Management Training – Classroom Learning v Mobile Learning

by Lucy Cadman

I love gadgets.

There, I said it. I am a self-confessed gadget-fan. If it has a screen, buttons and some form of power supply, then I am right there with it.

Today is the day when I collect my new Blackberry smartphone from the shop. I’ve never had a Blackberry before, and to say that I am in a state of great excitement right now would be the understatement of the year. There has truly never been a morning at work that has ever before passed so slowly!

The SALVO Global “4th Annual Global Learning Summit 2011” will be held in February 2011 in Singapore. A wide range of senior executives from leading organisations will present their take on the latest learning strategies and required blend of learning methodologies that are necessary to overcome the challenges and requirement of learning needs in the light of a recovering economy.

Training departments need to respond to these challenges by adopting new approaches and developing new skill sets themselves. The wide loss of jobs during the previous year has forced people to ‘reinvent’ & ‘redefine’ their professional capability. Constant lookout for new methods, ideas, concepts are brought to the way the work is done, to keep each organization from getting stale and falling behind its competitors.

The Salvo Global summit will bring together learning and talent leaders from a variety of industries to discuss pressing concerns and successes about how learning drives business. The event promises to be highly interactive, providing opportunity to engage with practitioners who are advancing business results through leading learning strategies and practices.

Many companies in the UK think of a “classroom” environment when thinking of Management Development training. They picture their staff sitting in a room, listening to a trainer giving a presentation on the skills they need to acquire to be more successful and productive. They picture a whiteboard, or a flipchart pad, or at the very most, a set of Powerpoint slides being projected onto the wall. And unless the trainer is hugely dynamic, they picture the training remaining in the room and not being implemented into the day to day running of the business.

Is it any wonder that companies are therefore reluctant to invest money and time in training and developing their managers and leaders, and likewise that their leaders are reluctant to attend?

If companies want to see a succession of young, enthusiastic and capable managers and leaders progressing through their ranks to top executive positions, they need to look at possibilities for learning that go far beyond the whiteboard in the classroom.

Back in 1990 Tim Bernes-Lee created a language for use on the World Wide Web (WWW) called HTML (HyperText Markup Language). A year later WWW first became available to the public, and by 1995 there were 16 million (0.4% of population) users worldwide. By 2000 this figure had risen to 361 million users (or 5.8%) and a decade later there are 1,966 million users - or 28.7% of the world's population.

Who knew a 'radical' idea first proposed and dismissed back in 1945 would form such an integral part of the personal and professional lives of over a quarter of the world's population just over half a century later?!

Electronic and mobile learning is the way forward. The possibilities are huge … and probably 90% of them haven’t actually been discovered yet! Online learning seminars provide an interactive means of learning without taking an entire day out of the office to attend a presentation in person, distance and e-learning solutions provide the opportunity to study at the delegate’s own pace and at a time that suits them – a lark can work at 5am, or a night owl can work at midnight if they chose. Mobile learning solutions can be constant companions, and can serve as a fun reminder of learning tips and techniques as well as an important performance aid. Shortly there will be more smartphones than ordinary mobile phones in the UK, and it is something that more traditional training development companies, and indeed the companies who need their assistance, need to catch on to if they want to stay with the times.

Hopefully the next time that I view this Blog article, it will be from my new Blackberry! Watch this space …!