Mobile learning, or m-learning, has been defined and interpreted in many ways. According to EDUCAUSE (2010), "Mobile learning, or m-learning, can be any educational interaction delivered through mobile technology and accessed at a student's convenience from any location." The landscape of m-learning is vast and includes education of customers and prospects. This paper focuses on training and risk communication for employees (and contractors as applicable).
The wave of today and the future in training and education is m-learning. It is estimated that the worldwide mobile worker population will increase to 1.3 billion by 2015 (Crook et al. 2011). Many safety, health, and environmental (SH&E) professionals, and the workers they train, already work at sites that may range from an orchard to an oilfield. Withthe changing characteristics of the workforce, the prominence of m-learning has increased rapidly. Its popularity is fueled, in no small part, by the widespread adoption of the use of mobile devices by consumers and businesses globally. For example, 60% of the American population in 2010 went online using a laptop or mobile phone (Pew Research Center, 2010). In Africa, the second largest mobile market in the world after Asia, the number of mobile connections has grown an average of 30% annually and m-learning initiatives have helped improve access to education where the number of schools is limited in remote areas (GSM Association 2011). In the United States alone, the market for m-learning products and services reached almost $1 billion in 2010, with a five-year compound annual growth rate of 13.7% (Adkins 2011).
