“Why do I have to sit through this eight-hour training? Why can’t they just give me a ten-minute video tutorial on how to use the new CRM system?”
How many times do you think your employees have felt this way about your organization’s learning programs? How many times have they sat through hours of classroom training or spent hours consuming content in your e-learning programs, only to appear not to have grasped the key message, or retained even 50% of what they were exposed to? There is no doubt that it is frustrating for both learner and trainer when a learning program doesn’t achieve the desired results.
We discussed how you can use microlearning to battle learner inattention in a previous blog post. But now let’s look at how you can use microlearning together with mobile learning to make an even bigger impact on your learners.
Microlearning is not a new concept. In a paper published in the Academy of Management Learning & Education back in 2008, Armstrong and Smith highlighted the value of providing “the type of management training where learning is distributed at the time of need, embedded in a work context, and delivered in rapid bite-sized pieces, which aim to meet participants’ needs in terms of depth of information coverage, timeliness of delivery and job relatedness.”
Today, many organizations have recognized the effectiveness of microlearning as a successful tool of learning and development programs. The current buzzword for this concept is ‘snackable content’, where learners can ‘snack’ on manageable, bite-sized chunks of knowledge and information.
Learners of today don’t only want content that is ‘snackable’, but content that is also mobile. The increasing number of millennials in the modern workforce has definitely contributed to the demand for mobile learning. With increasingly more people having access to numerous mobile devices, it only makes sense that they will expect mobile solutions to make daily tasks simpler and more convenient.
Mobile learning is not a complicated concept. Very simply put, it is learning on the go. It allows learners to decide how, when, where and at what pace they want to learn. It truly embodies the idea of anytime, anywhere learning — two of the key benefits of choosing e-learning over traditional classroom learning.
Mobile learning and microlearning support and complement each other in many ways. In most cases, microlearning is better accessed on mobile devices. And the increase in mobile learning adoption makes microlearning an extremely viable training strategy.
Today’s learners are always busy and they have limited time to access your training material. You need to teach them, and they want to learn. But they want to learn as and when they need to. If you have a one-hour how-to video, the chances are that they will never make it past the first ten minutes. But if you break it into 10-minute segments, with each segment focusing on a singular learning objective, it is more likely that they will consume the content on their mobile devices when it is convenient to them.
Need more convincing? Let’s look at some of the ways a strategy of mobile based microlearning can help your corporate learning program.
Improve learner retention and understanding — microlearning training modules are short and designed to achieve a specific learning objective. It is highly unlikely that you would lose your audience halfway through such a focused module. With content being simplified and easier to digest, learners will acquire knowledge faster and retain it for longer.
Increase the rate of module completion — the shorter the module, the more likely that learners will complete them in one go. Since it is available on a mobile device, they can access it anytime and anywhere, making it easier to fit into their busy schedules.
Personalize the learning experience — you can deliver training according to a learner’s individual needs, instead of using a one size-fits-all-approach. A personalized and targeted approach leads to a more successful learning experience.
If you are convinced about the benefits of mobile microlearning to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your e-learning initiatives, get in touch with us at contact@getlayup.com or visit us at www.getlayup.com to learn how we can help you.
