Mobile apps are an invaluable m-learning (i.e. mobile learning tool). Recent statistics show that 47% of businesses deploy educational and training materials on mobile devices such as smartphones, and 74% of trainees use their mobile device for learning and training. It is clear that the successful corporate training modules of the future will use mobile apps to facilitate effective learning. Here are three ways that these apps can be used.

1. As reminders. Phone apps can provide instant notifications regarding issues like upcoming training deadlines and new messages from trainers about aspects of the course. Given that 81% of smartphone users have their phone within reach at all times of the day or night, mobile apps are a valuable way of updating learners about corporate training and keeping everyone up to speed. Apps can thus function as an effective aide memoire and indeed, many cognitive theorists have argued that (like paper calendars and notebooks in earlier times), smartphones are becoming quite literally an extension of our brain’s memory. And, despite the scare stories about smartphones ‘dumbing down’ our brainpower, this is not necessarily a bad thing as it can make learning and working more efficient.
2. Asynchronous microlearning. Microlearning is short, bite sized educational aimed at fulfilling a single objective (for example, teaching a single fact about company policy). Asynchronous microlearning is microlearning that takes place outside of the classroom, for example in the learner’s home. Mobile apps can be used a day or two after a training session to prompt trainees to take a short quiz or watch a 90 second video about the content of that session. This repetition of the course material will help to embed it further in their memory.
3. Extending classroom training. As well as repeating, and thus enabling trainees to better memorize, what they have learned in their training sessions, mobile apps can also extend that training. Using a mobile app to send trainees a little factoid that extrapolates on, or even challenges, the corporate training that they have recently received, will motivate them to think independently about what they have learned.

As a communication tool, a means of extending learning, and an aid to memory, mobile apps are a great addition to any corporate training module. Mobile apps provide an immediate way for trainers and trainees to communicate with each other in a way that is focused on the course material. How else have you used apps to train employees?