Mobile devices are now readily available - and we all have them. Communications, games and entertainment, business services, L&D, commerce and other business transactions, as well as business opportunities are inter-connected with mobile applications in the sense that they both influence and are influenced by these mobile applications.

These days, it's not about getting content to people but, rather, using mobile devices to answer specific learning, development and/or performance needs. The learning materials' content and its treatment are influenced by what people want and need.

Add to that the benefits for learners from personalised and contextualised learning - from mobile-delivered programs that can discover where the learners are; what they already know; what they need to know, and then provide the relevant learning materials - and you can see how mobile learning (m-learning) can become an ideal medium to get the right information to the right person at the right time.

'M-learning' is an area of learning technology which is developing rapidly. Today's key issues include how can:

• Users and their employers get maximum value from, and use of, this technology?
• Learning materials be personalised and contextualised to make them appropriate for the user, whatever her/his need, location and delivery device?
• The increasingly wide range of mobile devices be best used to deliver both (formal) learning and (informal) performance support materials?

This article has been adapted from the contents of chapter 11 of Bob Little's e-book, -˜Perspectives on Learning Technologies' (e-book; ASIN: B00A9K1VVS).

For over 20 years, Bob Little has specialised in writing about, and commentating on, corporate learning - especially elearning - and technology-related subjects. His work has been published in the UK, Continental Europe, the USA and Australia.
You can contact Bob.