On the 15th of December 2011, the Android Developer Relations team at Google launched the beta version of Android Training — a collection of classes to help developers build better Android apps using best practices in a variety of framework topics.

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.

When Apple launched the iPhone 4S, one of the key differentiators to previous models was the inclusion of Siri. For those who haven’t been bombarded yet by the marketing campaigns, Siri is an intelligent software assistant and a knowledge navigator that essentially functions like a digital personal assistant. You can find out more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siri_(software).

Came across this really interesting presentation about the growth of mobile internet in India by Mashable here – Mostly Mobile: How the Internet Is Consumed in India [INFOGRAPHIC]

Three factoids that strike me as being interesting:

Recently Amit had written about how the eLearning industry and digital media in general has been driven to HTML5 by the rapid adoption of tablet computers, namely the iPad. To further reinforce that thought, Adobe announced just yesterday that it has ceased development on the Flash mobile browser plug-in. Meaning there will be no updates to those plug-ins and future versions of Android and Blackberry Playbooks may not be able to render Flash content.

We launched Upside2Go (for the iPhone) back in February this year. And we changed the game; changed the way people looked at mobile learning and the way they experienced learning on the go.

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 latest report from Ambient Insight about mobile learning is out, and it comes up with some pretty surprising figures. It indicates that the worldwide market for mobile learning will probably grow from USD 3.2 billion (2010) to about USD 9.1 billion by 2015. That means a healthy CAGR of approximately 22.7%. The report analyzes trends and current expenditure across varied markets.

Mobile technology, having seeped into popular culture, is now finding widespread acceptance as a training and learning device in the workplace as well. If not already adopted, mobile learning is now certainly featuring in most strategy discussions within L&D teams in large and small enterprises.

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.

I mentioned before in one of my posts about the growing use of smart phones application as a form of Just-in-Time performance support; as mentioned before; I feel eventually technology will enable individuals and not just companies/departments to deliver applications.

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.

While doing some research, I came across this interesting article ‘Can India lead the mobile-internet revolution?’ (registration required) that McKinsey published in February of this year.

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.

This takes on a post I wrote several weeks ago, that spoke about four themes that will (and not five) predominate learning in the future. As we prepare to iterate development of Upside2Go, we will need to start figuring out what sort of features our users (learners, managers, administrators) would really like from a mobile LMS. While our current system offers some cool features, we must look further into the future. This is where the rubber meets the road, by dreaming up features we invent the mLearning systems future right here. Taking the trends I’ve mentioned before, and the huge increase in persistent internet connection personal computing devices, I feel there need likely be three key themes around which the features would coalesce. (this discounts our current feature set)

Mobile Learning has been on our minds and for all the right reasons. Today, mLearnCon 2011 opens it doors to hundreds of visitors from in and around the US. And we are one of the 30 exhibitors showcasing our entire range of innovative Mobile Learning Solutions at booth number 316.

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.