John will be hosting these presentations on mobile learning at The Performance Improvement Conference 2012 in Toronto, Canada, on April 22nd and 23rd. Here’s the spread: 22nd of April: ‘Decision Scenarios for Mobile Support and Instruction’ This session will help organizations choose mobile learning solutions based on their current infrastructure and performance improvement needs. At the session, John will examine one-minute support and learning scenarios based on need, legacy investments, and even impulse decisions in terms of appropriate technologies for the back end, the handheld devices themselves, and the supporting communication infrastructure. 23rd April: ‘Adding Mobile Nuggets to the Main Course’ This session will address the strategic role that short learning nuggets can play in an overall learning and performance support strategy. John will explore need drivers for nuggets, push vs. pull delivery, required vs. discretionary and formal vs. informal use, content selection and organization schemas, and media formats. The discussion will help develop rationale to justify investing in nuggets as a strategic tool rather than an afterthought. Click here to register for the event. In case of any queries, please email johng@tatainteractive.com.

Gamification is the application of game design principles as an intervention in everyday practices. It involves applying patterns of game design on seeming boring chores and transforming them into exciting and fun engagement for the user. In a learning space, gamification can be effectively used to create engaging learning experiences for the learner. Learning challenges can be transformed into exciting games which allow the adult learner to follow their own learning path. Playing a game involves planning and practice, making mistakes and learning from them, a goal oriented journey, a self-paced and self-directed approach… It is practical and involves experimentation, observation, conceptualization and application. All these qualities are what make a good learning solution. Gamification of a learning challenge allows the player to approach a learning challenge not as a chore but as a challenge that promises instant gratification. Example1: One of the examples of a chore being transformed into an engaging gratifying experience resulting in an effective learning is the ‘Currency Checker game’.  An International Bank based out of UK had a challenge in training their employees in ‘Verification of Currency’. This challenge was converted into fast paced ‘Eye for detail‘game where the player had to quickly identify the anomalies and errors in the currencies. This time based challenge rewarded the player with points and badges for recognition of their skills. The players ended up practicing it many times over without feeling the burden, fatigue or boredom usually associated with such tasks. Example 2: Another example of training employees on following procedures for a mundane yet critical task of filling out log book that maintains record of people who have had incidents of vomiting and diarrhoea.   This was converted into Film Noir style Detective game, where the player had to navigate on a ship, talk to people, gather information and fill out the log book. The player received rewards and recognition and a sense of achievement on successful completion of the game. An element of fantasy and imagination transforms the learning into a more meaningful and engaging experience. In the process the player also learnt the importance of filling out the log book and the procedure of filling it. Feedback from real users. Some qualitative feedback from people who played our cheque verification and currency verification games: "When I started, I could hardly find errors in a cheque, but after practice, I could track errors quite easily. So definitely playing over again I would look forward to improving my scores and reducing the errors." "It made me sit back and concentrate to ensure good scores." "A good stress buster." " I did not realize that I was being trained." "After playing for the first time you come to know your weaknesses and you can wipe out those weaknesses and score full marks (in the next round)." Here is a graph (real data) that shows how users’ score increases over sessions of playing the game.    Inferences: By virtue of playing the game five times, most learners spent more than an hour in the learning content. The score is a reflection of the learner’s ability to do the job in the game. Therefore, the progressive increase in scores over the first four sessions is indicative of improvement in skills. While there isn’t any specific information about the dip in score in the fifth attempt, it may be attributed to fatigue (the sessions were all back-to-back).

