The way Edge Hill students and staff are choosing to access Learning Edge appears to be changing, and more than ever we’re seeing usage patterns that show how important mobile access is.
There is an increasing trend for users to access Learning Edge via tablets and smart phones rather than the traditional PC. VLE use in general has increased – up by 33% compared with last September, but it’s even more interesting to see how mobile access has rocketed – up by a whopping 175%!
Over the last 12 months almost 17,000 individuals used the Mobile Learn app to access Learning Edge – with an impressive 6,000 in the first few weeks of term. Use of the app itself is even more impressive. Visits via the app in September 2012 totaled 17,703 compared with 53,785 in the same period this year – an increase of 204%!
It is good to see that both staff and students are taking advantage of the flexibility and ease of access that the mobile app offers.
Raising Awareness
At the start of term, to help students #Getconnected to the mobile technology available to them, Learning Services and IT colleagues spoke to over 1600 students at the freshers fair. With improved awareness of the Mobile Learn app, and better than ever features, steadily more users are opting to use the app (66%), as opposed to their mobile browser.
Advice for Staff: Recommended Practices for Mobile-Friendly Courses
As more and more students choose to access Learning Edge on their mobile devices, making sure your course is optimised to work with the Mobile Learn app will improve your students’ experience and ability to engage with the course wherever they are. The Mobile Learn app doesn’t replace the need for students or staff to access Learning Edge via a PC, but it does offer new opportunities to access features that work well on the go. So any time you edit or develop your Learning Edge Course, ask yourself, “is this mobile friendly?”
The following guides from Blackboard offer useful guidance:
The Learning Services Learning Technology Development team are also here to help. If you’d like advice on developing your course to make best use of the Mobile Learn app contact your learning technologist, come to one of our Developing Digital Excellence staff development sessions and browse the Learning Edge: Blackboard Mobile Learn guide collection available on eShare.
Nina Unsworth
Learning Technology Development Operations Coordinator