The Next Thing… “iSmell”

Well, it’s finally happening, mobile devices are going to get the sense of smell. The US Department of Homeland Security is recruiting the likes of Samsung, LG, Qualcomm and Apple to develop mobile devices that use a “chemical-sensing silicon”.

The idea is that DHS could use these devices (in an opt-in model for users) to crowd source chemical monitoring in places like tunnels, metro stations, etc. With that crowd sourced information, they could know whether a potentially dangerous condition existed and alert citizens and emergency services right away. Obviously, this could help with terrorist threats but it could also help with accidental exposure to chemicals and other dangerous conditions.

For mobile learning, this is yet one more capability that we can leverage for learners. This almost completes the mobile device as a seeing, feeling and now smelling counterpart to it’s owner. We can use the device’s chemical sensor to help determine things like the makeup of natural habitats when on a nature walk or even the type of chemicals used in a lab experiment.

What kind of uses can you think of? I’m sure the possibilities are endless. The contextual relevance of a mobile device with the capability to see, feel, smell and record those data is an extremely powerful thing. We can then share that data with others and expand the knowledge base about nearly any place we visit.

This Information Week article explains the DHS project.

Mobile Learning Starts to See Another Roadblock Removed

Most organizations, whether public or private sector have begun to acknowledge that our cultural move to mobility is not a fad, it’s a reality and it’s here to stay. There was at first a sort of healthy skepticism about mobile devices and whether they would ever really become important business tools for the workforce. However, it now seems that most CTOs and other corporate decision makers realize that mobility will be at least part of their overall corporate IT structure. Some have even started to think about how they can leverage mobile applications to encourage productivity.

But through all this, one major concern remained and it’s a deal breaker for most organizations – SECURITY!! Mobile devices and the applications that run on them often have little to nothing in the way of security controls and policies. Organizations have been struggling with the idea of supporting personal devices under the IT umbrella. Do they tell users that they can have access to corporate data if IT can place security policies on those devices? Do they only support devices issued by the organization? Do they support both, but then restrict the information to those sources that are inherently secure to begin with? All of these unanswered questions have led lots of organizations to wait for leadership from the security industry before they deploy corporate applications. As you can imagine, that can hamper the deployment of mobile learning within an organization. If you can’t get to the LMS because the IT system doesn’t allow you to access it, you won’t be able to see your mobile learning content… never mind the fact that most learning management systems don’t yet have a mobile version. And because of all of this, a lot of organizations have been in no hurry to start mobile learning initiatives.

Well, we are starting to see some leadership from the companies in the technology security industry. The advances being made in security policy and device management could really open up the doors to massive mobile deployment of corporate applications and of course with that will come m-Learning. Recent announcements by Cisco and others have shown that the security industry is really listening and whether they get it right the first time or soon after, it’s certainly going to help ease the transition to mobility for most organizations. You can read more about specific applications in this Information Week article. I’m optimistic that removing security roadblocks will open the road up to mobile learning as organizations get more comfortable with mobile access to their information.

Flash Player On Devices – Going Mobile Just Got Easier

As one Google guy I spoke with recently said, “everyone is thinking about mobile.” And that is a really good thing for mobile learning. All the money and concentrated brain power of some of the most innovative and powerful companies will certainly yield some great results in the form of new software, hardware and cloud based applications to enable our productivity and creativity.

One of the best signs for those who make learning content is the Flash Player finally coming to mobile devices in large numbers. Some of you may be familiar with the trials Adobe has had in bringing the Flash player to the mobile area. It has actually been in use, in the form of Flash Lite for several years now. We don’t necessarily see it in North America, but it’s been used heavily in places like Japan and parts of Europe to deliver content. But now Adobe has adapted the Flash player to run higher end content on new devices. The version that will run on devices is 10.1, so it’s able to provide of all the modern Flash capabilities. Apple is still not allowing the Flash Player on the iPhone, and depending on who you talk to it’s either because the Flash Player is “too resource intensive” for the iPhone OR Apple has made a “business decision” not to allow the Flash Player on the iPhone because Apple plans to use a competing technology to deliver video and other content that Flash has been good at for awhile now. Those other competing standards may come in the form of HTML 5, QuickTime or something else that Apple has up their sleeve. I’m sure we will all hear a lot of buzz about whatever it is when they finally bring it out.

But iPhone aside, Adobe has been doing a lot to try to get mobile device manufacturers to include the Flash Player on their devices as either a stand-alone player or a browser plug-in. And the newest version of the plug-in is good by most accounts – take a look at what it’s capable of here:

Flash Plug-in Running on Google’s Nexus One

Ok, finally to my point about mobile learning… A lot of learning content developers use Flash to deliver rich and engaging learning environments. Many simulations use Flash, many games available in e-Learning courses use Flash and Flash is used a lot to deliver graphics, animations and different kinds of user experiences that are not able to be produced with HTML, JavaScript or any other traditional web technology. Plus, Flash developers are all over the e-Learning content development industry.

