The Instancy Mobile Learning Management System (Mobile iLMS) was released today with a new user interface. Mobile iLMS comes in two flavors – Mobile Web App (requiring no download from an app store) and a Native App that can be downloaded from an App store. In this post, we’ll talk about the Mobile Web App; more on the Native App in our next article….stay tuned.

What is a Mobile Learning Management System?

A Mobile Learning Management System provides your learners with a single on-demand learning portal and gateway, on the mobile devices (phones and tablets) that they are using today..

A mobile LMS lets your learner community use all the features of your LMS on their portable devices.  Learners can search for and enroll in classes, and report their progress.  More importantly, learners can take courses and engage with instructors and other students on their devices.  Learners can view video, audio, documents, tests and assessments and online courses. Each learner can follow a personalized learning track, if that is the way your system is set up.

In other words, a mobile LMS lets your users do everything they used to need a PC for, on their phone or tablet.

Mobile iLMS’ new interface updates the entire learner experience.

Sign-up with Social Login

By enabling social login, you can make the registration process easy. New users can sign-up with their Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, or Twitter IDs, instead of  asking them to set up yet another new profile and new login credentials to remember.

Side Menu Navigation

The menu navigation now offers easy to use side navigation that may accessed from anywhere in the mobile iLMS App. This solves the problem of having many menus on the main app screens that take away much screen space. Users can see where they are and where they can go.

Content Purchasing Made Easy

If your implementation of the mobile iLMS supports retail sales, the new mobile interface makes the process of buying learning content easier for your clients.

A new shopping cart icon shows the number of items in their shopping cart. Learners can access the shopping cart at any time from catalog listing or from the content details page. Also, users have the choice of paying online with a credit card option or offline (with a purchase order, check, etc.).

Browsing Content by Category

Users can filter learning content by categories and sub-categories. The “tree view” category structure helps users browse content easily.

Alphabetical “People Listing”

The “People listing” interface has been improved to search people by alphabetic order. Users can just scroll down to see users’ names by letter of the alphabet.  Names can be sorted by first name or by last name.

Improved Catalog Interface

The catalog interface has been redesigned to keep easy navigation in mind. Items in the next page of the catalog are loaded when users reach the end of the scroll. This approach reduces bandwidth consumption and loads catalog items faster

We are excited about the new Mobile iLMS features and usability.  You can continue to expect innovation from Instancy as we make our entire system easier for both your learning users who consume your learning content, and for your management and support teams who acquire, create and provide this content to your community.

No doubt the new learning world has arrived with the speed of mobility, as Web 3.0 has become the new reality in organizations. The use of Android devices by Samsung, Motorola, and HTC, along with the Apple iPhone and iPad, has changed the way everyone receives and retains information. Additionally, we can now create new and intriguing mobile learning apps without coding.  Because there is always something new to discover, enhancing contemporary learning and increasing the knowledge base on a wide array of platforms are essential.

Traditional eLearning standards like SCORM (conceived in the late 1990s) are inadequate to meet the demands of digital and distributed learning today. We need a more flexible learning architecture that can enable learning to occur anyplace, anytime, with any device and support myriads of learning opportunities from traditional courseware, games, simulations and social interactions and sharing.

Instancy and its Tin Can API integration is now the answer. Implementing Tin Can API Integration within the Instancy Learning Management System (iLMS), along with Instancy Learning Content Management Systems (iLCMS), can create an integrated learning environment that interoperates data with other learning systems and legacy enterprise applications.

Instancy’s Tin Can API support allows you to:

• Package your eLearning content with built-in support for Tin Can API after creating it within Instancy’s easy-to-use Authoring tools
• Deliver the content through Instancy LMS and track user progress through a Learning Record Store (LRS)
• Have it all translated into a learning progress report or a dashboard  

Instancy Learning™ platform supports this new interoperability specification from Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL), Tin Can API also known as Experience API, to help any organization create, deliver and track learning content seamlessly on the web and mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

The Instancy web-based authoring and Learning Content Management System (iLCMS) are designed to help you create SCORM compliant content. The iLCMS not only supports traditional SCORM (eLearning specification for content packaging and interoperability) but also supports the latest Tin Can API.

