Augmented reality (AR) can take any situation, location, environment, or experience to a whole new level of meaning and understanding. Mobile AR technologies provide an innovative tool for contextual learning, but mobile learning designers and developers are unaware of where to look for examples or development options.

A new approach to credentialing learning is on the horizon. Digital badges is a new credentialing model will have a profound impact on trainers, designers, developers, managers, and learners. A digital badge is a credential that is ideally suited for the age of electronic networked learning and work. But how does an organization initiate a badge program? Digital badges are transportable, sharable, embedded with information, and authenticatable. Before issuing badges, organizations must understand the process for issuing, storing, and sharing digital badges.

Apple has recently introduced support for indoor positioning via iBeacon (aka Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)). Unlike GPS, iBeacon has much lower power consumption as well as being much more accurate in detecting and connecting to nearby devices, particularly indoors. iBeacons are poised to transform how retailers connect with people indoors. They also hold great potentional in their ability to deliver highly-customized, location-based learning performance materials in real-time.

One of the emerging technologies that learning professionals are interested in is augmented reality. There is tremendous energy and excitement attached to the opportunities presented by augmented reality, but few actual case studies that organizations can learn from as they contemplate walking that path themselves.

The IEEE Actionable Data Book project is currently investigating open technologies compatible with the Open Stand Initiative. The goal is to define an open platform for mobile learning that is personalized, activity-based, and that has the potential for low-cost global adoption. The technical foundation for the project is the new EPUB 3 format for digital publications developed by the IDPF. It provides a framework for the structuring, packaging and mobile delivery of accessible HTML5 content.

mLearning programming is often needlessly repetitive, which makes the work inefficient and increases project costs. In other cases, the programming leads to undesirable design tradeoffs because engaging interactions can be difficult and time consuming to develop. A cursory investigation into ways to reduce programming repetitiveness and improve engagement level might lead one to think this problem could be easily resolved through tools or templates. However, it’s not that simple.

Many large enterprise and government customers use Motorola mobile devices for their employees, and they require the security to control any internet access or application downloads. We wanted to give the end-users access to their documentation in the field when they required it at the moment of need. Off the shelf reader products could not be adjusted to meet our needs or integrated with other software with the flexibility for these requirements.

Training and content development departments are tasked with developing mobile learning content very rapidly and very cost effectively. This makes mobile projects challenging and represents a problem that will only get worse as technology continues to advance. Many people have not thought about how to utilize off-shore vendors to augment their process and team to assist in creating mobile courses.

There’s a great deal of discussion about HTML5 and how it is changing the future of the web. While there is tremendous potential in place, there is still much confusion about what its impact is on technology-based learning, and what steps learning professionals should be taking to develop specifically for HTML5.

The increase in mobile usage has led to an expectation in consumers to have a seamless experience across all devices. This creates challenges for designers, who now need to design content that works not only on desktops, smartphones, and tablets, but on devices with varying screen sizes within each category. Responsive design is a great solution to the fragmentation of devices across smartphones, tablet, desktop, and more.