New technologies have a way of transforming our approaches to learning, and of influencing our theories about it. So how will the emergence of the tablet change e-learning content and how we deliver it?
In typical IT support scenarios, we talk a lot about learner engagement in the e-learning industry. Generally, I think it’s fair to say that, if we really want someone to engage with what we’re saying, we have to speak to the heart and not just to the brain. We may disagree about the best way to do that through e-learning, but I think most people in this business would recognize the difference between a sterile information dump, without context or emotional relevance to the learner, and a stimulating interaction that successfully reaches for the emotions as well as the mind.
With tablet computing, we have a whole new sense to engage – the sense of touch. So, we need to explore what works with this a low end computer & phone in one with sufficient processing power.
Now, with tablet computing, we have a whole new sense to engage – the sense of touch. This is an incredibly exciting opportunity, and I’d hate to see it wasted because we failed to think through the practical implications of the medium and neglected to consider what ‘pleases the finger’. Just as in the past we labored over the cognitive and visual aspects of e-learning, we now need to explore what works kinesthetically.
Appealing to the sense of touch :Touch is a natural, intimate gesture; it is perhaps our most instinctive way of interacting with anything at all. While a PC relies on an abstract relationship between the learner and the elements on the screen, mediated by a mouse and a pointer, with a tablet we get to engage more directly. A learner has a more immediate physical interaction with the learning material. Put a product knowledge or process training course on a tablet, and you can literally open that subject up for tactile exploration.
So, what strengths do tablets have when it comes to e-learning? I think there’s little doubt that tablets will become an important platform for e-learning delivery. Their personal nature, ease-of-use and low cost – as well as that intimacy of touch – could well mean that the majority of e-learning is provided this way in the future.
Laid back learning : But what exactly do tablets do best? First of all, a tablet is a much more relaxing device to use than a smart phone or PC. As smart phone users we find ourselves squinting at our tiny screens, killing an empty minute or seeking some seemingly-essential factoid. As PC users we tend to lean forward, hunched over the keyboard, squinting at a cluttered environment full of windows, menus, processes and notifications.
When a learner launches e-learning on a tablet, the tablet becomes a ‘learning appliance’.
So our learning appliance, at least in the shape of the say Aakash / ipad , is more of an appliance; the app you are using takes over the device and becomes the device. When you launch an ebook reader the tablet becomes an ebook reader; when you launch the newspaper app it becomes the newspaper and so on. Similarly, I believe, when a learner launches e-learning on a tablet, the tablet becomes a ‘learning appliance’. We just don’t have a name for it yet: L-device?
On a tablet, learning can take place in a more tranquil setting: sitting in an armchair or on a sofa, say, relaxing and taking time to think and contemplate. Indeed, this setting may even be too relaxed for some forms of learning, but maybe this laid-back context will stimulate designers to develop new and effective learning interactions.
Text makes a comeback : Tablets threaten one of our most basic assumptions about e-learning content: that reading large amounts of text on a PC screen is bad. If this notion was ever true for computer-based training, it’s surely not true for tablets. Tablets are excellent reading devices; you can sit back, relax, adjust the text size and orientation and enjoy the read.
I think text, which we have gone to great lengths to avoid in e-learning, stands a good chance of making a big comeback on the tablet. I’m not advocating a text-only approach but, as a learning tool to compare with other media, I think text holds its own on a tablet in a way that it doesn't on PC monitor.
Video galore: We’ve been using more and more video in PC-based e-learning, so perhaps it comes as no surprise that video will be play a starring role in tablet-based e-learning as well. Video really stands out on a tablet: it’s great for standalone video-casts, but it works just as well interspersed with other content. You can even scale the video to full screen with a simple gesture – another example of tactile interaction with content on a tablet.
And because the tablet is a device that you must hold and touch, video content feels more personal and engaging than it does on a PC screen. I really hope that video replaces that standard e-learning approach: text with voice-over. A tablet playing an interview with a Subject Matter Expert, or even a trainer talking directly to you, is much more effective than the ever-droning voice-over that seems to haunt PC-based e-learning.
So, the tablet is looking good for reading and watching video – both ‘laid back’ learning activities. But we want interactivity in our e-learning too, to engage learners and make them absorb our learning objectives as they explore the content. And that raises an interesting question: to what extent do we need to reinvent even the most basic PC-based interactions for the tablet environment?
Let's think outside the button: Interacting through touch means working with your fingers. To create a successful touch interface we need to think outside the button. A finger is much bigger than a mouse pointer, so any interaction that relies on mouse-level accuracy won’t be ideal for a touch interface. For e-learning, this means that the way we present and select options must be revisited from a finger-sized perspective.
Tablets allow us think bigger, and in terms of gestures. IT guys says Buttons are abstractions, they don’t allow us to work directly with content, but rather ask us for approval for the machine to do something. In an ideal learning interaction it is the learner who does things; the tablet as a computer should become invisible.
Tablets allow us think bigger, and in terms of gestures. You move a mouse pointer to another part of a PC screen with a relatively small twitch of the hand, but on a tablet you can use a combination of finger movements. Navigation and option selection could be less about reading and clicking and more about swiping towards areas of interest, using multi-touch gestures to explore and manipulate options and so on. I believe that what we consider to be ‘instructionally effective’ content is heavily influenced by the format in which that content is delivered. In other words, our fondly-held instructional design theories owe more to the medium than they do to some deeper pedagogical truth. To rewrite McLuhan: the medium forms the theory. And, clearly, the medium that has thus far influenced our instructional design theories has been the PC with its vertical screen, the keyboard, the mouse and the mouse pointer.
Is this "the end "of classic multiple choice? Think again,
We use multiple choice as part of a discourse rather than as way to test knowledge. It allows the learner to interact with the content, and stimulates reflection on key questions, possible outcomes and important issues. But the interaction still involves reading and clicking – mediated, or ‘abstracted’, by the screen, mouse and mouse pointer interface.
The combination of mobility, larger screen size, and greater computing power makes tablets an ideal mobile device for accessing a wide range of training and educational content—from e-textbooks to Web-based courses to decision-support apps. Producers of eLearning who understand the devices’ potential—and limitations—will be able to create truly innovative, effective tablet-based learning experiences that wow and delight learners.
What tablet-friendly alternatives will we get to ‘traditional’ e-learning interactions?
I’m not arguing that we now scrap multiple choice questions, but I do question whether it is an interaction we’d choose if we’d first started creating e-learning on tablets instead of on PCs. And if we can challenge multiple choice questions on that basis, we can do the same for the many PC-derived interactions involving buttons, boxes and lists.
We are already implementing what tablet-friendly alternatives we get to these ‘traditional’ e-learning interactions. the approaches will we discover that avoid the abstraction of button and option clicking, which embrace the tactile possibilities of direct screen contact, and that please the finger with large targets and intuitive gestures? These are exciting possibilities and the field is, as yet, wide open.
Any thoughts share with me at ravindrapande@gmail.com
