4 Strategies For Generating Engaging Mobile Learning Content

1. Break it down

Apply the adage: less is more - this is definitely true for mobile learning.

When writing content, think about the way your posts will likely be applied: if it's on a tablet, you will find unique behaviours from smartphone usage. The main factor to not forget is to minimise your content down into conveniently digestible chunks. People making use of smartphones and tablets maybe approaching your site content in small chunks, or they might sit down for a couple of hours every time.

Your content should be suitable to work for either of these modes. Consequently lessons should be simple, and prepared into discrete units making sure that learners will make progress in small steps, as opposed to the extensive in-depth chapters you would expect in a textbook.

2. Clear titles

While you split a subject up, give your users a roadmap: make them aware of the reason for each lesson, how it builds from the previous lesson, and the way it may benefit them. So if it's academic material, emphasize which element of the syllabus you're addressing, and what analysis requirements they'll be fulfilling. And in case it's a skill you're teaching, offer a practical demonstration of what your users should be able to gain at each phase.

By breaking down a hefty area into many smaller parts, you don't just permit consumers to regulate the speed of their learning, but will also impart them with a feeling of what they're building toward. This is certainly suitable for motivating your users' aspirations, and encouraging their sense of achievement once they ultimately reach that target.

3. Mix it up

Regardless of whether learning styles are important to the way people learn, it's always a good strategy to use a strong mixture of various media. If your content is text-based, outline key points with diagrams or pictures. This helps not only to demonstrate ideas but breaks up the lesson(see point 1), providing added structure. Pictures act as landmarks on the page - and people can measure their progress more readily. Compare this to the wide open highway of plain written text which runs on for pages and pages...

And don't get sloppy if your content is video-based. Supplement your videos with written or interactive checks. It's easy to lose track of a video and feel as if you overlooked specific key points, so an exam or recap is a wonderful approach to give people a feeling of what progress they're making and what they require additional work on.

4. Give Advice

You might believe the best reward of learning is learning itself - but that's tricky to always remember when it's getting late and you're having difficulties focusing. Along with mobile learning, your content is located on a device very effective at stealing attention from your users in a zillion ways. They're likely to lose focus and check their emails or Facebook. Now you ask, how do I get them back?

This is where feedback is necessary.

Feedback is definitely an opportunity to reward your users. And it doesn't just have to come in the conventional 'C+ Must Work Harder' variety: the fantastic thing about mobile learning is that often feedback comes in unique shapes and forms.

One of the more common styles of feedback is badges and successes. The root thought is that people boost their 'score' by completing lessons, taking tests, etc. Users discover stuff as their score gets better - normally little graphics that represent their progress. This may be a reasonably stylish sort of feedback, but one which is able to increasing user retention.

But any variety of feedback will benefit your users, whether a rating for an interactive test or perhaps easy track record of topics they've covered. The more customised you can make it, the more effective.