It’s A Post PC World "When we’re talking about the post-PC world, we’re talking about a world where the PC is no longer the center of your digital world, but rather just the device. We’re talking about a world where your new device, the devices you use the most, need to be more portable, more personal, and dramatically easier to use than any PC has ever been." - Tim Cook, Apple CEO According to IT consulting firm IDC, 2011 saw "shipments" of nearly 1 billion "smart connected devices." By 2016 the number will grow to just under 2 billion. Tata Interactive Systems has been at the forefront of the mobile revolution and is currently engaged in creating cutting edge mobile learning solutions for delivery on tablets & smartphones for clients across the world. Our engagements in various countries with clients cutting across business sectors provide us with invaluable experience and unique insights in the development of mobile learning. What’s Stopping You From Adopting Mobile Learning? Most companies are still hesitant to adopt mobile learning for the sheer reason that they are not sure if mobile learning is here to stay or not. In my opinion we need to only look at the explosive sales of smart phones and tablets as compared to sales of PC's. It is clearly not a question of whether to adopt mobile learning but when. Challenge #1: Technological Challenges Up until last year flash was being used predominantly for mobile learning, on PC's and certain smartphones. HTML5 has now emerged as a strong contender for a cross platform flash solution even though it is not a designated standard by W3C yet. Challenge #2: Device Diversity Mobile learning today needs to be made compatible with iOS, Android & Windows operating systems running on a plethora of devices. HTML5 has been widely adopted and is supported by most of these devices. Challenge #3: Legacy Content Conversion A lot of companies are currently sitting on hundreds of hours of existing learning content and want to port this to mobile devices.  As part of this conversion there are several cost implications to be considered. Maintenance and hardware costs - if mobile devices need to be supplied to the workforce - may be daunting. Also creating multiple variations of the same learning course to run on different gadgets will multiply the cost. Challenge #4: Design - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle It is important to understand that the instructional design for legacy learning programs may not be optimized for mobile platforms & smartphone delivery. Creating learning for delivery via smartphones will also throw up several user interface design challenges and it will be important to bear in mind the following points: Becoming conscious of screen real estate and as a result focusing on the most critical navigation elements on screen Designing learning in smaller chunks allowing users to jump in and out as required Getting rid of frills and the tendency to add things just to fill up space Designing one or two column layouts to become more adaptable to different screen sizes Using less animation unless absolutely necessary to aid learning Making visuals more sleek and minimalistic Including additional links to allow for social interaction Adopting infographics to say more with less Maximising the use of gestures like swipe, pinch zoom and seamless scrolls Gamifying navigation when content lends itself to it So What’s The Best Solution? I have spoken about how your shift to mobile learning will be influenced by the proliferation & diversity of devices, reuse of legacy learning content & cost considerations in executing a conversion. Is it possible to overcome these obstacles and turn them into opportunities to deliver learning that complements your increasingly mobile & geographically dispersed workforce? Until recently the choice of authoring tools to create HTML/HTML5 content has been limited to products like Rapid Intake, Adobe Edge, Adobe Captivate 5.5 and Claro. The big challenge so far has been that of device diversity - one version of a course would not be able to run on every mobile device & platform. The authoring tools mentioned above allow authoring & publishing courses for some devices but for other devices there has had to be a compromise in the design & development process. Our focus at the Mobile Solutions Centre of Excellence at Tata Interactive Systems has been to create a complete mobile learning ecosystem - one that can effectively resolve the challenges of device diversity, HTML5 authoring & instructional design for mobile devices. This product suite is called LEARNow™. Learning content authored in HTML5 using LEARNow™ features "Fluid Resolution" which adapts automatically to the display size of any device like Apple, Blackberry, Android OS devices etc. Platforms such as LEARNow™ seek to facilitate a fundamental shift in making mobile learning a reality while keeping adoption costs low. Nitin’s Top Tips (If you have questions or would like to discuss mobile learning with Nitin, join us on Twitter @tatainteractive or visit our YouTube Mobile Learning Channel) The first question to ask yourself is - "What should be converted?" A three-course meal for breakfast is just as inappropriate as a tub of popcorn and large soft drink for lunch. Winning candidates for conversion, both from a visual & duration perspective are: Short nuggets—created just for mobile platform or excerpted from existing courseware. Restricted to a maximum of 5 mins duration. Video and audio (remember, phones were originally just audio devices). Knowledge-checks, including those with extensive feedback to reinforce learning. Quick performance support tools. Conversion Scenarios: From the above table we can see that a conversion from PC to Tablets with the original course being in HTML is a likely candidate for conversion to mobile learning. Where Flash courses are involved, converting from PC to Tablets has a greater degree of effort on the visual design and technical design fronts. Finally converting from PC to Smartphones involves the highest degree of effort owing to the small form factors of these devices. Finally: Testing your masterpiece Don’t forget to test your masterpiece on the actual targeted device. Not just today, but on every update/upgrade of the target device/browser/platform/OS. Remember, HTML5 is still a candidate and not yet a ‘standard’ designated by the W3C. Hence perfectly working courses/nuggets do tend to break on new upgrades and might require continual monitoring and repair.  -Nitin Mistry [Nitin heads the Mobile Solutions Centre of Excellence at Tata Interactive Systems (TIS). The six ‘Centres of Excellence’ at TIS foster thought leadership and core expertise for differentiated products & service offerings. Videos from these Centres of Excellence are available on YouTube]    

