content writing 2 pencils
Microlearning, News

The world is your content oyster: how to get started

The MobieTrain platform is all yours! Great! But now what? Where do you start? Well, before we are even going to explain our different content creation options, we would like to just take a minute and say: we’re so excited to have you on board! You’re about to empower your employees with a fantastic training method, that’s already a great start on its own!

Whichever option you decide to choose, know that we are always here to support you. We have got your back, and together we will set you up for success. High-five!

3 options

There are basically 3 options to create content and the good news is that you can mix and match as much as you want! So, let’s get this party started, shall we?

Option 1. You create your own content

In this case, we give you all the tools and instructions so that you can go ahead and build a fantastic learning track. This basically means that we will grant you access to our content management system (CMS) and you will be able to create your very own learning paths in no time.

Just like that?

Yes, that’s how easy it is. After an in-depth onboarding session with our very own CMS specialists and Customer Success Manager, you can go ahead and start writing or transforming your existing content straight away. After all, who knows your company’s history, mission, and goals better than your own people? Don’t worry about figuring out how to start or what to write, because or team will always be there to help you determine the goals of your training and advise you on what and how to write.

Ok great, but who’s going to write the content?

That’s completely up to you, of course! The good news is that it doesn’t take that much time or that many people to write some amazing learning moments! We’ve seen that all our clients have their own, unique approach. Some companies have their own L&D department who are working on creating learning paths for the app. Others ask their interns or students to work on this as a project, where they use your existing content and turn it into microlearning moments.

The bottom line is, you don’t need expert content writers or a lot of time to write your own content. With our CMS, anyone can do it.

Not only do we love the very intuitive interface of the platform, we are also a big fan of MobieTrain’s customer support. They’ve always got our back.

Bruno Pinto Coelhoe, Training Leader at Decathlon.

Let’s have a closer look at how some of our clients, like Decathlon, create their own content.

Decathlon uses MobieTrain to train their in-store employees about their products and newest releases. They brainstorm with the head of each sports department about which trainings they would need and what it should entail. During these brainstorming sessions they create a mood board with different ideas for topics, questions, images, and videos for each learning track. Once they have a solid plan, they ask their writers to create a learning path covering these ideas. This way, each learning path includes the ideas of the experts and the writers can use their creative minds to turn it into a fun and engaging training method.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a multinational with countless departments and employees to be able to write your own content! We work with plenty of SME’s, like Raes Logistics, who successfully create their own engaging content.

Option 2. We create the content for you

Want us to create the content for you? No problem! Our team of creative content writers is already on it. Maybe you already have all the content you need for a training (think of handbooks, PowerPoint presentations, … you name it). Our content writers can help you to transform that existing content into microlearning moments.

In this case, we have an in-depth conversation about what you expect of this training and what you want your users to achieve after completing it. We want to get to know you and your company, so that our writers can reflect your company’s identity and mission in the training.

We write the content for some of our biggest clients, like Vans, Timberland and Azadea.

Let’s have a closer look at Vans: They wanted to be more effective in delivering a consistent brand and product message through their +1,000 store assistants in EMEA. That is why they introduced MobieTrain as a training method for onboarding, product training, sales and servicing techniques. They already had all the training content they needed in the form of presentations and brand books, but they needed to transform that content into fun and engaging learning moments which they could share with all their frontend employees. That’s where we came in!

You give us everything you have; you tell is who you are as a brand and what you want to reflect (from your main message to the tone of voice), and we will rock that content for you! Remember that our creative content writers can create content in both Dutch and English!

Option 3: Content support sessions

Want to mix our first two options? You absolutely can. In this case we co-write the training content with you. What this entails, depends on your wishes. We organise different sessions where we show how we would approach writing the content and we give you tips and tricks on how to get started. Once you’re all set, we review what you have written and give you suggestions where needed. In some cases, we divide the content and decide who’s going to write what, depending on our expertise. In this case we have a closer look at each other’s knowledge and discuss which topics will be written by you and which topic will be written by our own writers.

Let’s take our client P&V as an example: we wrote their very first learning path for them to show them how we approached our content creation process. This way we could show them the different possibilities, different question formats, and our creative ideas. They used that learning moment to create their paths in our CMS while we reviewed and supported what they have made.

Our client Diesel for example tried a mix of different content options. First, they asked our team to write the content for them. After we had created an onboarding learning path for them, they used our ideas, style and approach to switch methods and started creating their own content.

The possibilities are endless, and it all depends on what you prefer! No matter what you choose, you’ll never be alone. Our team of experts has got your back!

