m-Learning: a cautionary tale

Regular readers of this blog will notice how I bang on quite a bit about technology for learning. How it's just an enabler…how it's not an end in itself… how you need to keep the learner at the centre of the process…all that good stuff. Well this is the story of what happens when you don't follow your own advice.

On a sunny autumn day last year I decided that it would be an excellent idea to introduce Video Arts m-learning to the market. So off we went. We conducted some market research to see what it should look like. Our thorough investigations taught us that there is fantastic opportunity to reach more learners in more places with m-learning: 71% of learners think it's convenient to access and 56% are likely to access it outside of the office (source KPMG employee research 2011).

However, despite being a popular concept we soon discovered that m-learning is arguably under-utilised: only 8% of L&D professionals currently use m-learning as part of their training toolbox (source Video Arts L&D survey 2010).  So, why the low adoption rate? After further conversations with L&D people we identified three barriers that were preventing organisations from adopting m-learning. The problem was that the existing solutions:

1. Lacked relevant and engaging content. Existing platforms focused on text-based content and had a very narrow breadth of subject areas - typically compliance-related training.
2. Ported content across from e-learning, which wasn't designed for a learner on-the-move. In other words it was too long, too linear and involved too many fiddly interactions.
3. Was not designed for a small screen device. For example, learning navigation designed for a laptop screen was not easy to use on a BlackBerry or touchscreen device.

So, we set about designing a solution that would address these key points. We built a prototype, tested it to destruction, and, back in June, we proudly launched a solution that we genuinely believe will change how L&D professionals think about m-learning.

Marvellous job. Jolly well done us. Full stop.

Hmm…yes, well it should have been. Except then I got to thinking about all the things we could do with this brilliant technology. "Just imagine," I said, "that instead of assuming that the learners had limited face-time with their mobiles"… (which they do by the way!) …"we create a really intense, in-depth piece of learning that really makes the most of the technological functionality. It could have loads of interactions and multiple choice questions, downloadable PDFs and a lot more content. By jove - it could probably include a satellite navigation function if we wanted". 

So we set about scoping out Video Arts m-learning 2! It was going to be bigger, better, more shiny then anything that had gone before!! And then I had an epiphany: probably a bit like the one that George Lucas must have had after he made the Star Wars prequels. I'd fallen into an obvious learning technology trap: the one where you get so carried away with thinking what you could do, you momentarily lose sight of what you should do. So I pulled the project and, as a result, our clients were saved from a learning interaction that would have been too long, too linear, and included too many fiddly interactions.

I know I'm not the first L&D person to do this. There are plenty of e-learning and m-learning solutions that actually get to launch in this state so I guess I shouldn't feel too bad; but I should have known better. Fortunately, we've still got our original m-learning solution which we're really proud of. But, I wanted to share this cautionary tale with you in the hope that no-one else gets tempted by the dark-side of technology in the same way as I, nearly, did. Sure let's think the unthinkable but let's not eff the ineffable…unless you're really sure you want to.