Friday, September 23, 2011

Building m-learning : Eliminating Redundant Effort

Training Magazine’s Learning 3.0 Conference in Chicago on 4th and 5th October 2011 features a talk by Bijoy Banerjee on what he calls Single Source Content. I talked to Bijoy, Senior General Manager at Harbinger Knowledge Products, about his vision for eliminating redundant effort in building m-learning and e-learning.

Okay, what's the pain point you are addressing?
BB: Today’s learners are prepared to access learning on desktops, laptops, smart phones and tablets. As a training content developer, are you prepared to support all these different devices, their operating systems and browsers? That's what I'm trying to address.

So, where do we begin?
BB: Well, step one is to get out of denial. Acknowledge the challenge. Recognize that the prospect of creating content for all these devices, platforms and browsers separately is daunting - particularly when you think of the separate development and maintenance efforts and cost. Clearly, creating separate content files for each target delivery point is quite an uphill task if not impractical.

And- what's the big idea?
BB: Well, don’t lose heart yet! It’s indeed possible to address all these different devices, browsers and platform by a single content output, developed as a single project, at a single cost allocation. We call it Single Source Content.  Single Source Content is a “Single File” of content - HTML5 based - that runs seamlessly on desktop, laptop and all mobile platforms. The content can be delivered online through a learning management system. It can also be carried on the learner's device and played offline. Finally, it complies with tracking standards (SCORM, AICC) and accessibility guidelines (Section 508).

What are the advantages?
BB: With this solution you don’t need to separately plan for eLearning and mobile learning content development. Just develop the content once, and then push it from LMS, as is usual  in the case of eLearning delivery, to be accessed by multiple devices and their browsers. Because you need only a single project for developing the content, the single source content solution provides great cost efficiency. Not only that, single source content solution brings great operational efficiency as well - while updating the content, just update one file and the updated the content is available across all! Finally, nothing matters if learners don’t find the learning engaging and interactive. Single source content scores there too! 

Interesting, and one needs to dive deeper to understand better. Where do we find out more about this approach?

BB: You can get a sneak peak at this solution in Training Magazine’s Learning 3.0 conference in Chicago on 4th and 5th October. Or you can write to me at info@harbingerknowledge.com.

Thanks, and good luck for your talk in Chicago.
BB: My pleasure, and you are most welcome.

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