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Happy New Year 2009! What does the new year portend for e-learning?

Posted on January 1st, 2009 in General, e-learning, m-learning by abhisam

To all of you there who regularly read this blog, subscribe via RSS and drop meaningful comments, here’s a very Happy New Year 2009!

The year 2009 would be an important milestone in the learning industry, as we expect a lot of initiatives from governments across the world, for better and more effective training programs. We strongly feel that to have a secure future, one must have a variety of skills that have value in the marketplace and that there is no full stop to learning. Existing skills too, must be polished, honed and developed so that they become an “expert” level skill. And of course, the best way to do this is by utilizing technology that can train thousands if not millions effortlessly- by e-learning, m-learning and other 21st century methods. This is because there won’t be enough teachers and professors and classrooms to engage everybody and train the thousands of people that need to be trained. The only answer is to go beyond the classroom, to e-learning, m-learning and more.

This week the Economist has carried an article, The People Puzzle, on retraining of laid off workers and the difficulties it places on everybody, including the learners, implementers of the program and the government. Needless to say if the re-training really succeeds, it will give laid off workers a second chance, improve the quality of life and also the economy (due to the newer disposable income of these new employees) and reduce burdens on social security systems. E-learning can be a big part of this plan.  Those of you who are reading this could possibly suggest this to the “people who matter”?

Finally we hope that the new year 2009 brings hope and cheer and some ne wthings to learn to all of you!

The problem with m-learning

Posted on September 26th, 2008 in m-learning by abhisam

For the past two years or so, there was a lot of hype about mobile learning or m-learning; which is seen to be a step forward from e-learning. However, the much vaunted numbers of m-learners are nowhere to be seen. Yes, we had the I-Phone and now we have the G-phone, but have you heard about any great m-learning applications yet?

The reason is not for want of courses, software or products. We had launched our m-learning course on RFID (actually a quiz),  more than a year back, but it is not very popular.  Cost is not an issue, it costs just a dollar.  Compatibility is also not an issue, it can run on a Windows smartphone or a Blackberry or a Palm, equally well.

The real issue seems to be that the small screen size of most smartphones (small compared to the large  monitors on most computers). People are used to viewing things on larger and larger screens by the day and the small screen seems to be the biggest hurdle in getting users to accept m-learning.

If there is a way to project the mobile smartphone screen on another surface (like the way a beamer projects a PC screen on a wall), then there may some interest generated, else the situation may remain the same.

What do you think? Comments are always welcome!