This is a move in the right direction by Google, especially since many Smartphone users perceive Android apps to be inferior to Apple’s iOS. This initiative targeted at developers will help to raise the quality of Android apps developed in the public realm.

Android Training will be led by the Android Developer Relations team. As of now the program has 11 basic classes.

1. Designing for multiple screens
2. Improving layout performance
3. Managing audio playback
4. Optimizing battery life
5. Remembering users
6. Sharing content
7. Capturing photos
8. Maintaining multiple APKs
9. Developing for enterprise
10. Monetizing your app
11. Designing effective navigation

These classes are designed to demonstrate best practices for solving common Android development problems. Each class explains the steps required to solve a problem, or implement a feature, with plenty of code snippets and sample code for developers to use within their own apps.

Note: Android Training does not start from scratch and there are some prerequisites for this program. You should know the basics of writing code and how to develop an Android user interface. Android Training is designed for developers looking to refine their apps.

What we see now is just the beginning. Google plans to add many more classes, expand and refine existing classes, and build Training Courses that help developers enhance your apps using objective-oriented collections of classes.

Given the nascent stage of mLearning development, the learning value that mLearning developers can derive from this training program is tremendous. Eventually that will result in us being able to design more compelling and engaging mLearning experiences.

You can access the Android Training home page here. https://developer.android.com/training/index.html

To get the official Apple spiel, see here: http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html

Apple isn’t known to condone hackers modifying their products and software. When they started out, their hardware and software platforms were fairly open; as time has gone by, Apple has closed of its product/service ecosystems and removed much of that initial openness in favor of tight control (curation of sorts) over its platform. Given this closed environment, it is even more interesting that folks out there are hacking Siri to do stuff that Apple hasn’t included as standard Siri functionality. Here are a couple of impressive examples:

Lamonica – controlling the thermostat of his home with Siri. He was able to trick Siri into thinking it is communicating with Apple’s server, and wrote custom handlers to control a Wifi-enabled thermostat.

A developer was able to hack Siri to find and play content through media center software. Very cool indeed.

Couple of ideas pop into my mind right away about how technology like Siri could help learning – first, to function as an effective search agent within corporate CMS and KM solutions. I love the thought of being able to ask a personal computing device to find things for me, with minimal intervention required. This can be especially useful for knowledge workers responding to customers or critical situations that require accurate information. Siri like technology will probably have a fairly significant impact in the workplace when used this way. Second, to access and read out step by step procedures to support just-in-time performances. This sort of thing would be great for people who work with tools of all sorts and encounter varied procedures at work. For example, a car technician may have to use the same set of tools but different procedures depending on the automobile he/she is working with. Retrieving manufacturer and model specific procedures (ex., the replacement of a part).

Such technology can be used in many creative ways; I’ve been looking for Siri hacks that revolve around learning, but have been unable to find anything. Has any of you seen such a hack? Please comment.

Three factoids that strike me as being interesting:

1. 71% of India’s population uses mobile phones – that is 858,370,000 individuals!

2. While there are so many mobile phones, internet penetration is still very low – as low as 8%.

3. 59% of India’s internet users only ever access the internet via mobile devices.

It’s interesting because coupled with the fact that 50% of India’s population is below the age of 25, most using mobile devices, that are internet-capable, and you have the perfect environment to use those devices as learning agents. An entire generation of Indians, will no longer associate the internet with computers, but with phones/tablets. So while some of the electronic learning revolution may have passed India by, it will be on the forefront of learning that leverages mobile technologies. I have no doubt in my mind that India will emerge as one of the leading markets in consuming and developing learning technologies based around mobile platforms.

As I see it, this brings up lots of questions. First, it seems Adobe is continuing development on the Flash plug-in and AIR runtime. So while they may have abandoned the mobile plug-in space, they may  have something as a replacement up their sleeves, which should be interesting.  Second, will the gradual movement towards web-browsing with mobile devices signal the end of the road for Flash as a platform? Will Adobe come out with something that is geared towards HTML5 authoring that completely replaces Flash for web animation and interaction.

What will a web without Flash look like? And what happens to the hundreds of casual game companies with games like ‘Farmville’ that are Flash based. The same goes for companies developing other media using Flash. Is this the beginning of a mass-migration of content, authoring environments and other tools to the HTML5 standard? Only time will tell, and we’ll be watching closely.

