’ve been in the mobile learning field, the more likely you are to have an expanding office drawer full of recently retired but still functional mobile devices; all they generally lack is a SIM card module to activate them on a particular carrier network and anyone with a little skill and patience can quickly get comfortable “swapping cards” from one device to another to perform their structured testing protocol (it’s always a good idea to develop one) for any new mobile learning course they plan to deploy.

Those teams that don’t have full device drawers or enough representative physical devices can also try using available device simulators and emulators which can generally be downloaded (for free!) from the device manufacturer’s support site or other common web locations. The price is right but, remember, the experience will not the exactly the same as the real thing especially where possible concerns about access security, content encryption and download speeds are concerned given simulated phones attached to broadband Internet connections are not a perfect equivalent. After many years of using available simulators and emulators, we’re now comfortable and quite familiar with where they work and where they don’t too; they can certainly be used for most of your initial testing and content verification exercises. Finally, the best simulators/emulators are from the device OEMs themselves including RIM/BlackBerry, Google/Android, Nokia/Symbian and Microsoft/WinMo. If your team is developing native Apple iPhone and iPod touch applications, a fully functional simulator can also be accessed using Apple’s Xcode IDE too. Don’t forget your testing environment may also need to be expanded to include appropriate devices for testing 1-way and 2-way SMS messaging across multiple carriers as well as voice/IVR-delivered services on entry level phones. Finally, it may also be practical to have a few other non-phone mobile devices on hand like a Netbook computer or an Ultra-Mobile Personal Computer (“UMPC”) to test content delivery to alternative mobile devices wherever appropriate.

The image below is of my office desk and it presents several of the devices and tools we keep on-hand to ensure that all mobile content prepared for wide distribution works as intended across the broadest array of smartphones (old and new), basic feature phones, netbook computers, specialized ultra-mobile personal computers (“UMPCs”) and even spanning carriers and wireless delivery methods (GSM vs. CDMA). This picture demonstrates how we use a combination of both virtual and physical devices and we’ve certainly learned from experience that there are minor yet myriad differences between a real and simulated playback experience – in short, the only 100% verification test must be performed under the same target delivery conditions using a physical device across an actual wireless network.

So, what’s in your drawer? My physical mobile devices and virtual tools for testing include:

a. Windows-based RIM BlackBerry Simulators (for all devices & carrier-specific) – we have about 10 of these we use regularly.
b. Mac-based Apple Xcode-based Simulator (for all iPhone & iPod touch device for testing apps)
c. Android G1 and G2 Emulators (for all 1.x, 2.x devices)
d. Windows Mobile Emulator (for WinMo 5, 6 and 7 using VMware Windows partition)
e. Nokia Symbian/S60 Sims (using VMware Windows partition)
f. Windows -based Netbook (for Netbook applet testing); we also have an Android Netbook
g. Sony basic feature phone (for voice and SMS testing on T-Mobile)
h. RIM BlackBerry 9000 smartphone (media support and encryption on ATT)
i. RIM BlackBerry 8703 smartphone (limited media support)
j. Vulcan Flipstart Windows-based UMPC device (1024 x 768 display)
k. RIM BlackBerry Storm2 (full media support and encryption on Verizon)
l. Nokia 5800 smartphone (Symbian 60/v5 testing on ATT)
m. Android G1 smartphone (on T-Mobile)
n. Jitterbug basic feature phone (voice/IVR and SMS testing on MNVO)
o. OQO Windows-based UMPC device (800 x 480 display)
p. Apple iPhone 3G (on ATT)
q. RIM BlackBerry 8310 Curve (no Wi-Fi, no encryption on ATT)
r. RIM BlackBerry 8330 Curve (with Wi-Fi, unlocked for GSM carriers)
s. RIM BlackBerry 7210 phone (very limited media support)
t. RIM BlackBerry 8800 World smartphone (on ATT)

Next time I’ll explore some of the fee-based mobile testing solutions and alternative platforms you can consider instead of investing in all the physical devices and long-term carrier contracts required to replicate our current methods.

