Senior Home Office civil servants are putting mobile learning through its paces via an iPod-based pilot project.
The 20 senior officers are assessing 55 five-minute video clips on leadership to test the suitability of the iPod as a training delivery medium.
“All the people in the pilot scheme will report back on where they used their iPod, how useful it was, how appropriate the content was and how it compares to classroom-based training”, said a Home Office
spokeswoman. “If it’s successful and cost effective we’re likely to roll it out further.”
The package cost about £8,900 from mobile learning specialist Fifty Lessons, which sells video clips comprising story telling by senior business leaders.
Offerings include Managing Your People, a series of 20 video clips which costs £49 to download and features words of wisdom from various business leaders. The clips on the test run include BT chairman Sir Christopher Bland on cost savings, KPMG chairman Michael Rake on communicating with staff and Orange chief executive officer Sanjiv Ahuja addressing the theme “leadership is not a popularity contest”.
Speakers are paid royalties though Fifty Lessons, which plans to float on the London stock market soon, said sales director James Reed.
The company’s customers include IBM, Mars and Ernst & Young.
The Home Office pilot scheme will run till the end of July when the civil servants involved will hand back the iPods and give their verdicts. The Home Office spokeswoman said that as far as she knew the civil servants involved did not need training in how to use an iPod.