Want to know more about these options? We’re happy to answer all your questions! Contact us at hello@mobietrain.com

companies love microlearning
Employee Engagement, Microlearning

Discover why companies love microlearning

Looking for the best, most effective and efficient way to train your employees?

Excellent! Do keep reading!

Go Micro or go home 

Every successful company strives towards continuous improvement and positive change, right? Yet finding new ways to be creative and boost sales isn’t always as easy as it sounds. In the end it’s your team, your employees: the core of your company, who come up with the great ideas, new approaches and creative suggestions. In other words: to be successful you need them, and they need you to invest in their knowledge!

“Yes of course I want to give them the knowledge they need, yet there is simply no time or a huge budget to do so, is there? And even if I have figured that out, how do I involve people who just started working here and keep them motivated?”

We’ve got you!

What you are looking for is essentially microlearning:

Microlearning is bite-sized training content, offering just the right amount of knowledge to help a learner achieve a specific, actionable objective. In MobieTrain’s case, employees are provided with 5 minutes of mobile-training daily. Not only does this improve engagement and avoid knowledge overload, it is also proven to improve knowledge retention.

The best way to apply microlearning: Mobile is the new black 

Through delivering microlearning on mobile you support employees in training anywhere at anytime and you’re able to overcome the challenge of reaching a remote and diverse workforce.  Most importantly, you can tackle the challenge of time. Your employees no longer need to take time away from their roles to learn, and are able to seamlessly fit training into their daily workflow.


Variety is the spice of life

What we learn with pleasure, we never forget

Our mission is to apply microlearning in a digital, user-friendly and inventive way throughout our application. Because it’s a tool made for and by retailers, we can even better accommodate today’s workforce and needs.

Don’t forget me

German psychologist Hermann Ebinghaus’ famous ‘forgetting curve’ concept explains why 80% of traditional training is forgotten after 30 days. Microlearning has been designed around 3 proven neuroscience techniques to combat this and boost long-term memory: 

  • Spaced Repetition. Practicing new topics repeatedly over a set amount of time. 
  • Retrieval Practice. Forcing the brain to recall information with strategic questions. 
  • Employee Assessment. Tracking an employee’s increased confidence in each new topic. 

Ready, set, go! 

Gamification is another important way to keep employees engaged and motivated. Badges, awards, gamified elements and quizzes are great examples of how to trigger users to complete their training. Team this up with your own brand incentives and real-life experiences, based on the data that the dashboard will provide. 

One of the ways to do this is to keep content varied and interesting. Videos, rich multimedia, quizzes, polls, infographics and a variety of question formats are just some of the ways to accomplish that.

Let’s get personal

However, it is equally, if not more important to inspire employees to be intrinsically motivated to drive their own career development. This opposed to extrinsic motivation with rewards and leaderboards. This can be achieved through personalisation and individual learning paths where employees can easily see and track their own progress.

Trust your own instinct

Besides the fact that your learning path can be personalised, it’s also intuitive and user-friendly. The whole track is designed to keep the learning process fun and easy, without having to search for hours where to find your track, how to log in, where to get started, etc. 

In the end, it’s about finding the best tool for your employees while embracing the future and keeping the constant changes in mind. Microlearning is the future, so why not be part of it?

“Learning is an experience. Everything else is just information.” – Albert Einstein 

myths of microlearning
Microlearning

The 6 biggest myths of microlearning

Microlearning is a unique and different way of training your employees, where you focus on providing short, bite-sized training content. It’s a relatively new concept which many seem to misunderstand and confuse with existing kinds of learning tools.

Allow us to help to get these misinterpretations out of the way:

“Microlearning is just another LMS”

Not exactly. While a Learning Management System (LMS) focuses more on managing,  administrating, offering e-learnings and tracking the employees, Our microlearning platform, focuses on the training itself and on the end user. So instead of focusing on management, we focus on the end user. We encourage them to complete their training in a fun and engaging way! It’s not just about the training itself, it’s also about the learning experience and how you put that knowledge into practice!

“Microlearning is the only training solution you’ll need”

Absolutely not! Although microlearning is an effective, efficient and versatile way to empower your employees, it doesn’t mean it’s a stand-alone solution. Some materials might be too complex and elaborate to explain in a ‘Micro’ way and will need a face-to-face explanation, while microlearning would be a perfect addition to use as a retention tool. 

To summarize: Can microlearning completely replace traditional learning? No. microlearning works perfectly in a blended learning plan. Some trainings can indeed be replaced by microlearning and in other occasions microlearning can be a strong retention reinforcement of your current face-to-face trainings. 