Picking the "Right" Smartphone for mLearning

2010-01-10T10:43:00.000-08:00

In our role of assisting customers and partners with planning and deploying successful mobile project projects, one of the key requirements every team wrestles with is where they need to "set the bar" when determining the target mobile devices they'll need to reach and support. If the mobile audience is well defined, say the sales team and everyone has one of two different BlackBerry wireless handhelds configured the same and using the same carrier, your set of challenges is defined and well contained. But if you're planning to support a broader audience where every mobile user picks their own devices for their own personal reasons, your set of challenges grows wide and varied.

The reason is simple: mobile devices -- especially smartphones -- were not created equal (or under the same rules or conditions).

Everyone talks about how smartphones are really "pocket computers" -- and to some extent they are -- but the reality is some of the older mobile devices are not as capable as the vendors lead you to believe. If we employ a computer laptop analogy, some mobile devices still in active service are more akin to an early Osborne 1 luggable portable PC (circa 1981) than they are to a sleek and powerful modern Dell Precision laptop or Apple Macbook Pro.

Generally, older data-enable mobile phones have smaller screens, less storage capacity, slower processors and operate on slower 2G networks. They also probably lack Wi-Fi and have web browsers that make Internet Explorer ver 5.0 seem advanced.

Another set of challenges inherent with enterprise mlearning stems from the fact that teams want to prepare, distribute and track the kinds of compelling, informative and visually interesting content their users want/demand but they also need to ensure the content is still easy to create, distribute and secure when deployed out to the audience. Older, less capable devices generally don't provide the ideal access and playback experience enterprise workers expect. For example, a short 3-minute video sales presentation or marketing update that must to be encrypted and secured when stored on a standard BlackBerry Pearl smartphone can take as long as 45 seconds to unencrypt and launch on that older smartphone versus less than 3 seconds on a newer BlackBerry Bold, Tour or Storm2 device.

A broader challenge is derived from the fact most project teams are new to mobile learning and while experienced and uncomfortable creating, publishing and deploying content in the "e"-learning space, they have limited or no experience performing these same tasks in the "m"-learning space where their many lessons learned don't always transpose well into mobile content planning, authoring and distribution. Moreover, mlearning content that seems to work well on one class of mobile device, say an Apple iPhone 3GS, may not work well or even at all on other popular smartphones like the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8300 -- the most popular device deployed throughout the corporate market to mobile workers.

With the many 100s of smartphone devices out there that seem like they'd work for mlearning delivery, where does someone start in making their selections when drawing their "line in the sand"?   From our experience, we'd offer the following list of "Highly Recommended versus Minimum Recommended" smartphones for mobile learning content access, delivery and security.

“Highly Recommended Devices” include:

Devices:                      Reasons:
Android G1, G2*, Nexus One*   High-res screen, Wi-Fi, media support + encryption
Apple iPhone*, iPod Touch        High-res screen, Wi-Fi, media support + encryption
BlackBerry Bold 9000*, 9700*   High-res screen, Wi-Fi, media support + strong encryption
BlackBerry Storm/Storm2*        Large screens/best BB display, Storm2 preferred with Wi-Fi
BlackBerry Curve 8900*            High-res screen, Wi-Fi, media support + strong encryption
BlackBerry Tour 96xx                 High-res screen, media support but NO Wi-Fi!
BlackBerry Curve 8520              Acceptable display/performance but bottom of the BB devices
Nokia Symbian/S60 Rel 5          High-end Nx, Ex Series devices, good browse + media
Windows Mobile v6.1 or 6.5       High-res screen, Wi-Fi, media support w/ touch UI interface

“Minimum Recommended Devices” include:

Device:                        Reasons:
BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220        Faster processor but small display and no Wi-Fi
BlackBerry Pearl 81xx               Slow processor, tiny screen, no Wi-Fi, slow media playback
BlackBerry Curve 8310-8330    Same as above
BlackBerry World 88xx              Same as above
Palm Pre, Palm Pixi                  Fast, running WebOS, great browsers, Wi-Fi but no Apps
Nokia Symbian S60 Rel 3         Lower end devices but margin media and browser support.
Windows Mobile v5.0 or 6.0      High-res screens but lack of functionality + no touch screens

* = preferred devices for pilots or POCs

If you're interested, I also recommend you check out our Mobile Device Comparison Matrix that helps provide a detailed side-by-side analysis of the more popular mobile devices and what's possible when trying to use them for your mobile learning projects.

As always, your own personal insights and feedback are appreciated.

