It is described as “an experimental research project, developed by Microsoft’s FUSE Labs, focused on exploring the possibilities of social search for the purpose of learning.”

I haven’t yet spent much time with it myself but here are some very rudimentary thoughts based on what my initial reaction and what I’ve been reading on the web, including So.cl’s FAQ page

Is it the next Facebook?
So.cl starts by offering Facebook credentials as a log-in choice but not Twitter, replaced by Windows Live. Microsoft has an investment in Facebook so it wouldn’t want to create a competitor to Facebook. It says – “We expect students to continue using products such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other existing social networks, as well as Bing, Google and other search tools,” Microsoft said. “We hope to encourage students to re-imagine how our everyday communication and learning tools can be improved, by researching, learning and sharing in their everyday lives.”

How’s it different?
Fox news says “So.cl distinguishes itself by focusing on learning and education. The company says its meant to make it easier for students to collaborate, sharing the results of Internet searches and the photos, videos and stories they uncover. The layout resembles an amalgamation of existing social networks, taking cues from Google+, Facebook, Twitter and more”

I’m really not sure how different it is from the new Bing, which also includes social features now.

How does it matter?
Initial experiments before the public launch suggest it works well with students. In the context of workplace learning too I think So.cl would have some impacts in informal learning. Most organizations are currently trying to figure out how to ‘make’ social and informal learning happen more effectively. So.cl may just be a great tool for that. So.cl offers a space for new thinking in facilitating informal learning with social network technology tools.

While I haven’t blogged in a while, I continue trawling through my RSS feeds, seeing more and more references to mobile learning, mlearning, performance support, ‘just-in-time’ and so many other terms that make sense in that context.

Here are some interesting links I’ve come across recently, mostly about mobile learning and some about learning in general that I found interesting. Do note some of these link up to dated articles.

1. Learning Through Situated Simulations: Exploring Mobile Augmented Reality
2. Why You Need A Mobile Learning Strategy
3. St. Marys City Schools, Links To Other Case Studies, And News Articles
4. 50+ Effective Mobile Learning Tips and Resources [PDF]– By Shelly Terrel
5. Mobile Learning: Context And Prospects
6. Mobile Learning Portal
7. The State of Mobile Computing in America
8. 3 Challenges Associated with Mobile Learning
9. It’s Not eLearning On A Phone
10. The Drive To Mobile Learning – More Potholes Than Road?
11. Spotlight On Mobile Computing: Stories Of Mobile Learning
12. Seriously Mobile: A Community For Mobile Designers To Learn From Each Other
13. 7 Things You Should Know About Mobile Apps For Learning
14. 10 Major Mobile Learning Trends to Watch For
15. Mobile Learning: More than just Mobile + Learning
16. Reporting & Analysis of Mobile Learning: Is It Worth It?
17. At Last: Mobile Learning Goes Mainstream
18. 10 Reasons To Consider Mobile Learning – Points Made By Chris Thomas, Chief Strategist For Intel
19. Mobile Learning: Obstacles and Solutions
20. Learning in Hand is a resource for educational technology by Tony Vincent. From netbooks and web applications to iPods, iPads, and podcasting, Tony has put together practical information for educators.
21. Mobile Motivation: Mobile Learning Resources
22. Mobile Learning

Reports About Or Related To mLearning, Mobile Learning

1. The Worldwide Market for Mobile Learning Products and Services: 2010-2015 Forecast and Analysis
2. Accelerating The Adoption Of mLearning: A Call For Collective And Collaborative Action [FREE]
3. 2010 Horizon Report
4. 2011 Horizon Report
5. 2012 Horizon Report
6. Mobile Learning: Learning In The Palm of Your Hand Is Now Available
7. Using m-Learning to Enrich Introductory Field Experiences
8. Mobile Learning: Landscape And Trends
9. Viewing Mobile Learning From A Pedagogical Perspective
10. Lessons on mLearning
11. It’s Official. Mobile Learning Is Effective – MoLeNET 2 Report

