I have a confession to make: I hate smartphones. Little spies we carry in our pockets, tracking our every move, extorting agreements that promise who knows what and trying to sell us back our own information or better still broadcasting it into the air where anybody can steal it.
But I digress.
Everyone has one, and uses them constantly, so it's the new frontier for training.
Applications like Adapt and Rise (not playing favorites, they're just the ones that come to mind) advertise as "mobile first" authoring systems, which means they'll look good on your phone and maybe your computer too, instead of the other way around. The way they use resizable blocks to handle text, images, tabs, essentially any element. has been dubbed "responsive" because it reorganizes itself according to the screen format.
Who decided to call it this, I do not know. It could have been called Puzzle eLearining, Mix and Match Mentoring, Slytherin Schooling. Any ideas, feel free to chime in.
They're pretty darn fast to program, though. Some functionality is gone, but a ton is built-in.
We must be careful, though not to end up just returning to the page-turning ethos of the past in a fresh new package. Most so-called "interactions" on the phone are just the learner swiping through novel ways of presenting text.
Question types can be limiting in the way they function, forcing learners to either get it right or try until they do. Simulations can force a certain type of conversation, forcing the use of video if, for instance, you want to show two people talking.
And let's not forget accessibility. Phones are a non-starter for the visually impaired, which is one of the many reasons I think we designers should make better use of podcasts.
Let's push the industry to create the types of interactivity that are instructionally useful, rather than twisting our designs to fit the programs they give us.
Then we'll see how responsive they really are.
Mitch
P.S., Have your own stories about responsive eLearning or topics for new cartoons?
Please leave them in the comments!
But I digress.
Everyone has one, and uses them constantly, so it's the new frontier for training.
Applications like Adapt and Rise (not playing favorites, they're just the ones that come to mind) advertise as "mobile first" authoring systems, which means they'll look good on your phone and maybe your computer too, instead of the other way around. The way they use resizable blocks to handle text, images, tabs, essentially any element. has been dubbed "responsive" because it reorganizes itself according to the screen format.
Who decided to call it this, I do not know. It could have been called Puzzle eLearining, Mix and Match Mentoring, Slytherin Schooling. Any ideas, feel free to chime in.
They're pretty darn fast to program, though. Some functionality is gone, but a ton is built-in.
We must be careful, though not to end up just returning to the page-turning ethos of the past in a fresh new package. Most so-called "interactions" on the phone are just the learner swiping through novel ways of presenting text.
Question types can be limiting in the way they function, forcing learners to either get it right or try until they do. Simulations can force a certain type of conversation, forcing the use of video if, for instance, you want to show two people talking.
And let's not forget accessibility. Phones are a non-starter for the visually impaired, which is one of the many reasons I think we designers should make better use of podcasts.
Let's push the industry to create the types of interactivity that are instructionally useful, rather than twisting our designs to fit the programs they give us.
Then we'll see how responsive they really are.
Mitch
P.S., Have your own stories about responsive eLearning or topics for new cartoons?
Please leave them in the comments!
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