Media Encoding Tools for Mobile Learning

2010-01-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

My friend and colleague Brent Schlenker posted a Tweet yesterday that both caught my attention and also quickly made the rounds through the SoMe ecosystem which read:

Making Video Encoding Easy and Affordable with Encoding.com http://bit.ly/4TmAWU) This is VERY cool! #mlearning #elearning

The offering cited in the post is for a new cloud-based application/service called Encoding.com from a company of the same name. Their mission, as stated on their corporate web site, is as follows:

"Until we launched Encoding.com in the summer of 2008, video platform operators had two choices: inflexible encoding software or expensive hardware encoding appliances. Now, there's a third and better option — encoding in “the cloud” wrapped within an “on demand, pay as you go” delivery model... Site operators can now focus on content and the user experience while allowing us to ensure that content is available to all users on the most popular Internet and mobile devices."

As a techie actively involved in mlearning content production every day - much of that media-based - I can fully appreciate the benefit this sort of service can offer mlearning content producers and practitioners. In fact, we've spent over 2 years working to develop an efficient way to streamline all of the necessary media conversion processes and business work flows our mobile customers/partners face prepping and deploying content both to the web and out to mobile devices. As anyone who works in an environment where "device diversity" is a challenge (where you've got RIM BlackBerrys, Apple iPhones, Android phones, Windows Mobile, Symbian-based smartphones, netbooks, whatever!), a video format that's ideal for one device is likely not ideal for others in your population, and even older devices from the same company (e.g., RIM) may not play (or prefer) the same encoded media files as their newer siblings.

Brent's post piqued my interest and so I decided to do more than just RT the same news to the same people and see what this new service had to offer. Here's my quick take.

The Pros:

This software-as-a-service application is well conceived and polished. It uses an installed "desktop client" (though PC only) to help you organize your files for conversion and nicely packages, delivers and manages secure file uploads and downloads for your media.
Customers can select/utilize a set of predefined conversion templates that make it easy to "transcode" a master/source file from one format into a variety of different output formats. Or they can change/edit these core templates to meet their own specifications.
Uploaded files are processed and returned back to the producer's desktop computer where they can then be prepared for deployment out to the web or destination mobile devices.
Pricing for the service can be handled via a monthly plan or can also be usage-based.

The Cons:

This sort of cloud-based offering is ideal for single authors but not necessarily great for content creation teams.
The predefined encoding templates don't offer as many options as some of the other higher end offerings. And actions like automatic insertion of DRM information isn't possible and will need to be added manually after the fact if required.
While the output files are nicely delivered back to your computer, most of them will need to be uploaded back into the cloud for distribution to your web site, LMS or mobile devices. Given decent looking videos for mobile devices can run from 1-2MB/minute, producing long form videos in multiple formats will result in lots of content shuttling. In comparison, an enterprise transcoding process (like the one we have integrated into our CellCast Solution platform) will automatically post the output files onto the destination servers and can even streamline your efforts to package your new media files for automatic distribution to all your target mobile devices.
While the pricing options are generally fairly reasonable, the cost of a mid-level to professional media encoding software suite -- which you can also configure to run in your own cloud -- is probably cheaper and can serve a bigger production team.

Bottom line: As an enterprise mlearning platform provider, our requirements differ from those of most T&D teams just starting to get their feet wet in the mobile space. However, I do think this is an innovative and novel approach for encoding media files. And as mobile devices get more capable, the appetite of your mobile learners for compelling content that's professionally encoded for their devices will surely increase. And thanks to Brent for bringing it to my attention too!

A Big Week for Smartphones

2010-01-06T14:31:00.000-08:00

Everyone involved in mlearning -- from the learners themselves to the good folks designing and creating the content -- is set to benefit from the flood of positive news and announcements this week coming from both device OEMs and the wireless carriers.

The net result: faster, cheaper and more capable devices as more easily adopted by mobile learners and enterprise workers and, when so equipped, they will help drive demand for more and better mobile learning.

