Higher Education News South Africa

Agile learning makes the ever-evolving mobile era better for learners

The need to adapt to the ever-evolving mobile age is more important than ever and one way of doing this is through agile learning. According to Richard Rayne, CEO of iLearn, which uses agile learning principles when designing corporate training courses, innovations like video-based learning and massive open online courses (MOOCS) have disrupted the learning and development industry.
Agile learning makes the ever-evolving mobile era better for learners
©wang Tom via 123RF

Agile learning is an alternative to traditional, textbook-heavy, time-consuming modes of learning and offers students the opportunity to learn when and where they want, at a pace that suits them. Furthermore, it gives learners the opportunity to consume content in short bursts, keeps them intrigued and promotes a more flexible, interactive learning experience.

"The goal of agile learning is to change the way learners perceive courses and in turn, the way they manage them. We spend most of our day consuming content on our mobile phones, so making learning accessible on our phones just makes sense. Mobile has shifted our brains towards hyper attention – dealing with multiple forms of content at once, with a low boredom tolerance," says Rayne.

Agile learning principles:

• Accessibility
• Interactivity
• User experience

User experience (UX) is fundamental when designing agile modes of learning and Rayne says presenting learning in interactive ways to enhance the learner experience is essential.

Agile learning formats:

• Videos
• VR-learning
• Gamification

"Thanks to digital content, learning has been reinvented to fit in with the modern learner’s lifestyle as opposed to the other way around. Agile learning has evolved from the more traditional instructional design to experience design, where it’s not just about learning content anymore, but more about how that learning content is delivered. Agile learning is the future of learning the world over," Rayne says.

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