TIS’s unique learning solutions have won four prestigious Brandon Hall awards this year - one Gold award in the category of ‘Best Use of Virtual Worlds for Learning’, two Silver awards in the category of ‘Best Use of Games in Learning’ and one Bronze award in the category of ‘Best Custom Content’. This is the fourth consecutive year that TIS has won the prestigious Brandon Hall Learning Excellence Awards.  The Gold award in the category of ‘Best Use of Virtual Worlds for Learning’ was for the simulation ‘The Store - Through the Associate’s Eyes’ developed for Shoppers Drug Mart, Canada. The simulation helped increase speed-to-productivity and comfort levels of new Associate Store Owners. The two Silver awards in the category of ‘Best Use of Games for Learning’ were for the Philips Outdoor Lighting Learning Game and Holland America Line Inspection Game. TIS's serious games enabled a new level of learner involvement and offered exciting training solutions for learners at Philips and Holland America Line to bridge the distance between 'I have to finish this training' and 'I want to play this game!' The Bronze award in the category of ‘Best Custom Content’ was for a solution designed for the Bahrain Institute of Public Administration (BIPA). The solution ensured effective resolution of conflicts and better customer service by BIPA’s learners.TIS has won a total of 10 Brandon Hall Learning Excellence Awards in the last 4 years.

Given the rate at which mobile technology is currently growing, designers of training can no longer afford to explore m-learning as an after-thought. However, the purview of design decisions has traditionally covered learning formats (web-based or instructor-led training, blended learning or standalone modules, synchronous or asynchronous training and so on); discussions then move on to the best approach for delivering the training (scenarios, stories, games, simulations, etc.). Questions around the suitability of mobile devices to deliver learning have yet to become an integral part of the design discussion. As a designer of m-learning, there are a number of paradigms to consider - shorter attention spans, a redefinition of ‘chunks of information’, alternate navigation strategies, ingenious apps, and superior quality graphics to name a few. For your target audience to transition seamlessly from the mobile world with which they are familiar to the one in which you are embedding your training, these paradigms must be accounted for. This paper focuses on the considerations driving the design and delivery of mobile learning. It covers the instructional design perspective, including the possibilities and challenges of designing for the medium; device usage statistics and platforms; the different types of apps and their implications for training; some design decisions governing the development of a truly mobile learning solution; suggestions for how commonly available functionalities, known as ‘accessories’, can be made an integral part of m-learning; designing accessible m-learning; and social learning using a mobile device. Access the whitepaper here.

Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) had announced the LEARNow™ Learning Design Challenge (LDC) in January 2013. Many aspiring participants have requested TIS to extend the competition deadlines so that they have more time to submit their entries. In light of these requests, the contest deadline has been extended to 15th March 2013. Using TIS’s mobile authoring tool, LEARNow™, participants have to create a 5 minute learning nugget on the topic ‘How can I get my CEO (even) more interested in training?’ Based on TIS’s proprietary FRUN (Fluid Resolution Universal Navigation) technology, the LEARNow™ platform offers authoring and publishing tools to seamlessly deliver content across multiple operating systems and devices like smartphones, tablets and laptops. To win the competition, the content submitted by contestants must look equally splendid on a PC, tablet or a smartphone! Entries for the LEARNowTM Learning Design Challenge will be judged by Donald Taylor - Chair, Learning and Skills Group and Learning Technologies Conference. Don will evaluate the entries on below parameters: Does the content meet the learning objective? Is it suitable for deployment on mobile devices as well as PCs? How innovative is the approach? The winner will be announced on the 5th of April on the LEARNowTM website and gets an iPad 4. A free LEARNowTM Mobile Authoring licence is being provided for this competition. To register and download the licence, visit http://www.learnow.com/LDC  

Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) received the honour on the 9th of February at a ceremony at Hotel Ramada, Mumbai. The honour was conferred at the Orbit Live Industry Honours 2013 by Arena Animation along with Anand Gurnani Media, AnimationXpress and CG Tantra. Ms. Manisha Mohan, Senior Vice President - Design and Animation, Tata Interactive Systems received the award on behalf of TIS. The award was given out by Mr. Anand Gurnani, co-founder of AnimationXpress along with Mr. Easo Thampy Matthew, Business Head & National Operations Head of Arena Animation. Mr. Easo Thampy Matthew says, "We had endeavoured to recognize the contribution of the animation industry to society as a whole and to the animation community in particular. While considering the eLearning segment , we discovered that TIS had engaged innovative methods of creating content that is interesting to the audience by effective use of animation". On receiving the award, Ms. Manisha Mohan says, "We feel honoured to receive this acknowledgement from all the organizers of this event. We really appreciate the good work that they are doing by building an ecosystem for the Animation Industry by training young animators, as well as providing a forum for the industry to exchange ideas. It is heartening for our team to receive this recognition for using animation as a key ingredient in making learning a fun activity".

Philips Lighting wanted to change from a product-oriented organisation to one delivering business services and solutions. The sales force had a technical orientation and consequently found it difficult to sell the new solutions. The sales technique had to change from showing product benefits and features to illustrating customer focused solutions and business benefits. Institutional sales were further complicated with multiple stakeholders involved, with varying requirements. Tata interactive Systems designed an investigative Serious Game called the ‘Philips Outdoor Lighting Learning Game’ where players employ the interview format extensively to deduce information about customers and use it to build compelling solutions that meet their requirements. Serious Games allow learners to experience situations that cannot be replicated in the real world for reasons of safety, cost and time. This article by Samuel Sawian, Game Designer at TIS explains how Serious Games enable learning and then goes on illustrate the same by the Philips Lighting case study. Access the article here.  

We continue our journey on capturing various viewpoints on MOOCs. We asked Dr. Shwetaleena Bidyadhar, Principal Learning Designer, Tata Interactive Systems on her firsthand experience on MOOCs. Here's what she had to say. "When I first heard of this concept few years back I was quite enamored by it! The movement gathered steam and The New York Times dubbed 2012 as the ‘Year of the MOOC’. I went into a ‘me too’ mode and enrolled into quite a few of the well-known courses. My satisfaction (and completion) levels for such courses have varied widely. After more than a year of experiencing some of this first hand all I can say is that the honeymoon is far from over." says Shwetaleena.  She continues "our vision should be to design a next gen MOOC that incorporates findings derived from the analysis of current learner behavior data. This MOOC 2.0 could lead to higher rates of learner engagement and course completion." To know more on MOOCs, read "Designing MOOCs: A White Paper on Instructional Design for MOOCs" by Preeti Jasnani. To watch a preview video of the To watch a preview video of the white paper, click here. To access the full white paper, click here.    

Tata Interactive Systems (TIS), a pioneer and global leader in learning solutions has won eight awards at the prestigious Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning Awards this year. This is the fifth consecutive year TIS has won the prestigious Brandon Hall Excellence Awards. The award details are as mentioned below. Excellence in Learning Awards: Gold Best Custom Content for Excelsior College - Associates Degree course in Nursing Best Custom Content for P&G One Asia - IPR Story Based Learning Best Results of a Learning Program for ROGERS Silver Best Custom Content for P&G One Asia - Learning Nuggets Bronze Best Custom Content for University of Maryland  Cybersecurity Capstone Simulation Best Use of Games for Learning for CIGNA  Games to Create Awareness about Customer Centricity & Net Promoter Score Best Use of Mobile Learning for DIAGEO - 3D Aps Excellence in Sales and Marketing Awards: Bronze - Best Program for Sales Training and Performance for PepsiCo - The DC Academy Simulation Workshop This year TIS has won awards across categories for a range of innovative learning formats - from serious games, learning nuggets, story based learning (StoBLs), simulations, 3D animation-based mobile apps to TOPSIM (TIS' workshop-based simulations product) for sales training and performance. Two of the award wins this year are with TIS’s prestigious university customers, demonstrating innovation in learning in academics as well. Along with innovation, winning in the results of a learning program category has successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of TIS solutions. Winning three Gold, one Silver and four Bronze are a testimony of TIS's commitment to excellence and our exceptional work in the dynamic space of learning. Over the past five years TIS has won 18 Brandon Hall Excellence Awards.