“Microlearning is pretty much just e-learning”

No, it’s not. e-learning is basically any kind of training in a digital manner. Often, it’s a very extensive training which has to be completed in one go. With microlearning you focus on short, bite-sized content which is repeated every so often and which is accessible for the user at anytime, anywhere. This way you increase knowledge retention and keep the learners motivated. And that’s the core value, right?

“Microlearning is simply chunked content”

Chunking means that you divide extensive content into bite-sized elements to manage the overall cognitive load. However, microlearning can be a stand-alone piece that focuses on a specific topic. Microlearning is not only better for retention but the focus stays clear-cut and transparent.

“Microlearning should not take longer than 5 minutes to complete”

No. A thousand times no. There is no real magic number. The definition of Micro is ‘small’, meaning that people should be able to watch, learn and go. The guideline is: “As long as necessary and as short as possible”. So short is indeed the way to go. 

“Microlearning is all about video”

Nope. Microlearning is all combining different kinds of visual elements, texts and questions to transfer knowledge in a fun and creative way. Videos are a great way to visualise complicated and more difficult materials, but they are just one of many ways to present your Microlearning content. In the end it’s up to you to decide which visual elements you use and combine to create the perfect learning experience.

As you can see, a little research now and then can’t hurt, and we can do that for you! If you come across any more myths, don’t hesitate to contact us. We are happy to tell the truth from a lie. You can always contact us at hello@mobietrain.com. 

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school” – Albert Einstein

retail mobilelearning perfect marriage
Customer Experience, Employee Engagement, Microlearning

Why m-learning and retail are the perfect marriage

Retail has changed. The fast tempo at which new collections are churned out, makes for a never-ending stream of new items, information and customers entering your store. Just 2 collections a year is no longer the standard. Retailers like Zara can turn out up to 104 (!) micro-seasons. That’s fast fashion for you.

Retail sales training however, has not really evolved with its counterpart. In most cases, it has remained a classroom training with some coaching on the job if the newbie is lucky.
The constant influx of new information for your staff on the floor, as well as the level of customer service you want to provide to your customers, makes you rethink this.

You’ve probably heard your employees talking about these trainings; they’ll be sitting in a classroom training for 2 days. Asking themselves who all these people are, hoping for tasty sandwiches during lunch (they never are) and most of all, wondering if they’ll still remember all this information next week.

We can see a couple pitfalls coming back when it comes to retail sales training:

  1. The training does not take the deskless workforce into account.
    It gives out information in bundles of paper ‘to look over at home’. Or it expects people to sit behind a computer at the back of house for hours, doing e-learnings.
  2. The training is not personalized to the specific employee and their role.
    A new employee needs a completely different approach than some of your more seasoned sales associates. One size fits all, is rarely applicable in fashion, why try it with training?
  3. The training is very intensive for a day… until it’s finished.
    Usually the classroom trainings are quite in-depth. There’s a trainer on hand for questions and the entire time, they’re emerged in knowledge and information about the brand, its history, its commitments… And then, just like that, it’s done.
    They get no follow ups on how they’re applying it in-store and can’t ask questions. (Like a Tinder-date, it disappears after 3 days, never to be heard from again.)
  4. The training does not evolve with the employee.
    Imagine having to do the same training every year and not having the option to tell your manager what you’d like to learn or which skill you’d like to hone. Contrary to popular belief, sales associates do want to learn and develop themselves.

Do not worry, we did not list up all these troubles just to have you realize the shortcomings your training is dealing with. Because there is a perfect solution for all of these pitfalls discussed above.

Mobile learning + Microlearning = Best of both worlds

Mobile learning and more specifically, microlearning are no new phenomena. It has become more and more obvious these are excellent solutions to many of the problems that come along with a stuffy classroom training.
The combination of both micro and mobile, plus offering training in small increments whenever the employee feels like it, is the fundament of mobile microlearning.
It just might be the best of both worlds.

Allow me, to tell you why.

 

Mobile microlearning is an ‘Anytime & Anywhere’-formula of learning

People take their mobile device everywhere these days. Your employees are not confined to desks for this mobile training and can choose for themselves, when and where to start the training.
Mobile microlearning makes this even more convenient by offering the information in bite-sized learning moments. This way it is even more inviting to start AND finish a new training.

The retail sales training can be as up-to-date as you want it to be

You can implement relevant viral videos in the training, and tailor the learning experience to the employee’s need and lifestyle.
This is especially relevant in retail, as you want everyone to stay up-to-date on their product knowledge and give the customers the best experience and service as possible.
For example: When the launch of a new shoe comes around the corner, it is so much more convenient to communicate all of the features and benefits of the new item through your mobile microlearning platform.

