The m-learning trend, a new look at online courses

I don’t think anyone needs convincing that a pandemic has a huge impact on society. While most of the impacts will probably still show up in the future we are already seeing changes socially, politically and of course economically. Many industries have been affected, but there are some that are growing to meet the expectations of the new reality. The online course sector, until recently neglected, is becoming increasingly desirable for the development of. The mobile area in particular has more and more to say.

Going back to the turn of 2016-2017, we can take a look at the predictions described in the report “HR Revolution. Industry Trends 2016/2017”, which declares an increase in the use of e-learning solutions. In 2016. more than half of companies announced greater activity in the learning zone through online platforms. A small percentage of companies count as 15 percent. declared that in the near future they will be more willing to use social learning. Less than 30 percent. The survey respondents predicted an increase in interest in mobile learning, with less than 40 percent. institutions were then interested in virtual classrooms and webinars.

Moving on, however, to 2019. we have the opportunity to study data from a report by Docebo. The report predicted that the global e-learning market will record a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 10 percent. between 2018 and 2023, reaching a total estimated value of $286.62 billion. Data compares this growth to the 2017 market value of $159.52 billion. From simple calculations, we can make a thesis that the growth is estimated at almost 56 percent. This is dictated by the strong demand for flexible learning technology solutions in the corporate and academic sectors, as well as advances in artificial intelligence-based platforms. This, as expected, will continue to grow in importance contributing to further industry growth.

We also see a trend of interest in LMS among ordinary employees. Onex Group’s research proves that as much as 73% of. of Polish employees feel the need for continuous development, and 63% of Polish employees feel the need for continuous development. have completed at least one qualification course within the last year. Industry speculations about people’s expanded awareness of digital learning are therefore not without confirmation, which promises to continue the upward trend in this area.

BigTech giants sniff out profits

GlobeNewswire reports that by 2026. Remote education will reach a value of nearly $460 billion. It is said that in order to achieve success and anticipate trends, one must look to those bigger than oneself, who have succeeded before. LinkedIn, the industry’s social media baby adopted by Bill Gates, is proving helpful in this regard. According to the MobileTrends website.pl, Microsoft’s social network is in the process of testing a hosting service for people who want to do their training on it. A new feature of LinkedIn is to make paid video courses and training available on their servers, making the portal a panel that hosts this content. This would be a contributor to the platform’s payment intake and marketing and educational content development.

Benefits of e-learning

According to the Randstad website, as many as 63 percent. of those changing employers chose to further their careers. Source which is Markinstyle.What.uk, claims that online learning platforms are used by 43% of the population. of students to get help with homework. Clear Company, in turn, says that 91% of employees want personalized, relevant training, which is in line with today’s e-learning capabilities.

As you can see, the courses and e-learning industry is undergoing a renaissance, but this is not surprising given its obvious advantages. Online availability is a convenience to the location of learners, but also to their temporal availability, as these are present in the LMS constantly and invariably from circumstances. The undoubted advantage is the ability to extend the entire training cycle and greater opportunity to personalize them for participants. The development of platforms allows for the monitoring of individual learning milestones, and some are able to report back to participants on their current progress, combating issues with motivation to learn. It is also becoming easier to prepare educational materials that already anticipate the use of interactive tools to activate learners.

Another differentiator is the concept of gamification, which, in addition to storytelling and clever competition tactics, increases the effectiveness of learners and strengthens group bonds, even at a distance. Modern tools also provide a lot of entertainment, which often cannot be experienced in a large lecture hall.

Mobile Learning – focusing on the smartphone

Mobile learning, also called m-learning is very familiar to us, although we often don’t realize we are using it. Applications like DuoLingo, Quizlet, or Khan Academy represent this faction of e-learning. As we can guess, it is a way of learning using a smartphone. Its popularity is growing, due to the fact that more and more digital activity is being recorded nowhere else but on cell phones. Wecreo even calls them our little command centers, for which adding more lesson modules will not be a problem. M-learning apps, as they become more responsive and compatible with the ecosystem of other devices, will see tremendous growth. Docebo also agrees with Wecreo, in the report discussed above.

