Mobile Learning: What is it and what does it mean for health education?

By Clare Newlands and Diana Parks

Clare Newlands and Diana Parks are Instructional Designers on MedIT’s Educational Technology Team. They, along with the rest of Educational Technology’s instructional designers, work with faculty, staff, and students to help improve or develop learning experiences.

Much of the work that we do in Educational Technology when considering a learning solution is ask “what’s out there?” When the Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD) Social Learning Expo came to Vancouver, our team felt that it was a great opportunity to do just that and find out more about “mobile learning” (which can feel a bit like a buzz-word).

First, what is mobile learning? Mobile learning sometimes means “tapping” rather than “clicking”, but really it’s more than that. It comes down to the types of devices that learners are using in the moment that they need information.

For example, say I wish to change a flat tire. With a mobile device I have the ability to take the learning along with me. In the moment that I need to, I can have my tablet right next to me as I begin to remove the flat tire. There are a few factors in this mobile “Changing a Flat Tire” course that are going to make it useful for me at the side of the highway. This course should:

1. Be a video, or at least rely heavily on images rather than text. It would be difficult to change a tire using this course if there were no visuals.
2. Be short. Although it is difficult to know exactly how short it should be, we can agree that 25 minutes is too long. Streaming a 25 minute video on a mobile device is not practical. This changing the tire course should provide brief tips or steps useful for this task and get to the point.
3. Provide mobile learners with options. For those who want to get through the tire changing steps, there should be an easy way to do this. Though perhaps the theory or history of a tire is nice to have for some, include a “learn more” link in this course for tire enthusiasts!

What this example illustrates is that creating learning that is mobile friendly is not a simple case of just making your current content available via mobile. What most organizations need to decide is whether to design specifically for mobile, which, in some cases may mean developing two versions of one course or learning artefact.

Designing for mobile adopts a different set of design principles to desktop design. Learning material must be appropriate for mobile devices, for example bigger buttons to tap. The sizing and scaling of content is different on a mobile device, content needs to be short and to the point.  If you need to get through lots of learning content, the strategy could be to create a few short videos or interactions.

The Educational Technology team is interested in mobile learning because in medical programs there is a definite shift in how students are interacting with learning content, and the devices they are using to access learning content. Undergraduate students in Year 3 and 4 and post-graduate residents report that they are using mainly mobile devices, smartphones and tablets, to access the learning materials they need while on placements. So we went to the CSTD Social Learning Expo tasked with finding the answers to questions about mobile learning. Here are the recommendations that we came away with:

1. Developing for mobile requires a mobile strategy. It is important to determine which platforms and/or devices need accommodating, bearing in mind that it is not easy to develop some types of mobile learning in conjunction with other kinds of eLearning.
2. Determine if mobile is right for the audience by defining the goal and purpose of selecting mobile as a mode of delivery. Also, ideally mobile strategies and eLearning strategies should be similar, or better yet, the same: engaging, brief and powerful. You can’t go wrong having engaging, brief and powerful learning whether it’s for mobile or not.
3. Create and test mobile learning on all supported mobile devices. This step must be built into the development process because bring your own device-type strategies tend to “complicate” things. Extensive testing is a must.

While it is important to consider using mobile learning options to meet changing learner needs, the CTSD Social Learning Expo reinforced that it is also important to align mobile and eLearning initiatives. With careful planning and adhering to mobile design principles, you can maximize the flexibility of eLearning that is developed with mobile in mind.

If you are interested in mobile learning for your Faculty of Medicine programming, please contact the MedIT Service Desk (1.877.266.0666) to get started.