Today we expand the reach of Upside2Go to change this game further. Our revolutionary platform for mobile learning – Upside2Go – is now available on BlackBerry.

The Story So Far

Within a span of 7 months, since its launch, Upside2Go has won appreciation from some of the biggest corporates for its innovativeness and effectiveness, specifically in addressing needs of the mobile workforce. It has also been recognized as ‘Best New Product Debut’ at ASTD TechKnowledge 2011 by an independent ex-Brandon Hall consultant.

Why BlackBerry?

The mobile learning market has undergone a complete facelift in the past couple of months, with new players and new products entering at a fast pace. BlackBerry is amongst the few mobile device manufactures who have continued to rule the roost in spite of this continuous upsurge. With 41 million BlackBerry smartphone users worldwide (data source – BlackBerry Official Website), BlackBerry boasts of a huge pool of potential customers today. Further, with Blackberry having attained a strong foothold in the corporate sector, and Upside2Go being specially designed for the mobile workforce, Upside2Go for BlackBerry was a logical extension in order to increase its relevance to corporate mobile workforce.

Features

You can enjoy all the features in Upside2Go for iPhone, on BlackBerry as well.

Some of the key features are depicted below:

Request a live demo with our team to know how you can bring formal, informal, social and collaborative learning, and performance support to one central platform – Upside2Go.

You can download the executive summary and see for yourself. Mobile learning is finally coming of age.

Even though some large organizations have started using mobile technology to empower their workforce, for most others the question still remains – how do we actually use it in the workplace? Training departments are unsure how to design, develop and implement a successful mLearning strategy that works for their organizations.

In a bid to find out what the organizations are really thinking and planning around mobile learning, we have initiated a short survey. This survey is being carried out in conjunction with our survey at the World of Learning Conference and Exhibition 2011, where we will be participating on 27th and 28th of this month. The cumulative results of these surveys (along with the survey data from our previous events – ASTD ICE 2011 and mLearnCon 2011) will be published in a report. To get a FREE copy of this report, participate in the survey now.

Note: The Survey is now closed. Thank you for participating in our survey. A free copy of this report will be sent to all the participants shortly.

When developing applications for just-in-time performance support, here are some items I keep on my checklist. They are good to consider when taking on that app development assignment.

1. Prototyping – sure, I harped about it before on this blog; but is very important to reiterate. Companies typically want to prototype and then test the solution with a limited user group, and this must be done very quickly. Unlike other software applications, companies cannot spend months on development and deployment, speed is of the essence. For example, a client might want to extend the functionality of an existing information system to the iPad/iPhone. This can easily accomplished with a simple interface to the system. In this case, a quick prototype can clearly communicate the possible benefits of creating a fully featured application without expending significant effort or money. Also, we’ve seen that significant parts of the prototype can be reused in the production application.
2. All About Data – in our experience, we have seen that performance support apps in the technical domain tend to be of two types
   a. Decision-making – based on datasets in the cloud or local device; accessing instruction trees/specific content look-up.
   b. Calculation – using real world data to compute values; this is mainly algorithmic in nature and substitutes physical calculation (prone to human error)
   There is a huge variety of applications covering the spectrum from decision-making to calculation. Both types depend on some form of data to assist the user in performance. Consider if you want data to be retrieved and saved on the device; or will the app only interact with online datasets in the cloud. Not getting in to offline vs. online debate, each has distinct advantages and disadvantages. Make your choice based on design and usability considerations, just remember proper integration with data is important.
3. User Interfaces – Mobile devices offer many interfaces, including touch devices that support gestures. Consider carefully which of these features you want to use in the application. It becomes quite critical because the higher you set the technology bar, the less accessible your application actually is. For example, if you have chosen to use multi-touch gestures as part of your interface design, this automatically eliminates devices that don’t support touch. Try to keep the interface as simple as possible; we’ve seen that keeping it simple and standard allows better portability across platforms and devices. HTML5 may just prove to provide the right tools for truly portable interfaces.
4. Security and Updates – with increased data integration with corporate information systems, the security of data will become an increasing concern for companies rolling out mobile applications for performance support. Consider during design, the data is proprietary (mostly always is), confidential, of value to competitors, etc., if the data has value in any way, it is important to secure it. Data security cannot be an afterthought, it must be carefully considered during design. You may consider encryption on the device and in communication protocols for security. Another aspect to consider is updates; the need to change/tweak features or parts of the application after deployment is a common scenario. As a developer, ask how you might be able to update applications on user’s devices. Again, consider this during design and development, even if you envision never having to update the app.

