How To Incorporate a Mobile Learning Strategy | Proven Ways

Have you considered how glued we are to our mobile phones all the time? Whether we communicate, create content, or learn something, our mobile phones support us. That is why mobile learning is not just a nice-to-have but a must to incorporate into your online courses or training programs. 

In this article, you are about to find out:

• What does mobile learning imply?
• How is mobile learning beneficial to both you as a creator and for your learners?
• What mobile learning strategies can you incorporate into your course program?
• Mobile learning best practices from Eli Natoli herself
• Which mobile learning platform should you start on?

Why Mobile Learning?

Mobile learning, often called mLearning, is a method of learning using mobile devices like smartphones or tablets. It allows learners to access educational content and courses on the go, making learning more flexible and accessible.

Mobile learning is increasingly gaining popularity among users and educators. 

Nowadays, more than 60% of educators and platforms engaged in the eLearning industry provide mobile learning experiences in the form of apps. So, what advantages does mobile learning have to offer? 

Benefits of Mobile Learning

The benefits of mobile learning and the reasons you should start incorporating mLearning into your online courses and training programs include the following: 

• Accessible learning for everyone - learners can access your course content easier and more quickly than ever before 
• It is proven to increase your course completion rates. Not everyone will sit down to finish the course, but many will learn on the go when they have free time. Especially if you incorporate gamification and mobile notifications into your mLearning practice. 
• Reach wider audiences - as more and more students prefer bite-sized and microlearning content, they are rather use their mobile devices over any other device. 
• New income opportunities for you as a creator
• Automations are available for routine tasks. These will save lots of your precious time. So, by offering mobile learning, you can reach wider audiences, make learning even more accessible, and gain more income opportunities. And how can you make sure your mobile learning strategy works? 

How to implement mobile learning strategies

In an interview with our team, Eli Natoli, a professional course creator with more than five years of experience and a marketing strategist, has shared her best practices with us. Let’s see how you can incorporate mobile learning solutions into your online course business. 

Define your online course business goals 

First and foremost, if you want to design a mobile learning strategy, you should initially have a goal. A strategy is a plan to achieve this goal.

So, get clear on the goals of your business and how they correlate with mobile learning. Maybe one of your main goals is to make training & pre-recorded courses accessible for everyone. Then you should get clear on numbers, such as how much sales you expect, what an expected RIO rate is, etc.

Also, keep in mind that every goal for your business should be SMART, which means that goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-specific. 

Design content suitable for mobile learning

Choosing the right content is an extremely vital step when it comes to mLearning. This is because the topics you ususally choose for your regular courses might not suit mLearning. And why is that so? 

Offering courses and programs for mobile learning implies bite-sized content. This means that broader topics cannot be practically covered. 

Let’s look at the main types of learning content you can incorporate into your training. 

• Quizzes & tests

Even in mobile learning, remember to offer a few short quizzes to track student progress and help them better memorize the material. 

• Videos

A great mLearning course and program incorporates videos to help students consume & retain the material better. Videos also help you to cover lots of information in a short amount of time. 

PRO TIP  from Eli Natoli: Try to keep your video content for every lesson under four minutes. The shorter and more specific you keep your materials, the better.   
 

• Podcasts

 You can put up relevant podcasts or deliver the whole material in the form of a refined podcast that you record with quality tools and equipment.

• E-books & Audio materials

Other useful resources for students can be e-books and audio materials. You can use additional learning materials from third parties or use your own resources. 

If you have created courses and designed programs before, all these might not surprise you. And how do you deliver the content for mLearning? Eli Natoli recommends the following: 

• Create a sense of mobile community. Use the chat and messaging features to connect with your students on a deeper level and create that sense of community. 
• Use specific materials. You can offer full-featured course content, but mobile learning is about learning on the go. Ease up and simplify everything for you and your students. 
• Include small-sized visuals to ensure fast loading. Plus, keep in mind the size of mobile screens and avoid putting too much text information on one slide, infographics, or video.
• Keep it short. One of the main mistakes you should avoid is putting together a long, 40-minute video for mLearning. Instead, break your content into many short lessons.

Incorporate gamification and set notifications 

Use notifications and gamification to help your students progress and get to the finish line.   
 

-Eli Natoli

Course Creator, Coach, and a Marketing Strategist

Teaching becomes somewhat challenging when designing a course for mobile learning. This is because mobile learners get distracted quickly, such as when receiving an urgent call or message. These distractions keep the learner's focus away from the learning content. 

As you can see, your students might have all the intentions to learn and finish the course. Yet, they can face all sorts of sidetracks. One way to bring your learners back to your course and get them through the course is by incorporating a reward system and notifications. Such notification may be sent in the context of a learner making progress, finishing a lesson, or a reminder for them to get back to the course. 

For example,

• Don’t forget to meet your daily goal!
• Congrats, you have progressed 50% through your course!
• A new lesson is available! 
• Join our live event tomorrow to practice, etc. 