Here are a few of the key announcements this week and my take on the overall impact we might expect:

Google's Nexus One Device Smartphone Announced. The Android movement takes another ~~step~~ leap! down the path with the introduction of a top shelf smartphone designed by and sold direct to market (at US$529 unlocked). Yes, you can still get a carrier subsidized device if you want (T-Mobile offers it now with Verizon and Vodafone slated to come onboard this Spring), but these mobile powerhouses are designed to work with any carrier network and boast an impressive array of features including a super fast 1GHz processor, the best display yet on a phone (480x800), and voice-enabled access to virtually ever device feature (including email, twitter, etc.). Running Android v2.1 (no cute baked good name this time around like "Cupcake" or "Donut" or "Eclarie" this time), these new devices will soon sport the new Adobe 10.1 Flash Player as well adding another viable mlearning content type to the mix for these well-equipped learners. If you want to read a nice summary about the device, here's a link to a Tim O'Reilly posting I received today (courtesy of Tom Stone over at ElementK) that highlights the cool features and compares/contrasts the latest round of Android versus iPhone.
AT&T Adds Android & WebOS Devices. AT&T is set to expand their smartphone stable by announcing the coming availability of new Android and Palm WebOS-based devices later this Spring. In the case of Android, they are planning to release devices from Motorola, HTC and Dell (rolling out their first non-Chinese smartphone). We can only assume the Palm devices will be the Pre and Pixi or some as yet unannounced varient. With these additions in place, "Ma Bell" will now have support for virtually every major smartphone device under one roof and key enterprise accounts may start to move to diversify their mobile device portfolios meaning the days of "BlackBerry Only" for mobile workers is nigh.
Apple's Tablet Emminent Debut. Finally, many of us sit in rapt anticipation for Apple's upcomg iSlate/Tablet announcement later this month, rumored to not only have built-in Wi-Fi but possibily having wireless data capabilities too. Several vendors at this week's CES in Las Vegas have already announced or previewed their own tablet offerings and virtually any of these devices will prove compelling mobile learning platforms in the right environments.

Given we're only six days into the New Year and new decade, I think we're about to reach a Tipping Point (thanks Malcolm Gladwell) in the enterprise mlearning space as highly capable, affordable and compelling hardware running on virtually any network gets combined with heightened levels of market demand, learner interest along with a proven set of flexible and capable authoring tools and platforms. And after 6+ years of playing in the space, I'm pleased to finally witness the sea change too.

mLearning Presentations using Google Docs

2010-01-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

A RT from Tim Martin at the Elearning Guild brought my attention to a blog posting by Wesley Fryer at Stormchasers about his use of Google Presentation -- part of the free cloud-based Google Docs service -- as a means of distributing mobile learning content to his ecosystem. Having used Google Docs for various business purposes in the past, I thought I'd give this use case another look and confirm for myself what others seemed so interesting in retweeting to the rest of the #mlearning followers. The tweet I reviewed follows below:

Google Presentations are Mobile Phone Ready http://bit.ly/5LdsiS

Indeed, Google's free presentation package does make it easy to produce and deploy a simple interactive presentation to mobile workers but there are several drawbacks to anyone considering using this functionality to send content out to enterprise mobile learners. My quick experience and observations are as follows:

The Pros:

Google Docs Presentations are easy to create and the most basic presentations can be created and deployed in a matter of minutes (provided you have a Google account -- and who doesn't these days!). Once you've defined your slides, you can publish and distribute to your audience -- both to online users as well as (select) mobile users -- by simply distributing the URL for your presentation.
Playback of the content and rending of the images works perfectly fine.
After completing a presentation, mobile users have the option of going back into Google Docs for further collaboration options as well.

The Cons:

Google Doc presentations are limited to a select number of features and content types. In general, you can create slides with text and simple images but there's no support for any sort of animations, transitions or slide builds (popular in enterprise mlearning).
Google Doc presentations can't include any sort of embedded media files though embedded links are supported. But until HTML5 gets out there and grows popular, linking people to rich media files and expecting acceptable cross-device performance is not a reality.
You can't include any tests or quizzes after the mlearner completes the content as is preferred for most mlearning assignments.
There's no tracking of who accessed the content and when.
And, while Google Docs presentations work well on an iPhone or Android-based device, playback on virtually any BlackBerry - the current market leader for most enterprise mlearning deployments - WinMo or Symbian-based smartphone is not a workable experience at all. [NOTE: While I didn't test it on a Palm Pre, I'd expect it works better there (similar to an Android device)].