Three things in the article struck me as being spot on.

“Even though typical Indian consumers have no Internet access, they have a remarkable appetite for digital content. In fact, they consume an average of 4.5 hours of it daily across offline channels such as television, DVDs, and CDs.”

“McKinsey research forecasts that the total number of Internet users will increase more than fivefold, to 450 million, by 2015. Total digital-content consumption will double, to as much as $9.5 billion. Including access charges, revenues from total digital consumption could rise fourfold, to $20 billion—twice the expected growth rate of China”

“The average price of smart phones that deliver much richer content, including video, is falling rapidly—already nearing $125, significantly less than the cost of PCs. Mobile devices also are inherently easier to operate than PCs, and the ability to access Web sites with a single touch or a voice command (critical given India’s high illiteracy rate) is becoming a reality.”

Indians consume huge amounts of digital content, and even if a part of the consumption moved online via the mobile internet it’ll result in a huge market for content over mobile services. Already, telecom providers in India bank hugely on selling content in varied forms to their users. With ARPUs (average revenue per user) stagnating, the providers are having to turn to VAS (value added services) to bolster revenues. In a country that values education and where families spend large amounts on education, a VAS offering around academics would do well; in fact, there are already several companies that are doing just that in conjunction with the telecom providers. The user-base hasn’t gained critical mass yet, but that’s going to change in a big way if McKinsey’s forecasting is to believed. A mobile internet revolution is just what India needs, yet it remains to be seen how individuals at the grassroots will benefit.

1. Find a problem with learning or performance first, think about learning next, and mobile learning last. This is somewhat analogous to “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Look for a learning/performance problem and analyze carefully if mobile learning is a possible solution and not the other way round. Ask if there will be a real benefit for the user. Ask if the user job profile involves individuals being substantially ‘mobile’ and not tied to a centralized location. Also factor in their use of and comfort with mobile devices.
2. Ask what your mobile learning solution will do – content push? Content pull? Collaboration? – Mobile learning can come in varied forms; in that sense, it is very similar to eLearning and organizations must consider carefully what they are looking to do with in the mobile learning space. Ask if you want to push and track content – that means the use of some form of media; these could be simple presentations, animations to more sophisticated simulation/games designed to push content. If letting users determine when to access content is the pull-model – here the organization would need to provide mobile interfaces to a knowledge or document/content management system that functions across the organization, mobile can only be a part of such a solution. Such a system would be enabled by search and ease of access tools. Collaboration is another area where mobile technology can enhance and support performance and learning. Often, the simplest steps in mobile learning are offering collaborative tools.
3. Make sure to KISS, demand low information density – whether it’s an application, or a content look-up, the need to keep is simple straightforward is very important given the context of use. Mobile devices are slowly gearing up to be media consumption devices, but it is still important to note they have small screens and are given short and limited attention by users. Keeping this in mind, low information density in content becomes important. Look at contemporary user interfaces, the experience they promote relies significantly on simplicity and task orientation. Mobile demands quick, simple and easy-to-use.
4. Have a target device, allow for graceful degradation. One of the first things to come up when discussing content/applications for devices is the fragmented nature of the mobile device platform. So many phones, operating systems, screen sizes, interface capabilities, sensors, etc. Even within platforms, one encounters significant variance of hardware and software features. In such a situation, it makes sense to choose a single device/platform (perhaps the most commonly used one in target audience) and design your learning/performance support tool around that device. Also, during the design try to anticipate how the tool/application can degrade gracefully continuing to offer functionality based on the device its being run on. Native application. Vs web application
5. Make sure you prototype. – I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Like any other design and development effort, if you are tying something with mobile learning, do not forget or ignore prototyping. Off hand, I can point to three distinct advantages:
   1. Provides the ability to simulate and refine some part of the user experience before any serious development effort has been expended.
   2. Prototyping ensures hardware compatibility on target platform/device for the expected feature set; in cases of incompatibility, it’s easy to modify features and associated architecture at prototype stage rather than way later in the development cycle.
   3. Lets stakeholders touch, feel and try some features of the tool/application aiding their confirmation of whether it meets their requirements or not. Again, it is cheaper and easier to make modifications during prototyping to conform to stakeholder expectations than later in the cycle.

