The Importance of the Learner's Environmental Context in the Design of M-Learning Products

As mobile devices, such as PDAs, iPods, and mobile phones become more common, corporations are turning to mobile learning to improve employee performance. Today’s m-learning designers often tend to borrow design ideas from their elearning experience; many designs attempt to re-fit e-learning methods—even elearning products—to a small screen. I suggest here that designers would be better served by considering the entire context in which learners will use a particular mlearning program. In this paper I describe two examples of m-learning designs that go well beyond the idea of refitting e-learning to a small screen and illustrate how these designs make use of the learner’s environmental context. Finally, I propose a set of contextual factors designers should consider when designing m-learning products.