Mobile Learning Blog To Follow

1. mLearning Trends
2. mLearnopedia
3. Ignatia Webs
4. The Mobile Learning Edge
5. The Mobile Learner
6. Mobile ESL
7. Learning in Hand
8. M-Learning Is Good
9. Living in the 4th Screen

Slideshare Presentations

1. The State of Mobile America , Lee Rainie provides a look at some of the most recent survey results obtained by the Pew Internet Project on mobile computing and the use of handheld devices.
2. 25+ mLearning Tools in 60 Minutes – DevLearn 2010
3. The Future of Learning is Mobile
4. Future Mobile Learning (29 August 2011) by Judy Brown

Others Resources

1. Quinnovation

In my opinion, there are six fundamental drivers of mobile learning in the workplace. These will help you make the business case for mLearning.

1. Doing More With Less
Organizations around the world are dealing with increased competition, shrinking margins, and an uncertain economy – with a resultant need to do more with less. This is will not change even if (which is big IF) the economy starts recovering.

William Hague, UK’s Foreign Secretary, in a recent interview to the Sunday Telegraph, advises corporate bosses to stop complaining about the economy and work harder, as that’s the only growth strategy. In his words – “And do more with less – that’s the 21st Century… We’re trying to rescue the work ethic just in the nick of time.”

Mobile technologies bring efficiencies in businesses and are beginning to impact operational strategy. Gartner predicted earlier this year that IT will be expected to do more with less in 2012. It says – “CIOs concentrating on IT as a force of operational automation, integration and control are losing ground to executives who see technology as a business amplifier and source of innovation. Effective leaders use technology, which includes IT, to strengthen the customer experience and eliminate costly internal distortions. They are using technology to ‘amplify’ the enterprise.”

For L&D mobile devices and technology will bring efficiencies by bringing knowledge and information assets to the staff just when they are needed.

2. Growing Mobile Workforce
In most organizations sales staff, transportation personnel, and senior executives are mostly mobile. Amongst other staff, most spend considerable time in their daily commutes. It is estimated that 75% of the workforce in the US is already mobile and IDC predicts that by 2015 the numbers, worldwide, will reach 1.3 billion or a staggering 37.2% of global workforce. This is already having an impact on the way we design and manage work itself and is bound to impact the training domain as well. The BYOD movement is one visible impacts of the growing mobile workforce and rapidly improving mobile technologies.

3. 21st Century Workforce Demographics
The workforce now is seeing the entry of Millenials, or Generation Y, (those born after mid 80’s) who are believed to be more tech-savvy than any of the previous generations. They grew up with technology and rely on it to perform their jobs better. They’re usually connected and may prefer to communicate though emails and text messages. Instructor led training may not be the most desired modes of learning for them.

Mark Prensky, in 2001, published Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants where he wrote about the conflict between generations as “Education is the single largest problem facing the digital world as our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language. Immigrants suffer complications in teaching natives how to understand an environment which is “native” to them and foreign to Immigrants”. There has been some criticism of this classification, but latest research also shows that there are generational differences albeit more gradual that what Prensky suggested. I believe a conflict similar to what Prensky suggested is happening in the workplace as well. You need to ensure your L&D strategy is not reflecting the ‘digital immigrant’ characteristics of a generation that didn’t grow up with sophisticated technology. There’s no denying the fact that different generations understand and behave with technology differently.

4. Changing Personal Behavior Patterns
While the millenials lap up technology faster than others, the ‘older’ generations are also beginning to use mobile technology for daily activities like
- Search for everything we need just in time,
- finding locations/directions instantly,
- news, ebooks, sports updates,
- social networking, facebook, twitter,
- banking & shopping,
- face time / video calls.

This article from Mashable talks about “How baby boomers are embracing digital media” which in a way captures the essence of the point I’m trying to make. As most of your staff becomes comfortable with mobile technology and starts using it in their daily lives, that’s something they’d start expecting to be used at the workplace too.

5. Rise of Mobile Computing
Smartphones showed a massive 63% growth in 2011, to overtake PC sales for the first time in history – Canalys. Forester estimates the sales of tablets will be higher than that of PCs by 2015. And in a few years the number of smartphones will dwarf the number of PCs.

