For an example of how an eLearning tool like Articulate Storyline can be used to create Performance Support instead of a course, take a look at this solution:

Landing page:
http://www.bu.edu/buworks/help/

Jump straight in to an example:
http://www.bu.edu/buworks/help/process-guides.html#guides/ordering-goods-services/procurement/story.html

We used existing tools and resources, along with external PS content already existing in uPerform. Storyline allowed us to create rich interactive content with ease, using a familiar PPT-inspired interface. However, it is not so easy to maintain the content inside once created unless you have some comfort with multimedia tools and FTP. This solution is then sort of a hybrid between eLearning and PS, as one would expect.

I would not say that this is a best practice to be emulated everywhere, such as where a dedicated PS system can be deployed, but it was the optimal solution amongst the available options at the time. Also, we were able to create something completely customized that included everything we wanted, with no capital expenditure.

I’m not sure we can get away from the term mLearning – it’s too entrenched, but I believe it is the wrong term and it sets people in the industry up for thinking that they CAN put courses onto a phone with good results.

Mobile devices (phones and tablets) are also a lot like other technologies that have been explored in our industry over the past 25 years.Our first efforts with the new technology is to simply try to repurpose what we’ve done before in a different medium. When video was a “new” technology in the learning world, people’s first uses of it were to videotape people lecturing….essentially replicating what we used to do in a live classroom. When virtual worlds came into being folks would host events at which you would arrive at your virtual destination to watch someone deliver a virtual PowerPoint presentation. We tend to try to replicate what we know rather than thinking of the entirely new learning and support strategies we can create in conjunction with a new distribution technology.

Our colleagues in the marketing world face similar struggles with the shifts in technologies. Suddenly we have DVRs and subscription services that let us stream our favorite TV shows and movies WITHOUT having to watch commercials. We have digital magazines and newspapers that let us ignore advertising. Thus far, advertisers seem mostly flummoxed by this – and unsure of how to respond. Their approaches to commercials largely remain unchanged (except to shorten them in some instances) – and their response to creating advertisements in digital media is to put the same ad in digital format that they would have had in a print publication. They can’t get out of their box and think of an entirely new way to do advertising now that distribution technologies have changed.

Mobile will mature and get better once we stop trying to do what we’ve done in the past and force ourselves to come up with new patterns and ideas.

Thanks for the encouragement. If I can find the link, I’ll submit a case study on tablet use in medical education.