You get the idea. 

Once they are back on track, your task will be to keep them progressing. And what better way to keep the students’ interest and engage them than gamification? For this purpose, you can incorporate a reward system, branching scenarios, and quizzes and award them with certificates. 

Ensure mobile-friendliness  

Another peculiarity when it comes to developing a mobile learning strategy is ensuring it is mobile-friendly. Mobile device screen sizes differ from those of desktops, meaning the content you deliver should be easily accessed from mobiles. What does this imply?

Let’s suppose you are doing talking heads, and there is a supporting text there on your video. In this case, you want to make sure that it’s readable. So you should consider if the students can actually see it or if it is too small. Or perhaps you want to add supplementary materials to your course. Will the students be able to save them to their mobile devices? And if they can download it, will the format be compatible with a mobile device? 

Besides the compatibility issues, you should consider that mobile users tend to scroll more. That is why you also want to provide easy navigation for your learners, use clickable buttons, and have a touch-friendly interface overall.

Choose your mobile-friendly platform

As you are done with your mobile learning course, you will also need a platform to upload it, making your course accessible to your learners. Whichever of mobile learning software you choose, make sure:

• It has an app for iOS and Android. This will save you lots of time, and you do not need coding skills to work on the responsiveness of screen sizes. 
• Allows to easily upload courses and manage them
• Offers third-party integrations for a better experience 
• Has tools to take control over payments and marketing from one place
• Provides automation to automate routine tasks and save time 

One of the best LMS mobile app solutions we recommend is Uteach. Uteach offers a branded mobile app that you can customize for your online course brand. With an LMS like Uteach, you can:

• Get your branded app within a few weeks instead of waiting for months for your custom app development
• Establish a solid online course brand
• Have your mobile solution available on Google and Apple marketplaces without thinking of any maintenance issues. 

See more: Best 7 LMS Mobile Apps For You 

Test your mobile learning program before the launch 

Lastly, after you publish your mobile learning course or the training program into the mobile learning management system you will need to check if the progress is seamless for your learners. 

Go through your own course and training when it’s done. Try to see if there are any roadblocks or problems your students might encounter as they try to learn and consume.  
 

-Eli Natoli

Course Creator, Coach, and a Marketing Strategist

Test your course on various mobile devices and operating systems to ensure compatibility and functionality across different platforms. For that, you can use the preview feature of your mobile LMS platform to see how your content appears on all devices. You can also test everything directly from your smartphone to make sure the user experience is good and there are no technical issues. 

Make sure the person who is learning they get the end result at the end. Make sure the framework is correct, the path you are taking your students through is the an easy to follow and streamline path. 

Continue marketing

Finally, do not forget to market the courses for it to bring you results. 

There are two main types of marketing:

• Organic Marketing. This type of marketing includes free tactics that are being used to improve product/service visibility and sales—for instance, blogs, SEO optimization, unpaid social media posts, guest posts, etc. 
• Paid Marketing includes paid marketing tactics. E.g., social media ads, Google or YouTube ads, Landing Pages, etc. 

The wholesome marketing strategy incorporated both organic and paid marketing tactics. 

Organic Marketing best works for long-term engagement and audience building. It aims to build a loyal audience and maintain a client base. Meanwhile, paid marketing is better for short-term results, e.g., generating lots of leads at once. 

See more: How To Develop an Online School Marketing Strategy. 

What are the types of mobile learning?

Self-paced Learning 

One of the most common types of mobile learning is pre-recorded courses that allow self-paced learning. 

Simply put, instructors create courses that are later published with descriptions and other related materials. Nowadays, quizzes and other engagement tools are usually incorporated to check students’ progress and keep them motivated. 

This type of mLearning currently enjoys the most demand as it transcends location and time barriers. It allows everyone to join and learn from anywhere and whenever they want. 

Live Training 

Live training is also a type of eLearning. Instead of joining the training from PCs, participants join from mobile phones. 

Formal Training 

Another type of mobile learning is formal training. Usually, those are related to on-job training programs for new employees. You can implement Augmented and Virtual reality technologies to enhance the user’s learning experience. 

Informal Training 

One of the most popular types of mobile learning is informal training. This includes subject-matter experts teaching various types of courses based on their expertise & experience. Plus, this type of training is quite popular as it mostly includes teaching high-income skills such as graphic design, 3D modeling, programming, and copywriting. 

Choose your mobile learning software and get started! 

Mobile learning is the preferred solution for learners worldwide. It gives them access to your online courses and training programs wherever they are, especially while commuting. 

As you are now aware of the top mobile learning strategies you can incorporate into your eLearning business, it is time to get started. 

One of the best mobile LMS platforms that offers every tool for the successful creation, management, and expansion of the eLearning business is Uteach. It also comes with a mobile app solution to ensure you get all the benefits of mobile learning. You can book your free demo now and start.