If general computing is shifting to handheld devices expect to see more and more of organization ensuring their systems are available on such devices. A report by Morgan Keegan estimates, the mobile computing ecosystem will become bigger than PC market in about 5 years (from 2011).

Just by allowing access to their systems from remote devices organizations are saving costs on work allocations, filling expense forms, and the like. With this shift it is imperative that you start thinking about learning delivered though this channel.

6. Explosion of Mobile Internet
A Cisco report forecasts the mobile internet data growth to be 18 times in 5 years (2011-2016). Earlier in 2010, Gartner had projected that by 2013 more people will access the internet on mobile phones than from PCs. It’s already true for some developing countries like India, where a majority of people access internet from mobiles only.

The Cisco report cited above mentions the key reasons for such huge growth as:
- Rise of the cloud: mobile cloud traffic will grow 95% per annum between 2011 and 2016
- More mobile connections: there will be 10 billion mobile internet connected devices by 2016
- Enhanced computing of devices: more powerful mobile devices like tablets
- Faster mobile speeds: faster speeds enable more consumption
- Mobile video: 71% of mobile data traffic will be video by 2016

In an earlier blog post, I wrote about how eLearning proofreading can sometimes get tricky.

In this post, I have included 5 time-tested tips to help you become an ace at proofreading your own eLearning content.

1. Get Into the Proofreader’s Shoes
Proofreading eLearning content is boring. Trust me, it is, especially when you are checking your own work. Writing eLearning content is a lot like squeezing the last remaining drops of toothpaste out, and proofreading the same content is like pushing the paste inside the tube again. But what if someone challenged you to it? If I were you, I would take up the challenge without thinking that the task was boring. In all probability, you would do it with more enthusiasm than ever. So, why not adopt the same attitude when proofreading your own content?

Now, tell me, did you find those 4 spelling mistakes I challenged you to find? I can’t play poker, but I sure know how to bluff. I know you didn’t, because I didn’t make any! But I bet you were busy looking for them, but surely didn’t find them.

You looked for the mistakes because I challenged you to find them and then got into the role of a proofreader while doing it.

It is plain simple human nature that we tend to find mistakes in someone else’s work. Assume your content is not yours – that it belongs to that someone else. Take up the challenge and proofread your own content the same way!

2. Read Something That You Like – Everyday
You probably write something or the other everyday; at least a few emails if nothing else.  But do you take time out to read? Chances are that you’ll be able to spot an error whenever you come across one.

3. Invest Time
Proofreading eLearning content such as a storyboard, a blog-post or any other document, needs time like any other activity. Your company not only pays you do your job; it also pays you to add value. And you add value by investing time not only on writing blog posts, but also proofreading them. A few minutes of cautious effort can go a big way in eliminating all those annoying distractions that an online reader despises.

4. Refer To The Dictionary
Nobody’s an expert. Everyone needs help at some time or the other. It’s always a good idea to refer to online dictionaries or handy dictionary apps like Wordweb which gives you the meaning of any word at the press of a button (well, three in this case), and don’t be afraid to ask.

5. Practice Reading Aloud
It may not always be possible, but practice reading your content aloud the way you want your learners to read and interpret it. This is a powerful proofreading tool that will help you to relate to your end users and connect with them. This seemingly simple activity will help you add suitable punctuations where you pause, replace tongue-twisters or heavy content with simple words, and get the flow right.

To appreciate the true potential of mobile devices we need to consider what Tomi Ahonen has to say. He calls Mobiles as the 7^th Mass Media and lists their unique characteristics:

• It’s the first personal mass media. It brings two almost opposite words together.
• It is permanently carried almost everywhere you go.
• It is always on and connected
• It has a built in payment mechanism
• It is available at the point of creative imagination
• It has the most accurate audience measurement
• It captures the social context of media consumption
• It allows Augmented Reality to be used in media

Mobiles devices today are extremely capable – working as a phone, camera, audio/video recorder, mp3 / video player, computer, internet device, GPS device, eBook readers, game console, bar code, QR code scanner, motion sensor and more. If you consider these capabilities you can do much more on mobile devices than just deliver learning content.

