Mobile Learning Platforms: Revolutionizing Continuous Professional Development In 2024

Empowering Lifelong Learning Through Mobile Learning Platforms

Different Learning Management Systems enable companies to track their employees’ professional level and increase it regularly with different learning materials. Mobile learning platforms are especially powerful in this field, being a perfect fit for our time. As technological progress and the constantly changing business environment present new opportunities and challenges, we need more personalized, flexible, and interactive educational approaches. Let’s see how mobile platforms have become so useful and how they can help companies gain competitive advantages due to their interactivity and flexibility.

The Evolution Of Professional Development: The Shift To Digital

While professional development was an essential component of professional activities from the dawn of human history, only about a hundred years ago business and professional education was formalized and delivered to increase worker skills. That was the time of the first business schools, and university education also started to focus on preparing high-quality workers.

In recent times, as computers have become a part of people’s everyday lives, specific Learning Management Systems have arisen to satisfy the business demand for a high-quality workforce. The term continuous professional development arose, meaning that people don’t just learn some skills in the university to apply them at work, but learn something new constantly, improving their overall potential and efficiency.

Nowadays, the situation is even more different. With the widespread usage of smartphones and the Internet, learning becomes more interactive, and the value of personalized learning, tailored for each employee’s role and personality, increases greatly. Information is easy to access now, and our task is to select what we need for each employee and deliver it in the best way, using motivational tools like badges and gamified experiences to increase retention and involvement.

Key Features Of Mobile Learning Platforms

Thus, the usage of a mobile learning platform can be very beneficial. Let’s see which specific tasks it can complete and why it can be better compared to the simple, computer-based educational approach.

1. On-The-Go Learning

While offline or computer-based learning requires allocating a specific time to complete a series of specific learning activities, mobile learning doesn’t require that. It’s called learning on the go: education during work, without distractions or interruptions, right while completing work tasks. Therefore, neither you nor your employees are required to squeeze these learning sessions into your busy schedules and sacrifice your free time. Teaching them new skills and improving existing ones during their work makes it much more interesting and efficient.

2. Personalization

With mobile learning’s interactivity, it’s much easier to build an individual plan for everyone, ensuring it helps them do their work better without bothering or distracting them. It means tailored learning experiences for individual needs and career goals. Such platforms can have very flexible pricing, enabling you to select only the features you really need, omitting everything else.

In addition, learners can virtually access mobile education courses everywhere, even offline, when the LMS enables saving the learning material on their device. It is called on-demand learning: they learn the material when and where they need it, no matter where they’re located.

3. Gamification And Engagement

People can use phones much quicker than computers, even while completing their work responsibilities. Usually, it’s considered a problem and some companies even try to limit phones at work, but why don’t we use it as a benefit? Gamification in learning increases the chance learners will memorize the material: it increases information retention by a staggering 90%, while engagement increases almost by 50%.

All learning management tools have some motivational features, such as interactive learning journeys and badges, but mobile platforms can apply them with higher efficiency. For example, these badges and other rewards can be linked with actual work performance: an employee follows the instructions from their smartphone and completes the work tasks, the manager checks it, and the employee gets the reward! It’s very efficient and can be scaled for different tasks and people. And with features like a gift store, you can provide them with real-world value for their achievement during workforce training.

The Impact Of Mobile Learning Platforms On Continuous Professional Development

With all these benefits, it is no wonder that mobile learning has a profound impact on employee development. Let’s see some examples:

• Personalized learning plans can be created for each employee, and they can follow them during their work routines.
• Goal setting and tracking are easier when using a mobile phone, as a manager can see updates in real time, while an employee can always report about their work when needed.
• Interactivity and motivation features are easier to apply in a mobile setting, ensuring higher performance and satisfaction.
• High accessibility enables learners to learn what they need virtually everywhere, meaning truly continuous education without detachments.

The corporate training solutions that use mobile education have much larger potential and, therefore, give companies a competitive advantage. Let’s see which problems may arise during that, so you can identify and resolve them as soon as possible.

Challenges And Solutions

While mobile learning helps manage the modern world’s challenges, it has limitations and should be applied properly. Let’s look closer.

1. Distractions

Distractions are inevitable in the case of tools as interactive as mobile phones, so the chances that your employees will lose focus are quite high. Therefore, specific motivation and social activities, such as badges, interactive components, and regular group communication, may be helpful here.

2. Discomfort

Discomfort can be the consequence of small mobile screens and the necessity to use them during work, leading to cognitive overload and potential eye issues. It’s essential to apply mobile learning only in limited amounts that don’t lead to these problems and monitor employees’ conditions, offering help when needed.

3. Implementation Issues

Implementation issues can arise when some of your employees are either unwilling or unaccustomed to mobile phone usage for learning tasks. In this case, it’s essential to explain to them the all benefits and give them time to accept the new mobile education technology and acclimate to it.

In addition, it’s important to note that you should revise and update your educational curriculums and learning journeys, as new approaches emerge constantly and those who adopt the most efficient ones are always ahead of their competitors. While renewing the course material is easier in an interactive mobile setting, don’t forget about these challenges and ensure that updates aren’t disturbing for your employees.

Lastly, remember that not everything can be learned using mobile phones. Deep theoretical concepts, for example, are often necessary for high-level experts and talents and require deep focus and specific time allocated to learn them. Therefore, offline or computer-based education is still necessary in some cases, despite that they can be rarer.

The Future Of Mobile Learning

With the development of learning methods, as well as the implementation of new technologies like Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence, one may suppose that mobile learning will be more and more widely used. Mobile skill development platforms can be used remotely and in various circumstances. They also enable high interactivity and personalization, being a robust tool for companies. Combining them with new technologies to generate content with AI and teach skills in Virtual or Augmented Reality, this interactive approach can reveal its full potential for employee upskilling.