With the mobile microlearning option, you can bring all necessary information to your employees in a fun and engaging way on the moment they need it!

Mobile microlearning makes retaining information easier

By doing little pieces of the sales training over a longer period of time, retention of information will be much higher. With our built-in AI, our mobile micro learning app can track your employee’s progress and hurdles. In the retention moments, it will focus on the parts they have difficulties with. Not to forget, employees can choose to repeat a relevant learning moment if they spot their own knowledge gap.

They can do this by searching the app for tags with our search function, this will then generate the relevant learning moments, corresponding to the searched tags. These relevant learning moments will pop up, so they can be done once over.

Of course you as employer can check their progress as well and compliment when it goes great. This way, if necessary, you can provide support and motivation to those who may need it.

The training reaches all of your employees at the same time

Less classroom info sessions need to be arranged and less people need to be away from the store to follow this training (double win!). It can be launched to every employee, in every store, all around the world, at the same time. The future truly is now.
Goodbye to complicated schedules to figure out when you can send everybody to this new training but still need to have the store covered. Mobile microlearning brings the information to your employees and nobody has to go anywhere.
Another big pro is the fact that a newbie can start learning at the moment they join your company, no need to wait for a prescheduled classroom session. Immediate action!

Personalized mobile microlearning keeps the employees engaged

Sales associates can choose what to learn and focus on the subjects they’re interested in most. Afterwards they can finish the rest. It is all up to them to decide how they digest the available retail sales training. By offering small increments of training, you get rid of the usual “dread” employees have when confronted with new information to learn.
It makes it fun, engaging and even touches on the competitive side as you can motivate your employees to reach certain high scores before a predetermined date!

Mobile devices are everywhere and if you look at social media apps like Instagram, these offer bite sized chunks of information as well. You can only post 60 sec videos on Instagram, for example.
Mobile microlearning works the same way in that it offers short, digestible blocks of information.
Employees are much more inclined to start a learning moment, if they know it will be engaging, personalized and relevant. And to top it all off, it’ll only take them about 5 minutes a day!

New collections entering stores at a high pace, sales associates that are not always full-timers, but also students or seasonal workers and the increasingly knowledgeable customers.
These are just a few challenges of sales in retail today. Of course you need to be on the lookout for the most effective, engaging way of training and educating your employees.
With mobile microlearning, you can avoid the usual catches coming along with the old-school classroom trainings!

 

Source reference:
1. ‘5 Common Problems With Retail Sales Training And How To Fix Them’ – Yoobic, 1 August 2019
2. ‘6 Key Benefits to Mobile Learning’ – Suresh DN, 29 August 2018
3. ‘5 Training challenges and e-learning solutions for the Retail Industry’ – CommLab India Bloggers, 10 May 2018
4. ‘7 awesome advangatges of Mobile Learning’ – John Laskaris 17 January 2018
5. ‘What the advantages and disadvantages of mobile learning are’ – Priyanka Gautam, 23 November 2018

origin-Microlearning-mobietrain-evolution-elearning
Microlearning

The origins of microlearning

A new beginning

Every day we strive to improve our skills and the fact that we need to learn to become better at something is everything but shocking, correct? That’s why we are constantly looking for new ways to study in a more effective and efficient way. Regardless of what new learning methods we come up with, we will always use microlearning as the foundation of our learning methods.

The birth of microlearning

While most people believe that microlearning is a relatively new concept or trend, it is actually a very old, even ancient, phenomenon.

Microlearning is bite-sized training content, offering just the right amount of knowledge to help the learner achieve a specific, actionable objective. In other words, you divide large pieces of content into smaller bits (preferable with as many visual aids as possible) and study these ‘learning moments’ step by step. Afterwards, you revise what you have just learned, to ensure that you remember everything. easy, right?

It’s pretty much the oldest and one of the most efficient ways to study as it improves knowledge retention. Just think about how you acquire new information: you take your handbook/article/newspaper, whatever you prefer, divide it in different pieces and memorise it by creating your own summaries, scheme’s and keywords. You basically create your own micro-moments!

Before you, millions and millions of others did the same thing – as no one (in their right mind) studies everything at once in the hope that they will remember it all (unless you can actually do that, which is a great skill to have and we are jealous of you).

Microlearning was invented the very moment people started to share information with each other and passed it on to others. This dates all the way back to the prehistoric era. Our ancestors needed to communicate in order to survive, so they used simple, short ways to pass on crucial knowledge. Elementary things like ‘this is how you make fire’, ‘these berries are edible’ and ‘this is how you hunt’ are the very beginning of bite-sized knowledge. It developed even further once people started to read and write to share their knowledge with a much bigger audience. In other words, microlearning has been there since the beginning of human life, only we never called it ‘microlearning’.