If you'd like to view the simple, sample presentation I created on your own mobile device, click or send yourself the following URL:

http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dghmntmx_1c52g9tcd&autoStart=true

My "Top Ten List" for Mobile Learning News in 2009

2010-01-03T09:06:00.000-08:00

I was recently asked by one of our strategic partners to offer my "Top Ten List" of the most significant events (e.g., new stories, technical advances, market trends) that shaped the "mlearning marketplace" in 2009. It was actually a great question and I enjoyed pondering and preparing my responses to that question (as offered below). Given the constant and oftentimes harsh distractions 2009 dealt us all in terms of budget cuts, canceled/postponed projects, long decision cycles, there was actually a lot of positive news and both technical and market innovations to make 2009 an outstanding year in the maturity of mobile learning. IMO, many things happened in '09 that position us all to start benefiting more from the promise and potential of mobile learning as a way to really drive organizational performance, improve operational readiness, and simply make anytime/anywhere learning more interesting, practical and affordable too.

So, in no particular order of importance, here's my "Top Ten List" of mlearning highlights and milestones and look forward to seeing other lists and sharing comments.

1. Market Activity/Consolidations. RIM bought Chalk for their mobile Chalkboard offering. This certainly helped establish a strong market value for platform-based mobile learning solutions and generated market interest/demand for all mlearning vendors. In my opinion, this was the biggest news of 2009 for everyone involved in the enterprise mlearning space. In addition, longtime mobile learning tool provider Hot Lava Software was purchased by LCMS platform provider Outstart and interest in their combined offerings was well received. As they say, the rising tide lifts all ships.

2. Market Activity/Consolidations #2. Blackboard enters mlearning market by purchasing Terriblyclever Design, LLC, makers of MobilEdu(TM), for around $4M. The 2-year old company had modest sales but a growing collection of interesting higher-ed customers (including Stanford U, Texas A&M and Duke) and since the acquisition 6 months ago, has come to market with a new consolidated offering (called Blackboard Mobile) which is now one of centerpieces of Blackboard’s overall solution offering (and currently occupying the main screen on Blackboard’s corporate web site). Blackboard also just introduced a BlackBerry application to work alongside their current Apple iPhone offerings. IMO, the price and focus paid by an established LMS platform vendor are significant.

3. Cheap but Capable Devices. An Apple iPhone 3G can now be purchased new for US$99 (plus data plan of course) – this sets the price bar at an approachable level for virtually anyone who wants a smartphone and other vendors must cover Apple's bet here too. Virtually all of top-shelf models from Apple, RIM, Motorola, HTC, Palm and others (save Nokia here in the USA) are available (subsidized via a 2-year plan) for around US$200. While market research may indicate otherwise (see #4 below), I believe the rate of smartphone adoption for enterprise mobile learners is growing much faster than the smartphone market in general.

4. Compelling Market Research. A recent Gartner Group report highlighted mobile device trends and included some compelling news on Android’s 3-year growth projections wherein Android will start to gain on Apple while also taking market share away from current leaders Nokia and RIM. These trends will help ensure a very complex and hybrid device ecosystem will emerge within the enterprise mlearning market that will have an effect on mlearning content creation and delivery. In short, the landscape is getting more complex, not less complex and true mobile learning solutions will need to help mitigate all these factors. Add in the recent Morgan Stanley analysis on the growth of the mobile Internet and all the right trends seem to be lining up!

In a related matter, the release of some many different Android-based phones this quarter will change the device landscape starting in 1H 2010; the early indicator is the fact that Motorola has now sold 1M Droid devices in less than 6 weeks into the USA market where iPhones and BBs and WinMos already abound. To throw some perspective in, analysts estimate that Apple will sell around 10M new iPhones this quarter (after delivering 7M in Q3); both are significant in their own right.

5. Flash Support Arrives for Mobile. The announcement of the coming availability of Adobe's Flash Player v10.1 supporting all most major device platforms (save Apple iPhone) will provide improved ways to create and deliver mlearning content to advanced smartphones. That said, I still don’t believe this is the panacea many others think it is as Flash content will only work WELL on a select number of higher end phones and offers limited support for interactivity on most devices (e.g., all BlackBerrys except the Storm/Storm2 series devices probably can’t use their pointing devices to accomplish complex interactions).

