ICTlogy

Analysis of the m-learning practices in Telefónica regarding its different stakeholders: Employees and Families, Customers and Society
Carolina Jeux, Telefónica Learning Services, Spain

Nowadays, almost everything can be mobile learning, as there are multiple devices that allow mobile connectivity, not only cellphones. Mobile learning can provide efficient, scalable and consistent training throughout all the organization.

Some corporate training applications of m-learning are: mobile content in products and services, languages, simulators, motivations process through SMS, MP4 content for pre and post sessions, authoring tools (teachme) that implements content for mobile phones, etc. Indeed, there are circa 1.5 million hours of learning every year at Telefonica, which increasingly implies that learning is part of one’s job.

When the trend is to move from a common Learning Management System towards a Personal Learning Environment, m-learning makes even more sense because it allows for higher degrees of personalization, even if this means losing some control on the whole process.

Carolina Jeux here presents several initiatives that her company has run on m-learning, some of them gorgeous as the training of 60,000 postmen of the Spanish Mail through their PDAs, the creation of ESTELA, the Escuela Ténica de Telefónica Latinoamérica, etc.

Discussion

Q: What are the profiles of the people that localize or create local content? A: They are normally natives of a specific country/culture, because it is not about translating content but really about localizing.

[Here follows a debate on net neutrality, openness of corporations, open educational resources and the relationship of Telefónica with these concepts which I’m neither able nor willing to reproduce because I have strong feelings on the topic].

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