Mobile Technologies Implementation: A Fictional Study
Real Plan. Fictional Company.
What you are about to read is a real plan for a fictional company. The following is a paper for DL5763 - Trends in Instructional Design at the American College of Education (ACE). We were tasked with creating a plan for implementing mobile technologies within a business setting for one of the following purposes:
Increasing communication between various groups
Delivering training to employees
Building collaboration among employees
I chose #2, delivering training to employees, and created a fictional corporation called Good Company that owns giant superstores in the USA and has over 50,000 frontline workers. In a nutshell, the plan is to have workers use a mobile "SuperApp" from MangoApps to access microlearning units, tailored to their work environment, with added layers of gamification and social learning. The training units would most likely be developed in 7taps, a popular microlearning platform where I have been learning a lot about the science of learning. And without further ado 🥁🥁🥁
Using MangoApps for Delivering Informal Microlearning Employee Training
MangoApps is a customizable modular platform that enables companies to design and develop employee intranets with operational applications – such as document sharing tools, a learning management system (LMS), wikis, and team chat – hosted in a company-branded mobile "SuperApp" (MangoApps, n.d.). In this fictional mobile technologies implementation plan, over 50,000 frontline employees of Good Company (alias) retail superstores throughout the United States of America will use MangoApps' SuperApp to receive on-the-job training and communications. The goal is to deliver informal, just-in-time microlearning modules to frontline employees through their mobile devices during shift work (Exter & Ashby, 2021), thus converting the workplace into a fun, mobile-friendly learning environment (France et al., 2020) where employees are encouraged to enhance their digital literacies (Churchill, 2020), reinforce job-related skills, and socially learn from coworkers.
About Microlearning
In Short and Sweet (2019), Kapp and Defelice defined microlearning as "an instructional unit that provides a short engagement in an activity intentionally designed to elicit a specific outcome from the participant" (p. 23). Though microlearning units are relatively short (usually five minutes or less), they are designed to be as long as necessary and as short as possible (Tipton, 2022). These units can be taken formally, meaning learners must view them at a specific time and date, or informally, where learners can view them as needed (Kapp & Defelice, 2019). Microlearning units can be ideal for "just-in-time" training when workers need brain-boosting refreshers following long-form instructional units. They can be designed using standard instructional design frameworks like Gagné's Nine Events of Instruction to quickly take learners from accessing prior knowledge to practicing and performing skills (Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction | Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning | Northern Illinois University, n.d.).
Implementation Plan
Frontline employees of Good Company will receive access to informal microlearning through MangoApps' LMS built into the SuperApp on their mobile devices. Following a thorough analysis of the workforce and workplace, failure points of employee performance will be pinpointed to determine what problems microlearning units can solve (Pagano, 2013), e.g., forgetting information after formal training sessions. Training units will be created in a microlearning development platform, such as 7taps or EdApp, exported as SCORM or xAPI files, and imported into MangoApps' LMS. Then, frontline Employees can informally access these bite-sized learning units through the MangoApps library block accessible via the SuperApp dashboard during their shifts and complete them between required job tasks. In order to guide workers to the microlearning units, Good Company will use its intranet to publish original articles about training topics and link them to the corresponding training units in the LMS, thus encouraging workers to learn more about subjects in which they are interested.
A gamification layer is added to this implementation by allowing employees to receive badges for each microlearning unit they complete; certificates can be earned by completing assessment quizzes located in the LMS. Badges and certificates are visible on a user's MangoApps profile, and other users can congratulate each other's accomplishments with emojis and interactions. A points system is then used to tally the number of certificates received (5 points each), completed training units (3 points each), and coworker reactions (1 point each); gamification elements are customized by a MangoApps account administrator. If a Good Company employee does not have a mobile device or chooses not to use it, they may complete training on their own time through the MangoApps web browser. At the end of each calendar month, all Good Company store's points are totaled, and the store with the most points earned will receive a suitable prize determined by the corporate office.
Social Learning
As per Bandura's social learning theory, Good Company's frontline employees may begin observing, modeling, imitating (a single behavior), and identifying with (multiple behaviors) each other (Mcleod, 2023) as they see who is completing microlearning training units, receiving praise from coworkers and management, and contributing the most to their store's goals. Store managers, who serve as the facilitators of learning in this context, would ideally encourage their frontline workers to share the knowledge and skills they have gained from their training with each other, which makes each employee a source of valid information and allows everyone to grow their personal learning networks (PLNs) (Haas et al., 2020). Employees that have completed the same training, verifiable through user' SuperApp profiles, can create small communities of practice (CoPs) where they share common goals of skills improvement, help each other in their training, and practice what they have learned during shift work ("Communities of Practice (Lave and Wenger) - Learning Theories," 2016).
Conclusion
Using MangoApps' intranet and SuperApp, Good Company can deliver informal, just-in-time microlearning training to its frontline workforce in mobile-friendly workplace learning environments augmented with motivating layers of gamification and social learning. Through careful coordination between corporate and store managers, this implementation plan will result in frontline employees taking the initiative to improve their performance and digital literacies. Ultimately, this initiative will create a more informed and confident workforce.
References
Churchill, N. (2020). Development of students' digital literacy skills through digital storytelling with mobile devices. Educational Media International, 57(3), 271–284. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523987.2020.1833680
Communities of practice (Lave and Wenger) - Learning theories. (2016, June 29). Learning Theories. https://learning-theories.com/communities-of-practice-lave-and-wenger.html
Exter, M., & Ashby, I. (2022). Lifelong Learning of Instructional Design and Educational Technology Professionals: a Heutagogical Approach. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 66(2), 254–264. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-021-00657-x
France, D., Lee, R., Maclachlan, J., & McPhee, S. R. (2021). Should you be using mobile technologies in teaching? Applying a pedagogical framework. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 45(2), 221–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2020.1773417
Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction | Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning | Northern Illinois University. (n.d.). Northern Illinois University. https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide/gagnes-nine-events-of-instruction.shtml
Haas, M. R., Haley, K., Nagappan, B. S., Ankel, F., Swaminathan, A., & Santen, S. A. (2020). The connected educator: personal learning networks. Clinical Teacher, 17(4), 373–377. https://doi.org/10.1111/tct.13146
Kapp, K. M., & Defelice, R. A. (2019). Microlearning: Short and Sweet. American Society for Training and Development.
MangoApps. (n.d.). https://www.mangoapps.com/
Mcleod, S., Ph.D. (2023). Albert Bandura's social learning theory. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html
Pagano, K. O. (2013). Immersive learning. American Society for Training and Development.
Tipton, S. (2022, May 1). SMALL-SCALE LEARNING CAN REAP BIG REWARDS: Myths about microlearning are preventing the modality from being as effective as it can be. TD Magazine, 76(5), 36.
