CHALLENGES
OF MOBILE LEARNING
Despite the numerous benefits
mobile learning can bring to your company, there are certain challenges
companies are faced with. This kind of training can give your company a
competitive edge, but only when you overcome these challenges:
1. Data Security
As more and more
businesses depend on policies, mobile connections increase their exposure to
security threats. The risk of potential breaches of corporate networks is
holding many business owners from implementing mobile learning.
Before starting a mobile
training course, your organization needs to address the security challenges
associated with all mobile traffic. With proper controls implemented, your
employees can use their mobile devices safely to access business and training
resources. Developing a security plan to keep your We are updating our Privacy
Policy, so please make sure you take a minute to review it.
2. Content
Issues
Training materials
created for the classroom rarely work well for mobile learning. File sizes and
formats that computers and laptops easily manage often lead to performance
problems for mobile devices. The challenge of creating and adapting content for
mobile consumption can delay or disrupt your mobile learning program.
Maintaining multiple
training formats might require multiple versions of your content, causing
confusion for everyone involved. Also, developing content that is specifically
suited for mobile will require a financial investment which is the next
challenge on the list.
3. Budget Constraints
As mentioned above, to
implement a successful mobile learning strategy, you will need to invest in the
creation of learning material suitable for mobile devices. Your company might
not have enough money to acquire needed resources and migrate your old training
programs. Also, integrating mobile training into your current business model
can result in unanticipated expenses and a loss of productivity.
Despite the cost, mobile
learning can improve employee retention and engagement, resulting in substantial
returns on your company’s investment. Nevertheless, you should evaluate whether
your company has a high need for implementing mobile learning before you make
any decisions.
4. No Evidence Of Impact
Justifying the expense of
your mobile learning program can prove difficult. Effectively integrating the
new tactics and technology associated with mobile learning can challenge the
capabilities of your organization and offset immediate returns on investment.
Furthermore, many of the organizations that use mobile learning have no formal
system for measuring results.
However, in the future,
experience, widespread adoption, and time will lead to the development of the
metrics and analytical tools needed to track the profitability of mobile
learning programs.
Designing
learning materials for mobile devices
Whether we’re talking
about creating mobile courses and learning materials from scratch or adapting
the already available ones to the restrictions of mobile design, educators have
their hands full. They need to keep in mind that any learning materials they
create have to conform to different standards, render well on different screen
sizes and be compatible with different operating systems.
Preventing
security and privacy issues
All the mobile devices
within a school inevitably access sensitive data: personal data of students,
their parents, academic results and plans, professional data about the faculty
body and even managerial information. This data must be protected, no matter
the device used to access it. A secured LMS (https://www.neolms.com/) can
prevent many unwanted online safety issues through automatic backups, password
protection, whitelisted websites, strong settings of different access levels
for users, and so on.
Dealing
with connectivity and battery life
Education technology may
advance at a rapid pace, but the Internet infrastructure in many educational
institutions often gets overwhelmed when accessed by so many devices at the
same time. That’s why school management needs to ensure its capacity is updated.
What’s more, they have to develop a plan B for any user that might encounter
some trouble with chargers and shared power outlets.
Avoiding
the risk of distraction
Letting aside the
physical factors, educators need to make sure the mobile devices in the
classroom are not used for other purposes than learning. It’s easy for students
to text with friends, play games, watch funny videos, browse social media
channels or even answer calls. Smartphones and tablets remain communication
devices after all. But this doesn’t mean students will always get distracted;
an interesting learning activity will keep them engaged and using their mobile
devices to enhance their learning.
Measuring
the results
The rapid pace of change
in terms of mobile devices adoption in the classroom has sometimes obscured
thoughtful evaluation of the efficacy of current mobile learning strategies or
the examination of how and why certain types of implementations affected
student achievement more than others. Mobile learning is never a stand-alone
activity, so it can be really challenging for teachers to pinpoint exactly how
the use of mobile devices in the classroom has improved — or not — students’
academic performance.
Finding
the value of going mobile
Most notably, school and
district administrators are struggling with how to elevate the use of the
devices from sporadic, engagement activities to instructionally rich learning
experiences. It’s one thing to put mobile devices into students’ hands and a
totally different one to use said technology in the most effective way
possible. The journey of mobile learning in the classroom has only begun and
it’s up to every educator to and the value of it.
.
Wrapping up Mobile
technology has a great potential to enhance the learning experience and
contribute to higher academic results for all students. However, the mere
existence of mobile technology in the classroom is not enough to achieve this.
Teachers need to use it at its full potential. So they need all the support if
they are to overcome all the above challenges of mobile learning and to redefine
(/leveling-up-in-the-ed-tech-integration-process-the-samr-model/) the role
mobile devices play in the classroom.
CONCLUSION
Mobile learning promises
to increase the effectiveness of corporate training programs, despite its
associated challenges. If you want to give your employees training options that
t their lifestyle and give your company a competitive edge, mobile learning
should work well for you. However, you need to stay aware of the security risks
and financial costs associated with mobile learning and prepare to invest
substantial effort to produce mobile content for training and measure the
results of your new training system.
Comments
Post a Comment