“If that’s the case, then why is it that we only started speaking about it in the last few years?”

Microlearning in its teenage years

Well, the era of the World Wide Web changed everything – this platform created endless possibilities to share information in a much more engaging and accessible way.

Microlearning started its journey to eLearning stardom with the domestic use of the internet in the mid-1990s. The internet revolutionised the way the world was able to learn. Suddenly we could stream our lessons online, or upload learning modules in the space of an afternoon.

-Growth Engineering

It was the perfect start to explore the possibilities of training and most importantly, it perfectly matched the needs of the market as ‘knowledge’ proved to be the key to success in any sector. More and more companies understood that training their employees was essential to boost their business and customer experience. More and more people wanted to take different courses in their free time, like learning a new language of skill, but they could not afford to travel far or spend a lot of time on it. In short: online trainings opened the door to a whole series of new possibilities of creating trainings according to the needs of the users.

The moment that microlearning became ‘microlearning’ as we know it today, was the day the first smartphone was released, back in 1994. Owners of these futuristic devices had access to the internet at any given moment, thanks to 3G. It didn’t take long before the first app developers realised that this is the perfect opportunity to create fun, short and impactful education apps which users could access when and whenever they wanted.

If you had to pick a single date in time where microlearning began to take off, it would be 29th June 2007, when the first iPhone was released. This is where microlearning really skyrocketed.  Learning apps became a staple of online learning all over the world.

– Growth Engineering

Growing up

Learning methods will keep evolving as the need for effective and efficient knowledge transfer is never ending.

In recent years, the popularity of microlearning as a training technique has escalated to the level where entire training companies devote themselves to offering microlearning content, it’s an always-popular topic for webinars and workshops for training professionals, and it even has its own Wikipedia entry.

-Taryn Oesch

Today, more and more people need to receive a proper education to successfully reach their goals and be more confident in their skills. They all require excellent training content to be able to further develop their potential and the. The problem is time – finding the time to actually learn can be tricky. It’s especially complicated if you also need to reach a large group of learners and ensure that they all acquire the crucial information in the same engaging way.

There is an immense need for specific data to analyse the results of our learners and to take immediate action and tackle the knowledge gaps. The learners need their training to be fun and engaging to stay motivated and keep on learning.

We understand your needs like no one else, that’s why we took the most ancient, the most profound and most efficient way of learning – microlearning – and gave it our own twist to give the learners exactly what they are looking for.

 

Want to see more? Awesome! Contact us at hello@mobietrain.com for more information!

 

Sources

  1. https://www.growthengineering.co.uk/history-of-microlearning/
  2. https://trainingindustry.com/articles/content-development/whats-in-a-name-the-story-of-microlearning/
Stronger Together MobieTrain
Microlearning, News

Stronger Together

Share important knowledge with your remote team for free

Due to the latest developments concerning COVID-19, we at MobieTrain are determined to support you in any way possible by offering our mobile training and communication platform for free until the end of May.

Now that most of the population is encouraged to work remotely, in some cases 100% of the time, our platform can help your organisation to keep on communicating effectively with your employees.

In order to do so, we will offer the following elements through our mobile app:

 

1. Newsfeed: Instantly create & push communication messages at large scale

Keep your team up to date by sharing messages about crucial new information.

newsfeed mobile learning
newsfeed mobile learning cms

2. Poll: Get structured feedback from your team

Ask your team what topics they would like to be informed about and what further information they need to receive the right support.

poll mobile learning
poll mobile learning app

3. Fast Learning Track: Instantly train your remote staff

Use our Fast Learning Track to quickly educate and inform all your remote employees, wherever they are. Create a track to focus on the most important topics and reach everyone through their mobile devices. Analyse the results through our dashboard to see if everyone has understood all the information.

fast learning track mobietrain

Furthermore, to do our part in helping to control the spread of the virus, we have created a Fast Learning Track with some key prevention tips that you can share with your team.

We truly hope that our support can help you to communicate crucial information with your team in the most effective and safe way.

Register via the button below and we will contact you as soon as possible to get you started. Our team will support you with the set-up and the creation of the necessary trainings.

The MobieTrain Team

Register here!
The 6 steps towards engaging microlearning content
Microlearning

The 6 steps towards engaging microlearning content

Is it your belief that training your employees is essential to having a successful business? Good! Are you constantly looking for ways to improve your current training methods? Even better! Are you aiming to create fun and engaging content so that everyone will stay motivated and boost their own knowledge? Bloody perfect!