There’s so much to do with mobiles, I prefer calling it Mobile Everything. Mobile Learning is just too restrictive a term.

While the demand for HTML5 courses is yet to catch up, the demand is growing stronger nevertheless.

This hardly comes as a surprise given that the iPad dominates the worldwide tablet market.

As per data published by Good Technology in their Good Technology Device Activations Report | Q1 2012, the iPad 2 averaged 17.7 percent of their enterprise activations in the first quarter of 2012 in the US. In just a month since its release, the iPad 3 snagged 4.3 percent of Good Technology’s enterprise activations. The only two devices to do better than the iPads were the iPhone 4s and the iPhone4. Worldwide, Samsung probably sells more smartphones than anyone else, Looking into the future – this article predicts that iPads will retain more than 50% of the installed base of all tablets in 2016, but Android and Windows Metro will be the other two dominant platforms. We believe at this stage it is the iPad driving eLearning to HTML5.

Given this trend, it is but obvious that the demand for rapid authoring tools which can publish content in HTML5 will also increase. In this post, we examine 5 rapid authoring tools which show tremendous promise.

1) Adobe Captivate 5.5 with HTML5 Converter
The HTML5 Converter for Adobe Captivate 5.5 is an experimental technology that converts SWFs generated by Adobe Captivate 5.5 into HTML5 format. Once these files are converted to HTML5, you can edit them with an HTML editing tool, such as Adobe Dreamweaver. You can view the output in any browser that displays HTML5 content, including iOS (iPhone and iPad) devices.
Please note that not all Adobe Captivate features are supported in the HTML5 format. For more details, please refer to the Release Notes of the HTML5 Convertor, which describe supported features, known issues and the roadmap for upcoming features.

2) Lectora Inspire
Lectora Inspire can help you to quickly create dynamic video and Flash content as well as transform your e-Learning to HTML5 for mobile delivery. It enables you to automatically push your e-Learning to HTML5 and other publishing options.

3) Claro from dominKnow
Claro outputs HTML5-based content, so all of its authoring features can be used to create engaging and interactive content for delivery on smart phones or tablet devices. Claro comes complete with layout themes to get you started quickly, and a robust set of in-tool authoring features to help you create mobile learning courses.

4) mLearning Studio from Rapid Intake
Rapid Intake’s mLearning Studio is a cloud-based solution that can help you build mobile learning in a matter of minutes. It provides you with the option to publish to both HTML5 for mobile browsers and Flash for desktop browsers at the same time.

5) Sencha Animator
Sencha Animator is a desktop app to create CSS3 animations for WebKit browsers and touchscreen mobile devices. Since CSS3 consistently works across iOS, Android and BlackBerry OS6, this gives Animator projects a big step-up for use on mobile platforms.

Upcoming Tools
Two other tools to watch out for are Adobe Edge and Magetta.

1. Adobe Edge is a new web motion and interaction design tool that allows designers to bring animated content to websites, using web standards like HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3.
2. Maqetta is an open source project that provides WYSIWYG visual authoring of HTML5 user interfaces. The Maqetta application itself is authored in HTML, and therefore runs in the browser without requiring additional plugins or downloads.

Another rapid authoring tool that the entire industry is waiting for eagerly is Articulate Storyline. Storyline is a standalone desktop authoring tool that will be able to publish iOS-compatible output via HTML5.

A Word of Caution!
Judy Unrein makes a very valid point in her blog post Publishes to HTML5? Buyer, Beware. To quote Judy: Any authoring tool and any output is only good if it serves your design, which serves the learning/business need. Flawless publishing to HTML5 doesn’t do you any good if the tool isn’t capable of creating – and publishing – the interactivity you’ve designed.

If you know of any other rapid authoring tools that output HTML5 content, leave a comment. We’d really like to know more about them. Thanks!

I think it went very well though we could have done with a little more time on hand discussing the points in more details.

Here’s the slide deck of the same.

We also released a ebook on getting started with mobile learning last week which you may find useful. Download here.

Share your thoughts or comments below or get in touch at amitgarg@upsidelearning.com

‘Bring Your Own Device’ or BYOD, refers to an organizations employees using their personal devices (usually Smartphones/Tablets) at the workplace to access company resources for business use.

