Reverse engineering: the project team

Who will we need to put everything together?

We will really need the expertise of someone who has the networking and telecommunications skills to advise us on the technical aspects of making mlearning a reality.

Apart from that, I think that the standard project team that is put together to manage a elearning project will work well. In my context, we generally have a project manager, a subject expert and a web developer for most small projects.

For the purposes of putting together a mlearning project the following will also need to take place:-

• All the team members will need to undertake some learning with regards to mlearning so that everyone has similar familiarity of the concepts and possibilities specific to mlearning.
• All members must have familiarity with, have used or already use the smart phone that is chosen to be used by the learners.
• The web developer will need to be familiar with the OS chosen, WAP protocols along with the use of software tools to develop the learning content.

The content or learning objective for the first project needs to be selected carefully. The content or learning objective should also allow for the following:-

• Provide opportunity to explore the ramifications of converting existing econtent into mcontent
• Text content might need to be supplied by posting students hard copies of the material to be used
• Have the opportunity for not only tutor and student interaction but also student to student group work or discussion

On the technical aspects of mlearning, CPIT has just begun discussion with the Hyperfactory, a NZ firm that produces txt based solutions for mobile phones. Their main approach has been to use txt for marketing / promotion / information but they also have experience with training using their Hyper’CRM package with Keratase. We will need to evaluate this against more established content and assessment authoring packages like Lectora.

Looks like an interesting couple of months coming up!