Teach them how to swim, not how to drown

Creating a well-structured training is essential but, unfortunately, it’s easier said than done, isn’t it? No worries though, we know the struggle is real. On the one hand you don’t want to overload your employees with tons of information, on the other hand there is just so much to tell.

Ideally, you want to create a training tool that covers the essential aspects of your company, a tool that will give your employees the chance to “swim”, instead of drowning in pages of complicated company facts and features. You want to make them feel empowered and more confident thanks to the knowledge you have shared! And of course, in a perfect world, it would take only a couple minutes a day to actually absorb all of that information in a fun way.

We’ve got you 

What you are looking for is essentially microlearning: 

Microlearning is bite-sized training content, offering just the right amount of knowledge to help a learner achieve a specific, actionable objective. In MobieTrain’s case, employees are provided with 5 minutes of mobile training daily. Not only does this improve engagement and avoid knowledge overload, it is also proven to improve knowledge retention.

We went on a mission to find the best approach to create fun and engaging mobile content for your employees and we came up with 6 easy steps to follow:

1. Set a clear goal

This is by far the most important step of the content-creation process and probably the most difficult one as well. Before you even pick up a pen or grab your laptop to start writing, you will need to establish the goal of your training:

  • What do you want your employees to remember after this training?
  • Do they have to know every detail by heart or is it enough that they know the essentials?
  • Do you want to focus on more theoretical aspects or use practical examples like scenarios?

It’s important that you brainstorm about what you want to achieve with this training. By doing so, you will be able to create a clear overview of what you want your employees to know and remember. Write down key words, work with bullet points, create schemes or just use any method you prefer to create an idea of what you really want to achieve.

It’s always a great idea to ask your employees what they would love to learn! Maybe there are certain topics that they don’t really understand or just want to know more about. Ask for their opinion and what they expect and incorporate that feedback in your training.

2. Define expectations

Once you have established the goal of your training, you need to think about what you want your employees to be able to do once their training is completed:

  • What do you expect to happen after they have completed their training?
  • What do your employees need to do to impact the goal of this training?

Maybe you want your employees to become storytellers? Or do you want them to boost your KPIs and average sales? It’s all up to you, but depending on what you expect you will need to adjust your training and focus on specific items.

For example: If you want your employees to become brand ambassadors, it would be a good idea to focus on the history and values of your company. If you expect them to provide excellent customer service you might want to think about creating a customer journey training. Maybe you want both options and you can start thinking about making multiple learning tracks, each with their own goal!

3. Timeframe

This is the part where microlearning pops up: how can you provide your employees with all the knowledge they need in order to succeed, without overwhelming them?

The key is to keep it all brief and concise: you might have created the best training content on earth, but when your employees receive an endless training track they might just give up right there on the spot without even having a look at it.

Keep in mind that your employees will be reading the content on their mobile devices: the shorter and more compact it all looks, the better it will feel.

4. Create an overview

Now that you have an idea of what you want your employees to learn and how you want to achieve that, it’s time to make an overview. How you create your overview is completely up to you, but it might be a good idea to work from the top-down. For example, you could start with a level or a topic and move downwards by creating different subcategories.

Ask yourself: what is the bare minimum my employees need to know, and start from here. Begin with the basics and keep adding information where needed.

The golden rule is to maintain a logical “flow” for the user. In other words:

  • Does your overview make sense?
  • Is there a story for the employees to follow?
  • Is there a logical beginning and ending?
  • Once the very last topic is completed, will they know everything they need to know?

Don’t panic if your overview doesn’t look perfect at first sight. This process takes time and it might change a dozen times while writing your training, and that’s okay. Just make sure you have a clear starting point!

5. Keep your audience in mind

Always keep your target audience in mind! The content-creating process might differ for each group: the style of writing would be quite different for engineers as compared to your sales team for example.

Nonetheless, no matter who you write for, don’t overload your employees with overly-complicated content. The whole purpose of mobile learning is to get everyone on board in a fun and motivating way:

  • Replace all difficult words with easier to understand synonyms.
  • Keep it personal: Most of the time, it’s best to simply use “I”, “we” or “you” when writing content: “We believe that every single person can make a difference and it’s up to you to help us make a change!”

6. Content creation

Getting the right inspiration for writing good content might not always be easy. You can always base your information on manuals, online courses and the entire internet of resources. We have already talked about the importance of keeping your content brief and concise, but how do you do that when there is so much to learn? How do you turn pages and pages of texts into one fun an engaging learning moment?