What makes BYOD popular?

In its Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions 2012, Deloitte predicts that by the end of the year 2012, 500 million smartphones with a retail price of $100 or less will likely be in use worldwide. With the almost insatiable need for information and communication increasing across the global workforce, most of them are turning to mobile devices.

As these employees use more advanced devices and business apps to catapult their productivity, their impatience with technology at their workplace is also understandably increasing. They have understood the usefulness and the power of the devices that they use, and want to leverage them at the workplace as well. Mid and senior level executives the world over want their organizations IT departments to allow them to access company resources through their personal devices.

As per a survey conducted by Good Technology in October 2011, 72 percent of its customers were already formally supporting BYOD programs. Another 19 percent of the respondents indicated that they were either planning to support BYOD within the next 6-12 months or were considering, but did not have a specific timeframe for support. You can read more about the survey findings here.

Why are organizations apprehensive?

While the BYOD trend may save organizations a substantial amount of money, what they are really concerned about is data security. BYOD could be the IT department’s worst nightmare.

Their concerns are quite understandable given the problem of enforcing security and compliance at such a large scale. However, by using Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM) platforms, organizations may be able to manage the security risks posed by BYOD.

What does this mean for mlearning?

Security concerns notwithstanding, it is undeniable that organizations will eventually have to buckle under the pressure and open their doors to the BYOD movement. They simply cannot afford to ignore the demands of an increasing mobile workforce, and will have to get a new security strategy in place.

As BYOD gains momentum, we’d probably see a positive effect on mobile learning adoption. Mobile learning will help organizations to leverage the BYOD trend to distribute ‘just-in-time’ training snippets that are both targeted and tracked.

I certainly believe that the BYOD movement is a step in the right direction and will also speed up mlearning adoption tremendously. I’d love to know your views on this. Feel free to comment.

It’s only a matter of time before you will need to be invovled in it.

As fascinating as mobile learning is, it is extremely dynamic; and evolves at a blinding pace.

This leads to organizations being unsure of how to formulate even a basic mLearning Strategy.

We’ve shared some of our thinking on mobile learning through blogs posts in the recent past and thought it worthwhile to collect the information into a single booklet for you. This eBook called ‘Mobile Learning – A Quick Start Guide’ can help you understand when to use, how to design, develop and implement mLearning in a way that works for your organization. It gives suggestions on strategy, illustrates a planning framework, lists the tools and approaches available. Ultimately, it will help you design and implement an mLearning strategy that works for your organization and delivers results. A sneak peek into the eBook

Some topics you can look forward to reading about:

• Understanding mLearning
• Key Considerations in Mobile Learning
• The Basics of mLearning Strategy
• Determining mLearning Strategy
• The Technical Approach

Please  download your copy now. Hope you enjoy reading it.

Feel free to tweet about it, share it on Facebook, email it and share it with your friends and colleagues.

Today, in 2012, we have come a long way, but still treading the same path of providing innovative learning solutions.

We feel proud of our achievements so far.

Our 8 year story could be summarized as below:

28 awards & recognitions won in 8 years.

200+ clients in 13 countries.

2 world-class products – UpsideLMS & Upside2Go.

Award-winning Custom Learning Solutions.

Few misses. Many hits.

An innovator. A leader.  A legend in the making.

It’s a significant achievement for us both in terms of completing 8 successful years and having earned a name for ourselves in the global market. This has been possible with the trust our clients, partners and you – our readers – have put in and continue to put in us, and the hard work of our team. I thank everyone who has been a part of our journey for their support, and congratulate all our staff members who have helped us get here.

As we complete 8 successful years, we reminisce our journey so far. Here’s a quick video put together by our marketing folks highlighting the important milestones.

IDC projects the mobile workforce to reach 1.3 billion, up from 1 billion in 2010, which is a staggering 37.2% of the workforce worldwide.

75% of North America’s workforce will be mobile by 2010.

A few months ago Mashable posted this interesting infographic on the mobile workforce.

