Harbinger Makes an Impact with “Single Source” Mobile Learning Solution @ the Learning 3.0 Conference

In October 2011, Harbinger attended the Training Magazine’s Learning 3.0 conference in Chicago. Harbinger was a sponsor-partner in this event. Bijoy Banerjee, Associate Vice President – Business Development presented on Mobile Learning.

In a post conference debriefing, Deepali Tharkude, Associate Vice President – Content Development spoke with Bijoy about his take on the conference, state of Mobile Learning, trends, challenges and finally, how the audience perceived Harbinger’s emerging leadership role in Mobile Learning and its pioneering “single source” solution.

Here is an excerpt:

Deepali: So Bijoy, how was the conference and your sessions?

Bijoy: The conference was very good, Deepali. All got ample opportunity to exchange knowledge and network. I presented twice – 4^th and 5^th Oct. The session details can be viewed here.

On 4^th Oct I spoke on: Single Source Content strategy – eliminating the eLearning / Mobile Learning divide.

On 5^th Oct I presented: How to choose native app or browser based delivery for mobile learning – A hands on guide.

The audience turnaround in the sessions was highly encouraging on both days. In fact, combining both days, the turnaround was about 30% of the entire conference audience and that’s a lot!

Deepali: Wow! That’s a great turnaround, Bijoy. What were the reasons, you think?

Bijoy: I realized this high level of interest and turnaround for the sessions was due to the following reasons:

1. Mobile Learning has grown from the exploratory phase to the actual implementation phase in many organizations. As a result, there is natural drive to learn ways, means and the innovations for successfully implementing mobile learning.
2. There is a huge demand for the “right” knowledge about implementing mobile learning in the most efficient, scalable and risk-mitigated way. People are looking for expert guidance and support in the design and development of quality mobile learning solutions and delivery mechanisms.
3. Solutions to: (1) running the same content across all mobile devices as well as desktop/laptop (i.e. platform agnostic content) and (2) decide when and how to go for WebApp or Native App.

Taking clue from the post-session followup chats, I realized that the sessions addressed these expectations.

Deepali: Excellent! Would you please share a bit on the “single source” topic you presented?

Bijoy: Yes, sure. With the exploding growth and acceptance of mobile devices for learning and education, new set of challenges have surfaced; most significantly, developing content to run on all mobile platforms, as well as desktop/laptop.

Creating content separately for each device, operating system and browser is not a viable option, as you can understand. Instead, the content should be developed once, and then push from the LMS, website or Apps, playable online or offline, should be track able, and finally, must be accessible by multiple devices and their browsers – a content that can meet all these is “single source”, also known as, platform agnostic content.

The audience was particularly impressed when I did a quick demo of an interactive on-boarding course we developed, purely in HTML5.

HTML5 content having visual richness and instructionally sound interactivities is not a very common knowledge, so the audience was pleasantly surprised to see example of a course that was seamlessly accessed from LMS and iPad, followed SCORM compliance and used variety of interactivities and multimedia assets.

Deepali: Yes, Bijoy. In fact, I hear the same ‘WOW’ from our customers! Now, for our reader’s benefit, would you please describe how Harbinger is positioned in single source?

Bijoy: Actually, Harbinger is one of the pioneers in the design and development services of single source content and today, Harbinger commands a leadership position in this domain.

Back in early 2010, when Flash-based development was still the de-facto trend, Harbinger envisioned rapid growth in platform agnostic content and the role HTML5 would play.

Though it was new back then, but Harbinger invested heavily in R&D and developed cutting edge competencies in HTML5 based content development. Soon pilot projects followed for various customers, and by the end of 2010, Harbinger had several success stories of HTML5 based interactive content that were accessible from the LMS, App, desktop, laptop, tablets, smart phones, online, offline and were track able as well.

Till date Harbinger has executed several large scale “single source” projects and continues to find great traction from customers. I realized that Harbinger stands distinctly differentiated in the single source domain due to the following:

1. Early knowledge and R&D: Harbinger got on the boat much earlier and had spent considerable time in R&D and pilot process. As a result, Harbinger has passed through the learning curve, has first-hand knowledge of the challenges in HTML5 based content development and has found solutions.
2. Demonstrated success: Success talks! After developing hundreds of courses as single source on variety of topics and interactivity levels, Harbinger has mastered the HTML5 technology and its effective use in interactive content development.
3. Quality like Flash, but no Flash: Many a times you must have heard that HTML5 has limitations in creating the visual richness and interactivity compared to Flash; that’s not entirely wrong actually, but through rigorous R&D and project experiences, Harbinger has been able to explore HTML5 to the extent that unless you are told, you will not be able to make out whether the content is developed in Flash or HTML5!

So yes, Harbinger indeed has a great early mover advantage and has already acquired concrete experience in cutting edge HTML5 based single source / platform agnostic content development.

Deepali: Can our readers access your presentations and review the HTML5 examples? 

Bijoy: Absolutely! The presentations are available in the below links:

1. Single Source Content Strategy: Eliminating eLearning / Mobile Learning Divide – http://tinyurl.com/Single-Source-Mobile-Learning
2. Native App or Browser-Based Delivery for Mobile Learning – A hands-on Guide – http://tinyurl.com/Native-or-WebApp

And for examples, readers are welcome to reach me at bijoy@harbingergroup.com. I would also encourage readers to visit the mobile learning page in Harbinger website.

Deepali: Excellent, Bijoy! Thank you very much. Look forward to more on single source.

Bijoy: Thank you, Deepali. Yes, I will keep the readers posted.