Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Coming to a mobile near you - safety training by phones is nearly among us

By Ian Pemberton


Think back a decade. Mobile telephones were simply that: mobile phones. Laptops were twice as thick and weighed just as much as a computer. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn were glimmers in the eyes of the one day technology experts.

Though, in just a decade, technology communications has witnessed one of the greatest steps forward in development since the creation of the computer. The greatest progress in recent years has been the production of the iPad by Apple and the amount of similar products that have followed recently from other companies. It has been known for ages by the technology industry that touch screen products are the future and they are always trying to perfect the design.

However, the only company to make a profit on the tablet was Apple, in 1987 it was also the forerunner with the launch of touch screen PDA Newton, which was stylus driven with handwriting recognition. Sony then almost got ahead from all the rivals with a Wi-Fi micro tablet in 2004.

Though it was just when the iPad was produced with its tablet designed operating assembly and attractive designs that the consumer market paid attention and people began to queue wishing to be one of the first to own one. However you do not need an iPad to have that new control and utilities; they are integral into a great range of smartphones that have more control power than your personal computer had 10 years earlier and have quickly come to own the mobile phone market.

The early adopter for new technology is always the consumer market; the industry follows when the technology has become established and ripened. Businesses usually wait for the format battle to stop and choose the winning program. Preceding wars included Blu Ray vs high definition DVD and Beta vs VHS.

The current war for tablet equipment puts the google sponsored open source Android phone used in the newest handheld contribution from makers such as Apples iOS platform vs Acer and Motorola, initially created for the iphone and now likewise for the iPad.

Generation Y

This all affects safety training since as technology progresses, training has had to change too to stay important for its users. Mobile phone technology has the opportunity to alter the way we provide safety training courses. This generation of employees going into the workplace is the first to have been brought up with Google, email, texting, electronic contact, online social media tools and interactive television voting no matter where they are.

To involve with such users we need to upgrade the way we teach. Like Bridget Leathley explains in her article, classroom "chalk and talk" teaching is not a successful way of delivery. Users need to be involved in their training and be enhanced by the exercise.

The initial steps into new teaching has been via E-learning. Training courses via the web, keep test scores, track training while giving risk analysis for each employee. The last few years has seen e-learning make big developments, providing companies with vital savings in cost compared to traditional training and a robust audit trail of teaching and risk assessments that is crucial for all compliance training.

The newest generation of e-learning services also includes editable programmes, allowing industries to edit the course to their specific businesses without the typical prohibitive production prices. It also contains authoring tools, enabling companies to make their own content and provide it to their employees with pictures of their precise work spaces, their own policies and procedures and company images and tone.




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