I think this adoption of mobile technologies by the workforce  will have a profound impact on the skills needed by the employees and employers. It requires news sets of skills empowering employees to become self-reliant and self-motivated. Organizations need systems, processes, and managers who can manage the growing mobile workforce effectively. The training strategy will also need to evolve to accommodate these changes. The biggest change will be in the L&D mindsets: from ‘Push’ to ‘Pull’. We’d need to think how to make the right information / material available just in time for our staff to be productive. Needless to say the mobile phone and tablets will feature prominently in your learning and training plans – or call it performance support plans if you will.

For those who are looking to switch, it may be easier, but not really easy, as they may have a list of things they want the new LMS to DO or NOT do. While for the ones looking to buy a new one, it may be a tad more difficult.

So how does one go about evaluating an LMS? The process (overall) seems to be standard: Send out RFPs, give each respondent scores on various aspects, shortlist a few, get demonstrations and proposals, compare and award contract. Yes, I agree, the process is indeed simple and logical. However, the success of the process depends on a critical thing – the phase where your team is audience to vendor LMS demonstrations. This post of mine focuses on this particular phase more than the others and this doesn’t intend to diminish the importance of any other phase in the process.

One may wonder what it is with vendor demonstrations. In most cases skilled sales people come with their presales/technical colleagues and demonstrate the system in detail. Well, yes! But isn’t this kind of one-way? You may have asked a few questions and those were answered but how do you ensure the single most important thing – that this LMS solution/service will work for you for a good number of years? Even though you had a detailed RFP, the chances that the vendor skipped a few things are high as there are almost invariably time constraints in demos. The perception of importance could be different for a few of your requirements as you see them, and as the vendors see them. So how do you ensure demonstrations capture what you are looking for to help you qualify (or disqualify) the LMS being demonstrated?

The answer lies in using USE CASE SCENARIOS for demonstrations. The good thing about using Use Case Scenarios is they are simple to employ. Use case scenarios are typically high level scenarios where the need is to define a work flow in the desired LMS system which includes:

a. End user experience (could be the learner, line manager, training manager, instructor, training administrator, system administrator or a mix of these profiles). All these workflows must map an existing or desired workflow in your organization as a process. The key idea here is to break down the requirements into logical workflows:
e.g. Curriculum Request Workflow:
- Learner views the catalog; In the catalog section learner needs an easy way to filter through the available learning curriculums to identify the one(s) s/he needs access to; Learner places the request along with a reason and forwards it to his/her line manager; an email is sent to the learner for notification and CC’ed to the line manager for action; and so on and so forth. The key is to describe these workflows to the vendor prior to demonstrations so the vendors could prepare data and also be ready to demonstrate how their LMS maps to these workflows. Ensure that you cover ALL critical workflows which will make or break your LMS system’s acceptance with the end users.

b. Data flow and visual representation. This part focuses on what and how the data flows across the workflow and how is it visually represented – you may be more comfortable with matrix reports or dashboards, you may want the end users to see confirmation messages, automated emails, etc.

c. MIS (Reports) Impact. Most workflows would impact one or the other report. How the reports are expected, at times, depict the gaps, if any, between your desired workflow(s) and what the LMS offers. In the context of the workflow example, you may need a report of all requests made with their current status and all iterations made on them. It is extremely critical to be able to view all these during the demonstrations.

As a summary, during the vendor demonstrations, apart from the usual aesthetic and usability evaluation parameters, the focus should be on allowing vendors to demonstrate the LMS not how they want to do it but how you would like to see your use case scenarios being handled by the system.

Once the use case scenarios are all demonstrated, the vendors and you will have a clear picture of how much the system offers out of the box, how much needs configuration and how much needs customization. This not only allows you to confidently evaluate the LMS systems effectively but also allows vendors to clearly understand the needs and helps them submit clear and accurate proposals. In the long run this also ensures a smooth implementation and a long haul of usage without hassle. Isn’t this what you were looking for in the first place – an LMS that meets your needs, doesn’t become a headache while implementing and when implemented doesn’t look like a misfit?

As I said earlier, there are many ways to go about the evaluation but using Use Case Scenarios in your method would make it easier to evaluate and select the right LMS.