6. Pricing for Smartphone Data Plans Decrease . The monthly price people need to pay for their data plans and messaging plans here in the USA and Canada is failing and "all you can eat" plans are becoming more popular (how truly American - we're gluttons at both the buffet and while communicating aren't we!). More people with data-enabled devices will drive demand.

7. Mobile Meets Social & They Fall In Love. The marriage of social tools and mobile devices is getting better and better; this trend is accelerating and will drive demand for a new class of mobile learning tools and applications/platform extensions. Our company sees user-generated content as a true business driver beginning in Q1 2010 and this will make the mobile learning application suite “sticky” and help drive mobile learners to use their devices more and more resulting in a situation where they’ll be more inclined to consume content they’ve been assigned by their managers or generate by their peers (or customers or partners).

8. Mobile Starts to Make (Mean) Money. Technologies like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (and the companies behind them) are starting to really explode and make $$$ for the first time. And a key trend for 2010 seems to be enterprise-aware social networking tools. SMS in general is still gaining tremendous traction; as an example, I’ve recently started hearing and seeing adds on TV or the radio where the “call to action” isn’t “go to www.acme.com to learn more” but is now presented as “Text ‘tellmemore’ to 77777 to sign up for more information about XXX!”.

More to the point here, our company finally started bidding, winning and delivering projects in the mobile learning space that generated the same or higher contributions (revenues/profits) as similarly sized online/desktop elearning engagements. Real customers prove there's finally a market for mlearning platforms and tools, custom content development and related value added services. This fact will drive other previously passive/sidelined vendors into the "mobile pool" as they look for ways to stem the tide and stop losing deals to next generation competitors who can already deliver on mobile learning's promise.

9. Increased Levels of Interest from Learning Industry Colleagues. Judy Brown’s (mlearnopedia.com) first 7:15 AM "Mobile Learning Breakfast Byte" session at last year's DevLearn Conference in San Jose, CA was attended by 60+ people this year – that’s up 52 people from 3 years ago the first time I went to DevLearn. The 2009 DevLearn event also had a widest variety of mobile learning sessions and speakers of any general audience learning conference to date indicating the trends towards not only understanding but adoption are accelerating.

10. More mLearning Books are Being Published. Several books on or covering Mobile Learning are all due out in Spring 2010 including commissioned efforts from Gary Woodill (Brandon Hall), Clark Quinn (Quinnovation) and Jeanne Meister (New Learning Playbook) and we're hoping to contribute something to all of these (e.g., case studies, insights). OnPoint also co-wrote a chapter for the upcoming ASTD book on new technologies on the ROI of mobile learning solutions. If the publishers are preparing now for the next year, the trend is growing for sure.

Looking forward to comments and reading other Top Ten lists too!

My mLearning Predictions for 2010

2010-01-02T09:11:00.000-08:00

After many years of sitting on the sidelines and reading the postings of others, I've decided to enter 2010 with this new mLearning Trends blog where I can post my own scattered thoughts and musing about all things "mobile learning" and begin sharing my own experiences in the design, development, deployment and support of mlearning solutions for the enterprise. While I'm quite familiar with where mobile has come in the educational space, and our experiences have some nice overlap, the reality is our "world view" is very focused on how businesses seek to leverage mobile technologies to educate, inform and connect their workers, partners and extended business ecosystems. In short, we think about what managers and management need to do, not what teachers and administrators are trying to accomplish. So, these pages and all future posts will likely stay in that vein.

After 6+ years of experience working on more than 100 different projects, pilots and proof-of-concept efforts in the mlearning space, we've got insights aplenty to offer here and I'm convinced the benefits to sharing these experiences will easily be reciprocated through a continuing and open exchange of ideas, tips and strategies for all. I'll start things off by offerings my own list of mobile learning-related predictions for 2010. As we reflect on the "ups & downs" of the year just passed and catch our breath before beginning anew, some interesting trends seem to await us in this New Year and their immediate and lasting affects are likely soon to be realized.

By virtually anyone's take, 2009 was a challenging year for all and especially so wherever new technologies and IT budgets/spending were concerned. And mobile learning is still in its infancy where both mass market acceptance and adoption are concerned. After years of false starts and miscues, market acceptance for enterprise mobile learning in 2009 was largely stymied through slashed corporate spending and canceled next generation (or hopefully just postponed) projects. Thankfully, our company experienced an uptake in interest during the 4th quarter that actually led to several forward-looking companies deciding that waiting on the sidelines for a full year might prove a strategic blunder when preparing to catch the first waves that will front the anticipated market recovery we're all hopeful for.

