Learning is a fundamental part of the lives of people of all ages. Whether they are young students or working adults, keeping one's education active nowadays becomes an increasingly necessary characteristic in order to keep up with the different scholastic and work realities. The preparation of professional figures who are entering the world of work or who have already been in it for some time is now a necessary condition to be able to access certain positions and competition is often based on the quality of the training of the various candidates and their ability to maintain themselves updated. For this reason, it has become essential to stay abreast of educational innovations relating to one's field of action.

The problem, often, for adults who are no longer students is represented by the difficulty of adapting education to daily life and reconciling it with work, to which most of the time is dedicated. A valid ally in overcoming this obstacle is represented, in recent years, by new technologies, which have made it possible to spread the possibilities of learning in any place and at any time, allowing people to continue their training without having to comply with specific timetables and without having to go to physical locations. In this panorama, portable technology has given a further boost and has allowed the development of a new type of learning: on-the-go training.

“On the go” training

eLearning uses new technologies to bring learning into the lives of students and workers, allowing them to follow lessons remotely and at the times they prefer. The only fundamental condition for having access to online courses is the availability of electronic support with an Internet connection. In addition to computers and tablets, however, the use of smartphones for all types of digital activities is increasingly widespread, including attending eLearning courses.

We have already talked about the advantages of mobile learning, that is, learning that is enjoyed through the use of mobile phones. Another possibility offered by the use of mobile technology applied to training is given by "on the go" learning, which allows you to learn while on the move. This means that students and participants in online lessons can learn actively in everyday life, in free moments, such as while traveling to or from work.

“On the go” training is designed to fill the micro-moments that people's lives are full of. That is, these are those short periods of time that everyone has available during the day. These moments can coincide, for example, with waiting for a friend, or they can occur while queuing in some office, or on public transport, while going to work or doing some errands. Often, in these situations, people use their smartphone to send a message, surf the Internet or access some applications. The goal of learning on the go is to fill these micro-moments, allowing people to take eLearning courses in their free time and in any location.

Why use it in a business environment?

“On the go” training is useful in corporate training because it allows you to increase the worker's involvement in learning and lighten the teaching load which, if carried out within the professional environment, could be much heavier. Furthermore, the possibility of customizing the training path according to the needs of the company and the individual user guarantees continuous updating of the skills and knowledge of the students, who can delve deeper into different topics, based on the needs of a given moment.

In general, it can be useful to use training in motion for the following reasons:

1. Flexibility: the advantage of using the smartphone for learning is the possibility of not being tied to fixed places and stringent times, which would force you to attend lessons at a specific time and place. This, in reality, was already possible thanks to eLearning and training carried out on computers or tablets. But the mobile phone also offers the possibility of accessing courses in every micro-moment of one's daily life, eliminating the time spent starting up electronic devices and the need for a physical place equipped with some of the comforts necessary for using a PC. . The smartphone, on the contrary, is a medium constantly used by people at all times and this makes learning even more flexible.
2. Speed: "on the go" learning, to be effective, must be organized into small modules and this method makes understanding quicker, thanks to the presence of less cognitive overload.
3. Participation: student involvement is greater, thanks to the possibility of better personalizing the contents of the online course. Furthermore, being able to follow the lessons at any moment of your daily life, even if for a short period during the day, allows the user to keep up with the training day by day, keeping himself constantly updated.
4. Accessibility: The smartphone allows anyone to have access to training at any time. The exploitation of the small free moments of one's daily life is of great help for workers, who can access training even for a very short period of time, in case a "review" or updating of certain knowledge may be needed, to complete a job.

The effectiveness of "on the go" training is linked, above all, to its carrying out outside the office and working hours, in a more familiar context that allows you to take advantage of the free moments of your day. In this way, learning is more fragmented and continuous, so as to avoid cognitive overload for students, making understanding more effective.

How to implement it?

To implement "on the go" training so that it is advantageous and effective for the company and, consequently, for the user, it is best to follow some simple advice.

1. Pay attention to timing: very often, users who access content "on the go" do so because they have a hectic life, always on the move and with little time to dedicate to anything else. The target that mobile training is aimed at is therefore mainly made up of workers who are often traveling or who, in any case, do not remain stationary at a desk in a specific place, but who have to deal with the public. In this scenario, consulting the smartphone takes place for a limited time. For this reason it is necessary to develop content that adapts to users' tight deadlines and that aims to involve them, to make learning more direct and effective.
2. Adapt contents to mobile devices: very often, the eLearning teaching modules already present are not compatible with "on the go" use, because they were created for other electronic tools. In this case, it is necessary to adapt the material already present, making it more streamlined and easily usable from mobile.
3. Organize in small modules: in addition to resizing the contents to fit the small screen, it is essential to divide the material into micromodules, to condense the learning into pills, make it faster, less cumbersome and to allow users to reduce the load cognitively and better remember the notions learned in each module. Given the small size that mobile phones offer, concise, easy-to-use and always fresh content can be more effective in learning "on the go".
4. Simplify access: to be able to enjoy courses from a smartphone without difficulty, it is necessary to make the selection menus and controls that allow you to adjust the volume clear and immediately accessible. An indispensable tool to make access to "on to go" eLearning lessons even less complex are earphones, which allow you to learn on the move, without the need to be in a silent environment, given their ability to relatively isolate the person.
5. Limit the duration of lessons: "on the go" training cannot be made up of excessively long and complex modules, precisely because users make use of them in the micro-moments they have available. For this reason, the ideal would be to create content lasting a maximum of five minutes, so that the student can easily follow the entire module in a short time. If the content in question is already part of an eLearning course, it will be necessary to adapt it to the mobile tool, both in terms of duration and method of use, to make it more suited to the times and ways in which online lessons are followed from mobile phone.
6. Involve the user: a winning strategy to arouse the user's interest and make him progress through the steps of online courses is to involve him. Even if it is "on the go" learning, rapid and characterized by short contents, we must not forget the importance of an engaging training program, which can involve the user and guarantee the effectiveness and success of the lessons.
7. Use podcasts: learning on the go doesn't always allow you to read a text or follow a video lesson. For this reason, to guarantee the success of the "on the go" learning program, it is essential to provide the presence of audio or podcasts, so that the user can simply put on their earphones and press the play button to follow the lesson. . This allows students to participate in courses even while they are walking from one place to another or while they are driving.

The design of learning on the move must therefore take into account several aspects, which separate it from traditional eLearning, based on access to lessons from a stable physical location. In addition to this, we must always keep in mind that, in "on the go" training, the same tool used for learning is also the main source of distraction. The objective, in this sense, is to facilitate access to the course and to focus on user involvement, so that distractions are also reduced to a minimum.