With a large Flash developer base in the e-Learning community, your designers and developers can now start to take advantage of the mobile player. This means you can re-purpose your older content, and make new content immediately deliverable to mobile devices without going through an app store or marketplace that you can not control.

Now, I understand that Flash has its’ issues. Security, and performance on mobile devices has been in question before. However, no mobile device or mobile software has conquered the security problem yet, so I wouldn’t let the Flash player be my reason for not going mobile with it. And I don’t think Flash Player 10.1 will run well on older devices. But as you can see if you look at the link above, it runs very smoothly on a modern device (Google’s Nexus One). And as people upgrade to newer devices, we’ll see more processor power, which will make performance a non-issue.

I do believe that the Flash player will be available on many newer mobile devices very soon, so start getting your developers ready to create some pretty interesting learning content.

2 Events that Could Help Push Mobile Learning

In recent days a couple of technical events of note have given hope for mobile learning. Microsoft announced that later this year it will release Windows Mobile 7 and RIM (maker of Blackberry smart phones) announced that it will release an updated WebKit based browser. Why are these events important? Well, here’s my take:

Windows Mobile 7:

• Windows ties well into the overall infrastructure of many organizations (whether we always like that or not)
• The Windows Mobile 7 update will integrate devices with the XBox gaming system, which could be another option for distributing learning – perhaps along the lines of the Apple App Store or Google’s Android Marketplace or the many other marketplaces available for different mobile operating systems
• Another strong, well funded competitor in this industry should bring more option – possibly even further commoditizing mobile devices and making them less expensive for educational purchasing

Blackberry WebKit browser:

• Blackberry smart phones are very popular in the corporate and government space, having a better browser experience on those devices will certainly allow a lot of organizations to have the ability to deploy some of their current learning content
• WebKit is the same core used for the iPhone Safari browser and the Android browser, it’s a very capable and highly extensible platform for Web development, so it provides the opportunity to develop rich, interactive experiences for learners

These new developments along with the deployment of Flash 10 on many devices throughout this year is really starting to make the mobile device a compelling place for learning content development. When you think of the ways developers can tap into the cloud, access the accelerometer, camera, and phone functions of a mobile device, you can start to see how we can really use these devices to consume and author learning content. It’s turning out to be an exciting year for mobile learning.

I will keep you updated on other happenings around mobile technology and provide details on these efforts as the become known.

New Report Reinforces Mobile Learning is Best as Performance Support

I just read an article titled, “Smartphones Make IBM Smarter, But Not As Expected” about IBM and Columbia University’s recent study on the behavior and effects of mobile learning within IBM. The study was very insightful, and the findings support the notion that m-Learning is currently best consumed in the form of performance support material. Employees in the study used mobile content that helped them find information about clients and other employees at the point of need before communicating with clients. Employees did not find the mobile courseware to be particularly helpful. This may be the nature of their jobs, so I don’t think this means that mobile courseware of any kind is not useful. We’ve seen examples of compliance training work for other organizations, so there is room in the mobile world for certain types of courseware. However, this study does point to mobile performance support, delivering context relevant content quickly and efficiently as a major enabler for productivity. I would urge you to go to the ASTD Web site and get a copy of the article. Here are some main highlights:

• “surveyed 400 employees about their use of mobile devices to access company information”
• employees used mobile information “for two main purposes: in-field performance support from colleagues and access to late-breaking information”
• “IBM employees, especially sales¬persons and managers, need current, just-in-time information that is relevant to their specific task and contextual to their environment.”
• “generally dislike having to learn any new user interface;” – go with established norms
• “employees seem to prefer fewer options and less information on their mobile phones than would be available on their desktop computers”
• “Mobile phone users typically have more immediate, goal-directed intentions than desktop users. The former know what they seek and rarely deviate from the path toward finding that information. Presenting only the most critical information, mi¬nus extraneous and potentially distract¬ing segments, is far more desirable than offering a wealth of opportunities.”
• “As a result of the study, IBM has shifted its mobile learning focus from delivering formal learning modules to creating just-in-time performance support systems. IBM is now building a new system for executive sellers that provides, via mobile phones, reference checklists of critical information that is useful when preparing for client meetings.”
• “In June 2009, IBM announced a $100 million investment in mobile research over the next five years, focusing on mobile enablement, emerging markets, and enterprise-to-end-user experience.”

The article also includes some good design tips, so definitely do what you can to get a copy of it. It was $10 to download. The article is in the January 2010 Issue of Training and Development Magazine.