Mobile chalkboard Featured in Leading French Management Magazine

Courrier Cadres Feature: Use Your Phone, Use Your Head

By Eric Tenin, Courrier Cadres
June 2009 Issue

In 2008, management employees at Alstom spent exactly 1,116,824 hours and 16 minutes on a plane. Since this method of transportation requires at least a 15 minute wait before boarding, that adds up to no less than…. 40,000 lost hours! “Enough time to be able to benefit from access to training,” notes Annie Bayeux, director of distance learning at the industrial giant. How? Via m-learning (mobile learning), an offshoot of e-learning, where a mobile phone takes the place of a computer. Not just any mobile phone, but one with a screen large enough to be user-friendly. In this case, a BlackBerry, equipped with a software solution from the Canadian company Chalk (Canadians are the global leaders in the world of mobile learning).

“The courses are ‘pushed’ to the device”, explains Ronald Mol, EMEA Director of Market Development at Chalk, “without the user having to take any special action, and can then be viewed at their convenience, regaining some of those lost moments. The training is integrated into an enterprise e-learning system, where managers can see who has viewed what course, whether it was completed, any test results, etc.”

A new way for management to look over your shoulder? “No,” says Annie Bayeux, “the idea is to use m-learning to supplement other tools. For example, to evaluate a candidate’s expertise before sending him to training, or provide short ‘refresher’ modules.”