Learning by texting?

Short text messaging service can also be very helpful in the process of skill acquisition. There are plenty of inspiring studies on this topic. Citing the work of Adelina Moura and Ana Amélia Carvalho from the University of Minho, “The importance of the smartphone in the learning process”. “Using short text messaging in educational contexts”, we learn that text messaging holds a killer educational potential. The phone itself is a great distraction for students, hence the idea to use it to activate them during lessons.

An experiment was therefore conducted with the objectives of: integrating the phone as a learning tool; exploring the SMS learning environment to promote language learning in and out of school; and encouraging students to participate spontaneously and independently in activities outside the classroom. Event organization allowed individual and group chats.

Looking organizationally at this scientific trial, the students’ phone numbers were stored in a computer database. Such a solution gave the opportunity to teachers to freely send text messages to individual students or the whole group. Vodafone’s “SMS by Mail” module was used in the study. It allowed to write messages using Outlook mail, which were sent as text messages. Students responded from their devices, to which the teacher received notifications on his smartphone.

The study revealed an interesting observation. Despite the size limitations of sms messages, with the right lesson plans, language learning can be simple, fast and effective. It turns out that small learning units in volume, sent at the right frequency make learners happy and improve their ability to absorb data. Students perceived this way of learning as accessible and interesting, which influenced their positive perception of the lessons and the language itself. The advantage of text messaging is its interactivity and responsiveness, and the ability to create different contexts. Researchers are making it clear that interactivity is the key to positively influencing education and the psychological development of young people.

M-learning an opportunity for excluded and mobile individuals?

The mobile learning trend can be extremely effective in underdeveloped countries. Underdeveloped infrastructure or socio-economic circumstances do not necessarily preclude educational opportunities. Technology gives us opportunities – all we need is a cell phone. The disadvantages are undoubtedly the distraction and small size of text messages, but integrating them properly can bring promising benefits.

In addition, probably all of us have met someone who is jokingly referred to as “always on the road”. It is not that uncommon at all, and the constant movement can be quite a hindrance to the acquisition of new competences due to the time constraints that are generated by the movement. Easy-LMS indications are that m-learning facilities are a great solution for such people.

Live learning, or AR/VR technologies in mobile learning

ClassVR portal documents that the implementation of augmented reality in the educational process is not just a pipe dream, but can be a new reality. Moreover, AR and VR can be used at different stages of education, tapping into different levels of knowledge.

At preschool age, full circle (360 degree) environments can be very helpful. This age is also about learning through play, which google VR will surely guarantee to many. At the elementary school stage, technology can help you learn new experiences and explore the world without even leaving the room. In high schools, VR can be used to test themselves in various work situations and to test their social skills. Portal illustrates the experience of training novice mechanics to look at the inside of a car and a running engine from every angle without leaving the classroom.

What time? Time to learn!

Okay, so we already have a phone in our hand, glasses on our head, notifications of new text messages buzzing around, and it turns out that’s not all. Researchers in 2016. they decided to investigate the educational value of smartwatches. However, the results were not very promising. Researchers Neil Davie and Tobias Hilber conducted a study with a group of students to explore the possibilities of smartwatches. To be fair, they did say that the study should get a follow-up, and the sample of respondents is too small to apply it to the whole population, but in general the usage of watches for learning came out rather negligible. This is probably due to the size of the hardware, i.e. small working area and low functionality. The researchers also cited users’ possible ignorance of all device options as a reason for this result.

M-learning for the future

In a word of summary, the coming years look very favorable for the course market, in any form. Next to standard LMS platforms, mobile learning has the best chance of development. Dominated by situational specificity conditioning social attachment to devices and the increasing capabilities of our smartphones. Although a little anecdotally, but in line with the above, the Polish backyard also points to the experiences of students with the Teams platform, which also confirm the potential of using the phone for long-distance learning. Despite the many limitations of mobile devices, they are able to offer a lot, and will certainly offer even more in the future.