Abstract:

As a consequence of the increasing knowledge and technology intensive activities within organizations, a need for work integrated learning arises. The employees require knowledge and learning units when a problem occurs or a task has to be solved (learning-on-demand or just-in-time-training). Therefore, it is necessary that the learning content can be accessed and processed easily at the workplace.

Modern learning concepts, such as micro and mobile learning, offer great potentials to combine working and learning. They are one possibility for organizations to provide flexible training opportunities for employees. By using mobile devices and small learning units (micro content) location and time independent learning becomes possible, only with short-term interruptions of the actual working process or in idle or non-productive times.

Especially with respect to the growing availability of mobile devices and the increasing mobility of work (e.g. mobile workers), mobile micro learning can help to establish new learning situations in education and training.

However, prior research on micro and mobile learning is limited on specific application scenarios in the business context. A systematic approach of potentials and limitations of mobile micro learning for education and training activities in organizations is missing. Thus, the main goal of this paper is to identify these potentials and limitations. Therefore, we first focus on developing a framework to categorize learning forms in organizations using the characteristics “work relatedness” and “learning style”. Then we used this matrix to categorize 24 different learning forms in organizations. For the analysis of mobile micro learning potentials, we conducted a literature review to identify practical examples of using mobile micro learning. We used examples where mobile micro learning is already applied in organizations or a transfer from another field of application (e.g. schools, universities) to the business context seemed possible. To evaluate the classification scheme, we categorized the identified practical examples according to our matrix. Based on this, potentials of using micro and mobile learning are described. The personal, organisational, technological and cultural conditions of using mobile micro learning in organizations are also considered. Following this, limitations of using micro and mobile learning in organizations are discussed.

The results of this paper show that mobile micro learning in organizations is primarily used for individual learning and on-the-job-training. The identified benefits and the limitations of these learning concepts can be used as a basis for further research and for practitioners as assistance for integrating micro and mobile learning within organizations.

Keywords:

Mobile Learning, Micro Learning, Micro Content, Organizations, Work integrated learning, Education, Training.