Disclaimer: These are just my personal and casual thoughts on the evolving nature of the product; it is no promise that such features will exist in the next version of Upside2Go, and do not represent Upside Learning’s point of view or future plan of action in anyway. Take with a liberal pinch of salt please.

Social/Collaborative – Offering tools that mimic social media/network software will be one obvious theme. While Upside2Go already includes features that support sharing and interactions around shared media, I’d want the social flavor to run deeper. I’d hazard a guess doing that first involves building in a +1 or Like type of interaction for every content element that is user-generated. Second, providing an easy to use interface with clear push/pull/sync of user-generated content to individual devices. Third, provide metrics in real-time to administrators and managers; simple enough would be topic/keyword trends, hot conversations, levels of user contribution, etc.

From an individual’s standpoint, their ‘reputation’ becomes important as the contributory and emergent nature of the system becomes apparent. From the organization’s perspective aides identification and establishes clearly from data the ‘knowledge leaders’, ‘lead contributors’, ‘participants’, ‘searchers’, ‘consumers’, ‘observers’ and ‘passives’. For administrators/managers robust analysis tools for social network and generated content analysis will provide a truer picture of the ‘knowledge state’ of the organization than an LMS could ever hope to represent. Learning is about content and bums-in-seats? Yes to an extent, but that’s such a last century paradigm. Knowing what we know now – that learning is intensely social, we must provide even better tools to facilitate the communication and interaction around topics of interest in the workplace. The ability for managers/administrators to identify the ‘themes, sentiments and connections’ that run through the conversations will be key.

Semantic – while most of the features Upside2Go offers are in the realm of Web 2.0 services, we see that there is scope for slowly bringing in Web 3.0 technologies. By that I mean the inclusion of very basic semantic web technologies. Perhaps the use of a RDF-based data model to catalog content being generated and added to the system. It might include elements/data containers such as ‘user’ ‘learner’ ‘content’, etc. An element such as user might contain data like: learner preferences, history of learning activities, learner behavior, certification data, etc. Integrating with the social/collaboration theme, perhaps we should consider adding basic user-configurable semantic agents that can trawl the conversation streams looking for what ‘interests’ the user and alerting them to the correct content/user.

On the other hand, it’s important to understand that cataloging/tagging content/users on the systems requires a different set of tools. I envisage two primarily that would add value; the first would be an ontology search/verify/suggest tool. This type of interface is required when content needs to be added to the system. Secondly, there would need to be some sort of ontology authoring/modification tool to allow for certain classes of users to create new ontologies relevant to the need at the time. Such a constantly evolving meta-data framework provides many avenues for ‘content discovery’. Shared data, available as streams formatted in RDF would allow individual users to create their own learning applications; eventually there will be a widget-ization of learning. Resourceful individuals in capable systems will start to deliver mash-up applications rather than learning content.

The move away from content shouldn’t be surprising as the amount of user generated content on well-populated and active networks will be gigantic to say the least. Would it make sense to add more of the same thing to the network, it makes more sense to aggregate, qualify, (in the sense of quality, veracity, provenance) and then distribute existing content – which brings me to ‘curation’ another theme I discuss in this blog-post. The idea that we could actually develop systems that mine ‘meaning’ and ‘knowledge’ from the routine life-streams of hundreds of individuals is something that fascinates me, it would offer a tool for learning the sort never seen before. We should strive to provide an eco-system that can make manipulation of these data-feeds possible. It is VERY important that this data be truly free inwards and outwards, allowing individuals to take their learning history, content and applications with them from one workplace to another. Can we truly look forward to the day when there truly is an application/web service to facilitate or assist every sort of learning?

Curation – With systems going from top-down content approaches to parallel and concurrent user generation of content, the sheer volume of content would be something the administrators/managers will have to deal with. Future versions of Upside2Go will need to offer tools that let users ‘curate’ content. These could be as simple as a notification/alert system when the social system trends topics or sees moderate/high activity around certain ‘keywords’, allowing the moderation of topic discussions, comments etc., also important will be the moderation of user-generated content.

Other curation tools to consider would be real-time search of the various data streams that are part of the system. The ability to aggregate varied content sources, media and applications into ‘publications’ for general distribution. The ability to create braids of varied content types and data streams to provide meaningful experiences. Perhaps even to actually package these so they tell ‘stories’. Stories when recounted recreate and allow users to have a similar experience.

