#Mobile instructional #design is getting a push, join in!

For those interested in adding to the creation of a mobile instructional design model.... this is your chance! The researchers working on this project intend to collaborate with and involve experts and stakeholders from academia, government, industry, and the international community ... I guess that is all of us. So, if you are interested in the research call for participation launched by Jason Haag , mail him at

jason.haag.ctr at adlnet.gov 

Here is what Jason distributed on the research participation call:

In February 2013, the Advanced Distributed Learning(ADL) Initiative will be conducting a thorough needs analysis in preparation for a new design-based research project named, the Mobile Training Implementation Framework (MoTIF). The focus of the project is on exploring the intersection of multiple design and research methods in order better understand, and potentially influence how education and training professionals determine how to best utilize and leverage mobile-based technology to develop and implement optimal training and performance support solutions.

 As a growing number of mobile innovations become available in the learning space, education and training technology thought leaders are now interested in how to effectively design for a variety of mobile learning scenarios. In a 2011 conference paper, ADL proposed research to investigate instructional design (ID) theories and models for mobile content as the development of training solutions are believed to require new approaches to address both the unique affordances and the design constraints exhibited by mobile devices. ADL’s 2012 whitepaper built upon the proposed research topic and focused on how learning theories and ID models can best support mobile learning. It concluded that:

“Very few actual ID models for mobile learning exist...Instead of creating a new ID model, we have presented a framework that can be used to incorporate mobile learning considerations into existing ID models (which theoretically are neutral).”

The framework proposed in the whitepaper was intentionally conveyed at a conceptual level. It was not optimized for instructional designers and content developers. Its purpose was to serve as a conceptual vehicle to direct designers to also focus on improving performance and augmenting skills, not just on knowledge transfer.

An innovative and comprehensive research approach (we have chosen the Integrative Learning Design Framework (ILDF), is needed to validate and expand upon the scope and detail of the framework proposed in the whitepaper leading to practical understanding and application to real-world design projects.

The Problem and Target Audience

The mobile platform presents both unique affordances and constraints for the design of learning content. These are not being accounted for in traditional ID models, as stated in the literature review from the 2012 whitepaper. ADL believes this knowledge gap may lead to less effective learning outcomes for the learners due to the following observations:

●      Learning content developers are creating new mobile content and converting existing elearning courses to a mobile format by simply repurposing and resizing them to account for the smaller screen and interface differences, without any consideration for the aspects of learning, pedagogy, performance support, and user experience design.

●      Mobile learning best practices have not been identified within the overall context of following an ID model or learning theory. Learning content developers are not sure how to design for the different attentional, motivational, contextual, pedagogical, and social/communication aspects of the mobile platform.

So the goal of MoTIF is to support education and training professionals transitioning from eLearning to mLearning by providing a framework and catalog of microstrategy examples for thinking more deeply about their systematic design processes and mobile-specific affordances (e.g. using GPS for location-based and contextual learning, using the camera for augmented reality, etc).

The target audiences for this needs analysis are instructors, instructional designers, learning content developers, training professionals, and human performance improvement experts with an interest in implementing mobile learning solutions. The target audience is not required to have any prior experience with mobile development. However, the target audience should at least own one mobile device, and have an understanding of using mobile applications for learning.