Instancy Tin Can-based Learning Management and HTML5 Authoring Platform

Tin Can API based eLearning content developed with Instancy web authoring tools & LCMS can be:

• Delivered onto the web and mobile devices
• Tracked within Instancy LMS for learner progress reporting 
• Exported as SCORM packages with built-in Tin Can API calls for third party LMS/LRS delivery

The mobile learning content resources can be:

• Delivered through a mobile browser
• Downloaded on the mobile device via Instancy Native App framework.

Tracking offline and synching the learner experience and progress are also critical ingredients:

• Instancy Platform and the Mobile App framework support learner experience supports offline tracking and synching with an LRS
• Learning content may also be downloaded on a mobile device within the Instancy native learning app
• The downloaded content can be launched in offline mode
• The student experience and progress data is recorded locally on a mobile device, then synched back with the LRS when Internet access is available.

Next generation learning is here now – freedom to learn anywhere and on any device is what your audience expects. With Instancy, all the pieces of the next generation learning architecture puzzle come together. Tin Can API is a key component of next general learning architecture and Instancy is mission is to help you get there faster and better.

The future of learning is mobile. If you haven’t noticed it yourself or among your friends and associates, you’ll read the reports. People are wanting their information whenever they want, where ever they are. You’re paying attention. You know this is the direction everyone is moving towards.

You’re in the online learning business. You already have an online training platform with one or more courses. You’re not going to wait any longer to take your online training mobile. You’re figuring out how to create a mobile learning app, and what choices are out there.

It’s the next step to take. You’ve seen that iPhones, iPads, Android and Windows Mobile phones are everywhere. Your training needs to be available on all those medium and small devices.

You’re asking questions and doing research. What is the pain-free way to make your online learning platform into an mlearning platform? What solution will be quick, easy, affordable, and efficient? Is there a way to utilize all the work you’ve done for your computer based training? What kind of learning curve is involved? What service has the kind of flexibility and responsiveness you need for my business? How much research will it take to find? How many dead ends will you go down before you find something that will work that way you need it to work? You need a solution as soon as possible.

If you’re not a programmer, or you don’t want to hire a programmer, you’re going to want to check any potential solutions for the following features:

• Can you create the mobile learning application without programming?
• Will it create a mobile website? Will you be able to update it from a mobile device?
• Will it create a mobile app with ability to down load and access content offline? Will you be able to update it yourself?
• Will you be able to leverage mobile notifications to push learning and knowledge to your learners?
• Will your mobile app be made available for the Apple store? For the Google Android store?
• Is it easy to convert your MS Documents for use? What about your other training content?
• Will you be able to customize your own menus, and add your own logo?
• Will it deliver quizzes, tests and assessments with all the traditional online answer choices?
• Will it deliver mobile surveys that can be completed on a mobile device, desktop or both?
• Will it handle a full catalog of your training, offerings and digital content?
• Will it allow for registration and payment for courses and events, even with coupons?
• Will it provide analytics and reporting of registrations, sales, student performance and more?
• Is there any document sharing capability, as well as document reading via mobile device for PDFs, word documents, spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides?
• Will there be a user database showing the profiles and access privileges?

Does that look like it covers what you’d be looking for?

These are just some of the many dimensions of the solution we developed to create mobile learning apps for you. We have customized our solution to offer what providers of online learning will need.

Our solution gives you the flexibility you need. Fast. Easy. Affordably. Efficiently. Our solution creates mobile learning apps without coding.

You have two easy choices: You can do it yourself with our code-free, template-based system that will lead to a fully equipped and business-ready mobile website and a mobile app for your online training. Or, you can engage our expert services to prepare it on your behalf. Your choice. Whatever works best for you.

Have you heard of Instancy, Inc.? We’re an expert online training and online learning company. We host hundreds of businesses and educational organizations’ trainings on our platform. Now we’re able to offer them and you, one of the easiest and more affordable ways to get your online learning content into mobile devices.

Email us now at info@instancy.com to discuss your specific needs and find out how Instancy can extend the reach of your online training through a state-of-the-art mlearning application.

Find out how Instancy can extend the reach of your online training through a state-of-the-art mobile learning app platform.