Also on display would be our newly launched revolutionary platform for Mobile Learning – Upside2Go. We would be delivering a Master Class session based on this new platform titled ‘Mobile Learning and Performance Support with Upside2Go’, scheduled at 12.45 PM on 21st June. If you still haven’t gotten your free expo pass, we urge you to do it right now. See you there.
Coming to this article, we have rallied the best of our mLearning posts. For all of you who are testing the waters or have already implemented a mLearning strategy, this post, we assure you, is manna from heaven.

1. What Is Mobile Learning?

We have heard its various definitions, its numerous interpretations and its hard-to-miss advantages. But what exactly is mobile learning? Get your mLearning basics cleared here.

2. Getting Started With Mobile Learning?

Ok. So you have decided to give mobile learning a shot. But what next? This post will help you understand how and where you can use mLearning, and the possible plan of action you would need to follow to get the most out of this endeavor.

3. Is Mobile Learning A Reality Now?

Over the last three years there have been various predictions, ranging from pessimistic to optimistic, about the role that mobile learning will play in the world of learning. But do the positives outweigh the negatives? And more importantly, is mobile learning just a passing fad or a reality? Know our take on this here.

4. Mobile Learning: A Quick SWOT Analysis

The use of mobiles as an alternative source of information is increasingly gaining ground in the learning environment. This is compounded by the fact that a large number of organizations and institutions are opting for new modes of learning as part of their training and development. Mobile Learning is slowly but clearly emerging as the ‘future’ of learning. But what are its inherent strengths and weaknesses, the potential opportunities and possible threats it faces? Know it all here as we analyze mobile learning.

5. Leveraging Mobile Learning Platforms As Performance Support Systems

A ‘Performance Support System’ or PSS refers to any system that improves worker productivity by providing on-the-job access to integrated information, advice and learning experiences. And as such mobile devices, with their appropriate size, features and functionalities, are poised to be the best performance support tools. Learn about the 4 components of a good PSS and how you can leverage mLearning platforms as PSSs.

6. What I Learnt About Mobile Learning Design

Mobile hardware has its own limitations and hence we need to adhere to some critical design conventions in order to make our mobile applications a success. This post will give you an insight into these limitations and some tips that will make the implementation of mobile learning smooth and easy.

7. Mobile Technology – Empowering The Workforce

A gradual but complete shift to mobile based devices for a whole host of activities, learning being just one of them, is anything but inevitable. In the same vein, this post talks about a new app developed by the BBC which will allow its reporters in the field to file video, stills and audio directly into the BBC system from an iPhone or iPad.

8. Mobile Learning – What It Can Do For A Global Workforce

Along with its many advantages, the flat world brings along some challenges as well. However the answer to these challenges is not so difficult. Effective mobile learning solutions can help you manage learning for your workforce that’s constantly on the move. Read this to know how you can leverage mobile learning for training your global workforce.

9. Developing Mobile Learning: Which Device Are You Targeting?

When you are getting started with mobile learning one of the decision you will have to make is which device(s) to target. Taking a cue from a Gartner forecast about how the smart phone market could look like in 2015, this post will give you an insight into the device you should be targeting for your mLearning endeavor.

10. 3 Ways to Use Mobile Devices in Workplace Learning

While mobile learning continues to gain foothold in education and other domains, learn about the 3 primary types of usage for mobile devices in the context of workplace learning.

11. Mobile Learning Solutions – Infographic

It’s been a while since we have updated our website, but there are certain infographics which continue to remain relevant irrespective of the time lapsed. One of these is the Mobile Learning Solutions infographic which visually communicates what learning situations mobile learning is apt for and the various factors that may go into making a mobile learning solution.

12. Mobile Learning Has A Promising Future In India

It is a well-known fact that Mobile learning hasn’t yet picked up steam within India. The primary reason for this being the low rates of mobile internet penetration in our country. However that might change very soon if we are to believe research conducted by McKinsey & Company.

While we are on the topic of Mobile Learning, you might want to check out our free downloadable stuff.

• Mobile Learning: An Upside Learning Point of View – eBook
• The Advent Of Mobile Learning Technology – Presentation
• Top 50 Mobile Learning Resources – Presentation