Well, imagine that you would have to study this content yourself:

  • Summarize your information in your own words: highlight the most important information and use only that.
  • Work with bullet points: turn long sentences into listings.
  • Start with a short introduction(video) where you explain what this topic is about.
  • Use a variety of question formats: yes/no questions, multiple choice, multiple answers, ranking questions, swipe questions…. mix and match! Just don’t forget to keep it brief, don’t overwhelm your employee with too many questions.
  • Keep it visual: sometimes it’s easier to show a video or image with the explanation rather than writing it all down. Luckily there are plenty of perfect videos and images available online (YouTube, Unsplash, Shutterstock).

Feedback please

Once you’ve created the content, always ask for your employees’ feedback, either through face-to-face meetings or a simple survey. Content creation is a continuous process of improvement and optimization until you find the perfect level of engagement.

It’s all about having the right vision: once you have a clear goal of what you want to achieve with your training and what you expect from your employees, you’re all set and ready to write!

If you have any more questions or if you would like some more guidance to create engaging content, we’ll be pleased to assist you. Please contact us at hello@mobietrain.com.

MobieTrain Easy-to-use Content Management System
Microlearning, Product News

Transforming your content was never that easy

Create Your Own Content with Our CMS 

Easily transform your existing training materials into bite-sized content with our Content Management System. 

So, why is this exciting, and what does this mean for you?

Your Own Bite-Sized Learning Content

Speed up onboarding and launch your training quicker by logging directly into our CMS and following our easy to use templates and steps. 

Don’t know much about microlearning? Don’t worry. We’ve built our CMS alongside existing clients and employees, to ensure that it is as user-friendly, engaging and easy to use as possible.

“The CMS is very intuitive and user friendly. The only thing you have to do as a user, is to think about the bigger picture and put your content in it. No need to worry about the lay-out and structure.”
Kevin Leemans, Proximus

Engage A Global Workforce with Multiple Languages

Our microlearning platform is especially suited to global companies with a diverse, remote and international workforce. We know how challenging it is to engage and train employees in multiple countries and locations, especially deskless workers.

We’re Still Here to Help

Our experienced team will still be on hand to help you get started, or if you have any questions. In the meantime we strive to continuously improve our system to make it even more user-friendly. 

“Thanks to the uncomplicated and effortless CMS,  I can easily use the application, even without any IT background.”
Jean-Christophe Van Nieuwenhuysen, BMW

Why is this An Exciting Step for MobieTrain?

The launch of our CMS in June was of significant importance and an exciting step in the evolution of MobieTrain. Our vision has always been to empower clients to easily create and launch their own microlearning content, as we believe that mobile and microlearning is the future. We’re excited that our new CMS gives more clients the ability to do this quicker and easier, without the need of consulting our team. This brings us closer to our transition towards a platform that will set the standard for mobile learning worldwide.

Ever since the launch we have been constantly working on improving the CMS and finding new ways to make it even more user-friendly, customisable and visually pleasing. With these updates we aim to create the perfect tool to easily create and transform content into bite-sized learning.

What’s Next?

We’re working in two-weekly sprints to continually update and optimise the feature-set and functionality of our CMS, therefore it is constantly evolving. Our product roadmap includes the following new features in the coming months:

What’s New?

We still have a lot in store for you, but we’ve also worked really hard on some new items already. We’re very proud to introduce more advanced Branding & Colouring features to reflect clients’ brands. We understand more than ever that personalisation is a must!

Also, we couldn’t deprive you of a new pre-programmed question, namely the Multiple Image Choice, as you can see in the picture on the right.

Our CMS couldn’t miss out on a Customisable Splash Screen. It will pop up when users log in or start a learning track.

There is a new search functionality, so that videos can easily be re-watched and the CMS is fitted with new info-screens that will guide you throughout the CMS.

Coming up

You could think we need a vacation after all of that, but that’s not the plan at all! We have a lot of new features coming your way, such as:

  1. The ability to receive a certification when completing a track
  2. More off-the-shelf templates in the CMS
  3. Deeper on-boarding and educational guides
  4. Fine-tuning the look and feel of the application
  5. New badges
  6. New question formats:
    • Multiple Answer Toggle
    • Timer Format

We look forward to sharing updates on future releases, and hope you enjoy using our CMS to train and empower your employees.

If you have any further questions about our CMS, do not hesitate to contact us at support@mobietrain.com. We are happy to help!

Business blogging
Employee Engagement, Microlearning

How to create engaging learning content for mobile

Creating engaging and motivating mobile content might sound easy, but in reality, many people struggle to write content that audiences love. Luckily, there are a few easy steps to guide you towards an easy and fun content creation process, so there is no need to stress!