Moreover, cross-market trends in mobile applications, content, devices, web access and general awareness are now unstoppable and every organization must now move beyond the "pondering stage" and into the "action stage".

Knock, Knock!!
Who's there?
Mobile.
Mobile Who?
MOBILE EVERYTHING!!

So, where to start with this year's predictions? As with all things tech-related, we can anticipate several important events and introductions that will shape the next 12 months and consider them self-evident and thus there's no need to list them including strong technical advances from all of the top mobile device OEMs which will all spur innovation, broaden reach and ensure continued market adoption for mobile learning. We can all expect advances in next generation devices and capabilities from Apple, Google/Android, RIM/BlackBerry, Microsoft, Palm, Nokia and others. It is also easy to anticipate that informal/self-service learning will begin to trump formal/assigned learning in terms of "monthly seat time" as mobile learning begins to facilitate learning and contributing anywhere at any time.

So, without further ado and in no particular order, I offer my early January predictions for mlearning in 2010. It will be interesting to see what transpires over the coming months and where things stand at year end. I'm also very interested in hearing any reactions as well as any and all contrarian opinions the blogosphere has to offer.

Traditional "e"-learning vendors will all jump into the "m"-learning and social networking spaces with "first generation" offerings they believe will address the mobile requirements of their customers and prospects; these early efforts will prove largely ineffective as evidenced by their many iterative and incremental updates, retrys and course corrections.
Rather than getting easier, the mlearning landscape will actually grow wider/deeper and far more complex as enterprises are forced to include/support several disparate mobile devices and changing end user demands; this scenario will drive further demand for enterprise-grade content authoring and delivery platforms for mobile learning.
Mobile learning will meld with social networking on every learner's mobile device making the two technologies a fully integrated experience; support for these two technologies will be an essential part of every mlearning vendor's core offerings.
Tablet-based content delivery of mlearning will win our "hearts & minds" over netbook-based content delivery thanks largely to the arrival of Apple's much rumored "iSlate" tablet offering. Others vendors will quickly follow/respond.
The acceptance and adoption of "cloud computing" resources for mobile learning will become commonplace as IT budgets remain strained and the complexity of mobile authoring and delivery continues to increase - especially in larger, more complex environments.
Mobile learners will begin to expect (and demand!) the ability to seamlessly manage and synchronize assignment access, delivery, review and completion between their desktop PC and their mobile device(s).
Mobile learning projects delivered in established and emerging global markets will outnumber those delivered in North America (USA/Canada) due to greater interest, faster uptake and willingness to leverage mlearning on both basic feature phones as well as advanced smartphones.
In the smartphone realm, mobile web-delivered content will prove to be a less compelling mlearning experience as compared to mobile application-delivered content (at least through 2010).
Security will become a MUCH bigger issue for mlearning deployments and all vendors will need to step up their game to ensure content/IP protection and integrity while making access easier.
The arrival of Adobe's Flash Player v10.1 for (most) smartphones will prove far less significant of an event due to the fact content navigation and onscreen interactions will prove difficult on most of the currently deployed enterprise smartphones. For instance, completing a "drag and drop" exercise originally designed for desktop delivery on a BlackBerry Curve/8310 will prove impossible.
By year end, HTML5 will make rich media playback on mobile devices more practical and compelling too making Flash-based content on mobile less of a need.
The first several "sizable" enterprise mlearning projects using Apple iPhones and Android-based smartphones will be delivered into the marketplace as mitigated security concerns make way for a superior on-device experience versus today's standard corporate-centric BlackBerry, WinMo and Symbian (Nokia) interfaces.
Augmented reality applications for mobile learning will begin to appear but because solution development is expensive, technically challenging, and device dependent, AR will capture more headlines than actual budgets.

So, that's my 2010 Predictions list and inaugural posting for the mLearning Trends blog. I am looking forward to seeing how it all plays out and excited about sharing the coming weeks and months with others in active discussion and creative deconstruction.

Happy New Year to all.