Last week The eLearning Guild hosted mLearnCon 2011 in San Jose, California. This annual conference is the premier event for professionals interested in the field of mobile learning. From strategy to design to technology considerations, this conference covered it all.
Attendees and presenters shared knowledge and skills related to the increasing usage of mobile devices for learning and performance. It was the type of conference that every learning professional would find value in attending.
But what about non-attendees?
The backchannel
Thankfully, mLearnCon continued the growing trend in which conference attendees also share their learning via Twitter, a practice that many call “the backchannel.” This sharing of conference learning via Twitter is not limited to conference attendees; non-attendees can benefit from the backchannel as well.
It is from this from this unique perspective that I share my learning from the mLearnCon conference. Scheduling conflicts prevented me from attending the conference in person, yet I was able to learn a great deal by following the stream of tweets shared through the conference backchannel.
What I learned from the keynotes – through the backchannel
Here are some of the key learning points shared through the backchannel from the keynote sessions
A Strategy to Apply Mobile – and Social – to Learning (Jeremiah Owyang Keynote)
(Slide presentation is available here)
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While Mobile Internet usage is exploding, it’s also amorphous, lacking the shared user experience of Desktop Internet.
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The way people use the Mobile Internet varies, but all those ways share one thing: the commonality of sending and receiving information and learning-on-the-go.
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There are five organizational frameworks in general use: Decentralized, Centralized, Hub-and-Spoke, Multiple Hub-and-Spoke (or Dandelion), and Holistic.
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Jeremiah Owyang shared a new framework for Mobile and Social Learning – The Honeycomb – consisting of six parts:
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Who Creates?
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Who Learns?
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What’s the Curriculum?
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When Does It Take Place?
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Where Does It Take Place?
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How Is It Consumed?
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Power Learning … On the Move (Amber MacArthur Keynote)
(Slide presentation is available here)
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The State of the Mobile Learning: 51% of companies plan to do more mobile learning in 2011, compared to 38.5% in 2007
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Mobile Learning is seeing early success stories, such as:
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Teaching babies sign language – mysmarthands.com
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Reverse Schooling for Teens – Science Cast
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Tablet Meetings for Business – Idea Flight
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Mobile Trends for Learning (and beyond)
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Augmented Reality – Word Lens
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Gamification – Scvngr
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Location-based Services: Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook Places
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Crowdsourcing Q&A: Quora
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Automated Storytelling: Qwiki
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MLearning Insights: Challenges & Solutions (Closing Panel Discussion)
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Desire and pleasure both help memory, but desire goes further.
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Create an emotional connection with learners. When it comes to ability to recall, emotion trumps facts.
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Be conscious of the environment you are designing for. Angry Birds was designed for small screen. It isn’t the same game with a mouse.
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If you violate expectations, the brain is more engaged.
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Memory rests at the layer of expertise.
Taking the pulse of mobile learning
Through the backchannel, you could get a feel for many of the running themes of the conference. Mobile technology is no longer a “coming” technology that will impact learning. It’s here today, and many organizations are already leveraging it.
Also apparent was evidence that mobile learning isn’t about transferring content to a smaller screen size. It’s more about using the technology in ways to assist the learner in real time and at the time of their need. Designing for mobile requires a different mindset than what traditional instructional design offers.
With over 2,500 tweets in three days, there was a great deal of learning shared via the mLearnCon conference backchannel. When scheduling or budget prevents you from attending a conference in person, you can often learn a great deal simply by following the conference’s backchannel.
