Mobile learning and social care

A Cimex study has shown that users are keen to access learning resources through their mobile phones - but only if they're easily integrated into work situations and user needs.

Cimex and the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) have been developing innovative e-learning resources for many years now – initially as traditional SCORM based learning modules and more recently working on a new video-on-demand platform Social Care TV.

A key feature of social (care) workers’ working lives is they are not deskbound. They are often on the move between clients or several care homes in a typical working day. These working conditions make them an ideal audience for e-learning solutions delivered to mobile platforms.

The aim of this project was to explore three different versions of delivering online learning resources:

• a website
• a mobile prototype
• a personalised version of the mobile concept on a paper-based prototype

Social Care TV is a new video learning resource for social workers. It provides video learning resources in different topic areas (e.g. Dementia or Personalisation) as well as textual resources and hyperlinks to other relevant websites.

In contrast to this, the mobile prototype provides shorter, 3-5 minute versions of the video learning resources that would be easy to use for different types of 3g mobile devices.

The third version of a learning resource included in this study was a personalised paper-based prototype, which tried to explore various additional options that were not included in the mobile prototype, but could potentially be useful for the prospective audience.

In-depth sessions pay dividends

By comparing these different options, the study examined the feasibility, usefulness and effectiveness of mobile learning in social work. Apart from that, it provided insights into potential barriers, influencing factors, technical limitations (handsets, screen size, bandwidth), and how best to design an effective user interface with the aim of informing future development.

Cimex conducted six hour-long sessions with social workers and social work students. Five of the participants were aged between 22-29 years and used the internet through their 3G mobile phones on a daily basis. In order to include the views of social workers currently not using the mobile internet, a more senior team manager of 55, who had never used the internet through her mobile phone took part.

Mobile user needs are key

There are two main things this study showed. Firstly, participants were highly positive about being able to access information and learning resources through their mobile phones. Secondly, the participants saw some barriers to the adoption of mobile learning resources and revealed that the prospective use of these resources will largely depend on how easily they can be integrated into work situations and user needs.

These areas of concern were:

• time (only being able to access resources on the go, with little time to spend on them)
• screen size and quality (screens not large enough, quality too low, audio more helpful)
• download (fears of cost and a handset’s memory capacity)
• sound (not always having headphones at hand)
• money (most have work phones, but these are not internet-enabled)

The younger social workers who took part in the survey seemed to have integrated mobile internet use into their working lives already. This suggests that the prospective audience is ready to pick up this kind of service.

Developing mobile learning in the future

These concerns should further guide the development of mobile resources for this audience as they are likely to impact on future use and the effectiveness of learning tools.

In order to create a resource that is useful and can be integrated effectively into the users’ daily life, it will be necessary to move beyond the idea of providing content that is highly similar to the content on a website.

Rather than merely developing a different avenue of delivery that provides users with the same kind of content, the mobile resource needs to provide far more tailored content. It should be a combination of different types of content. In the case of mobile learning for social workers this could be:

• personalised content (e.g. videos and articles that are based on user preferences and interest)
• access to professional data (e.g. patient records and care plans)
• a GPS functionality (e.g. allowing users to locate help, services, colleagues)
• a general search function (e.g. to access public transport information, weather reports, and to check factual information).

This set of considerations isn’t simply limited to the social care worker audience. Mobile learning resources for other learners should be conceptualised in much the same way – by providing content that is more tailored than what a website offers. Information should be delivered within a toolkit, rather than acting a mere mobile access point for learning resources.

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Published: 19 Feb 2010

Tags: Customer insight, E learning, Mobile