Gone are the days of developing code and expecting it to easily run across browser types. Remember when we all thought Flash was the answer? Well, it was good for a while, but now that Apple does not support Flash on its mobile devices – the iPhone and iPad, it has once again become more difficult to be sure all users will see your content.

Anyone who says that HTML5 is the ultimate answer hasn’t tested enough applications and scenarios to see that there are still some major issues because of a lack of standards. What is a content developer to do? As Instancy is a leader in content development and expert programming and learning tools and infrastructure, we have learned that each issue is different and much testing needs to be done before we can assume a product will work across all browsers and on Apple mobile devices. We do face challenges delivering Flash-based content on Apple tablets and the iPhone and have been working on various options. We came across a new app called iSwifter who claimed to play Flash content on the iPad and iPhone. To say the least, we were intrigued.

Our R&D and QA team quickly installed this app on an iPad and iPhone and started testing our portals and various HTML and Flash-based courses on the devices using iSwifter. So far, we are satisfied, but before we tell you more, let’s talk about why Flash does not play on an iPad or iPhone. 

Although most people know Flash is not supported on Apple mobile devices, few know why. One of the main reasons Flash will not work is because it was never designed to work on any touch screen devices. Now we know that the Android operating system has a work around for this, but that is for a future article. There are inherent aspects to Flash code that at the most basic level will never work on the mobile platform used by Apple. There has also been a long-standing feud between Apple and Adobe but one would think that there is enough money in it for Adobe to make it work. There have always been rumors that Adobe never could make it work because Apple would not release their source code. Now that Steve Jobs is gone, it will be interesting to see how Apple evolves. I digress….

Many (if not most) current Flash games, menus, and even video players require a visible mouse pointer. The code knows the difference between hovering over something (mouse over) versus actually clicking. This distinction is not rare. It’s pervasive and fundamental to interactive design, and vital to the basic use of Flash content. New Flash content designed just for touch screens can be done, but people want existing Flash sites to work. They want them to work all the time, and at the moment, that is just impossible.

What is iSwifter?

As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, iSwifter is an application that has been developed to run Flash-based content directly on Smart phones and tablets.

iSwifter is the first known cloud-based content streaming platform that was built specifically for mobile devices. Their application, which is patent pending, converts interactive content such as games that were not originally built for mobile devices and converts them to a form that is optimized for individual mobile devices, complete with touch gestures and different screen resolutions. As an added bonus, iSwifter does not ask developers to rewrite their code on their platform!

iSwifter is easy to use. Simply launch the App Store on the iPad and search for iSwifter. You can get the initial download for free which gives you 30 minutes of compile time. If you like it, you can upgrade to the full version. Once iSwifter is installed on the device, tap on the app icon to launch it where you will be presented with a welcome screen and a browser like address bar. Type in a website URL that you know also has Flash content and you will see that the content, including the Flash, will load. The only caveat is that the mobile device must be connected to the Internet through WiFi or a 3G or 4G network. 

We found one limitation to iSwifter which was disappointing; however, once we thought about it, we knew that what we discussed earlier in this article still held true…technically, any Flash content that requires rollover or drag-n-drop or multiple tap events would not work because of how Flash works. Apple prefers not to add or include any feature that is either broken or only works partially. They hold customer expectations to the highest standards and want all customers to have the best experience possible. If they allowed Flash applications to run, they would not consistently run well.

iSwifter really runs fairly well and is better than anything else we have seen. Just remember that you need an Internet connection and performance can be slow as the program converts the code from the server in the cloud. You may notice some degradation in quality as well.

Because converting Flash-based content to work on tablets is expensive, iSwifter may be an option but it does have limitations. Instancy prefers the direction HTML5 output is going and will continue to use that medium for interactivity on mobile devices. We also use Instancy’s authoring tools and suggest our customers do as well so content can be authored once and viewed by many. The Instancy authoring software provides the flexibility to deliver the same content in both HTML and Flash without have to reauthor the same content multiple times. Instancy’s goal is to provide our users the ability to access content anytime, anywhere, at the right time, right place, and on the right device. As an alternative, we give a thumbs up to iSwifter.