And I agree, if you add context or use the capabilities of the device to make it more than a page-turner then I think it could qualify as mLearning. But if it is the same treatment, just shrunken down to fit a smaller screen then it is “mobile eLearning.”

And I feel that mobile performance support is just one type of true “mLearning.”

If organizations see all learning as branches of the same tree, rather than making the distinction between mLearning and eLearning, then they will not find cause to hire those who have skills and experience unique to developing the former. If, however, they can be made to see the advantages and distinctions of true mLearning, then they will also need to recognize the need for learning professionals who can develop these particular resources, rather than those who can simply publish to HTML5.

I understand the argument you’re making, and I even lean toward agreeing with most of it. And for your own presentations and purposes, you’ve got distinctions that are useful to make.

But two forces suggest to me this is a battle that you’ll lose.

First, the learners: you know as well as I do they don’t care what this stuff is called. In fact, not a few of them will refer to elearning, mlearning, and the soon-to-be-releaseed qlearning and zlearning as… training.

Second, the vendors. Even as I type, dozens if not hundreds of companies are busily bolting onto to their products something they can point to and say, “See? We do X! We’re Y-compliant!” Letter-hyphen-learning is just their natural prey.