In this article, we’ll look at the 3 key pillars for great content:

  1.     Short, bite-sized information;
  2.     Fun and informative visuals;
  3.     Engaging and creative media.

 

Short, Bite-Sized Content

Keep it short and fun

It may sound obvious, but when writing content for mobile, always keep in mind that your audience will be reading it on their mobile devices. So keep the information as short and concise as possible, otherwise it becomes very difficult to consume a lot of content on small screens.

Keep it friendly

Try not to create an uncomfortable distance between you and the readers by being too formal. Most of the time, it’s best to simply use “I”, “we” or “you” when writing content. For example: “At our stores, we believe in creating a pleasant atmosphere for our customers, how can you achieve this? Multiple answers are possible”.

Try to create scenarios where you sketch a situation and ask a question about it. This is a more appealing way to help your audience to visualise a specific scenario. For example: “When you see a customer entering your store, clearly looking for a certain object, what do you do?”

  1.   “I give the customer some time to look around.”
  2.   “I immediately approach the customer to help him or her.”
  3.    “I welcome the customer into the store and ask if I can help.”

Keep those brains in mind

Try to remember that the human brain can only retain so much, so don’t overload readers with overly-complicated content. Introductions should be clear, easy to understand and as short as possible. For example, try to replace all difficult words with easier to understand synonyms. Brainstorm about what you would really like to teach your employees and write these ideas down on a big sheet of paper. Once you start working on those ideas, it will become easier to create an entire learning-path for your employees.

Keep it relevant

Always keep your target audience in mind. It’s essential that you know exactly who you are writing for. The content creation process will be different for each target group, eg. the style of writing would be quite different for engineers as compared to your sales team.

Nonetheless, no matter who you write for, try to keep it fun and engaging; the whole purpose of mobile-learning is to get everyone on board in a fun and motivating way. Constantly analyse and rewrite the content you create, ask your co-workers for advice and always double-check your spelling.

Keep that feedback coming

Getting the right inspiration for writing good content might not always be easy. You can always base your information on manuals, online courses and the entire internet of resources, but the challenge remains keeping it creative and unique. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to ask your potential audience what kind of content they would like to receive: what type of questions they prefer, what kind of information they would really like to learn more about, what kind of writing style engages them etc.

Once you’ve published the content, always ask for feedback, either through face-to-face meetings or a simple survey. Content creation is a continuous process of improvement and optimisation until you find the perfect level of engagement.

 

 Fun and Informative Visuals  

Switch it up

The goal of using a mobile-learning platform is to create some fun variety for your audience. Instead of creating overwhelming 3-hour long courses where most people will forget 80% of what they have just learnt, you want to keep it fun, short and motivating to increase knowledge retention.

Visuals are a perfect way to do that. By introducing different kinds of visuals such as photos, infographics and animations you create great variety. Online, you can find plenty of royalty free photos. (Check out sites such as Unsplash or Pexels).  Try to find the most relevant, high-quality images; one tag-word is usually enough to find the perfect image to introduce or support your content. Use creative photos as an example of how certain things should or should not look, this makes your content more memorable.

Info-what?

A creative way of providing interesting content is through infographics, which is a visual representation of information or data in a chart or diagram. Creating an infographic is a very easy process: there are several tools which can help. (Try Infogram or Piktochart). All you need to do is to provide the content to the designer and give him or her an idea of what you would like.  

Engaging and Creative Media

Engage the management team

There is nothing more motivating for employees than seeing how engaged their management team is with your chosen mobile platform. Once you explain the benefits of mobile-learning to your employees and show them – perhaps in a video – that you too use and enjoy the app, your employees will get on board even faster than you think.

By filming your existing trainers, managers or other employees and using these videos in the training-platform, you create your own mobile-learning culture. When recording a video, always remember to film horizontally and not vertically as a horizontal video looks much better on mobile-platforms. Try to use professional equipment if possible, although most smartphones these days have excellent video specs!

Once you’ve actually recorded a video, it’s best to upload it on a (private) YouTube-account. This way you can easily copy the YouTube link into the mobile-learning platform. Keep in mind that the quality of the video depends of your internet speed. This means that you might upload a high-quality video but, depending on your internet, it might look different.

Thank you, Google

Don’t have the time or resources to record these videos yourself? No problem! Luckily there are plenty of perfect videos available online. Some are free and others cost some money, but it is always a good idea to invest in good videos as you will be able to use them over and over again. If you’re feeling creative, you can even provide the entire script and idea of the video and online designers can create a personalised video for you. Freelancer sites such as Upwork or Fiverr are easy, affordable ways to do this. 

Creating mobile content isn’t as difficult as you think- so what are you waiting for? Start the creative process today!