Last month, I noticed a lot of buzz in the blogosphere and on Twitter related to policy developments in mobile government (or #mobilegov).  These conversations were largely driven by Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel’s National Dialogue on the Federal Mobility Strategy.

According to FedScoop, the goal of this Dialogue was to discuss ideas for implementing mobility in government and to find ways to expedite the adoption of emerging mobile technologies.  VanRoekel stated that his motivation to pursue a mobile government strategy was its potential to increase employee productivity, reduce technology costs, and streamline the acquisition process. Though a final version of the federal mobile strategy won’t be published until March 2012, I see the dialogue itself as a great step in promoting the many benefits of mobility in government.

The first step to embracing mobile is realizing that mobility is more than just a trend; it is a necessity.  Going mobile presents organizations of all kinds, from corporations to federal agencies, with the opportunity to leverage new technologies for cost savings and improved efficiency, benefits that can’t be overlooked in today’s economic climate.  This is especially true in government, where budget cuts and travel freezes deepen the need for mobile access to training and collaboration.

Guest post by David Palmer, National e-Learning Consultant for DoD/Intelligence, Blackboard Professional Education Division. As an e-learning consultant here at Blackboard for over four years now, I work closely with Military Education institutions including the Department of Defense and other intelligence agencies, to implement e-learning programs.  I focus mainly on distance learning and I often advise clients who are just getting started with deploying online programs. Blackboard has clients all over the world that continue to successfully implement online learning into their education plans.  These training programs can be divided into three major modes of delivery: resident, blended, and distance.

1) Resident-based instruction: This approach is common for clients who want to use Blackboard Learn to supplement a course that is primarily based on face-to-face, classroom-style learning.

Recent cuts to federal travel budgets now have a considerable impact on the way federal trainers approach learning delivery within their respective agencies.  As the President calls for a heavier reliance on video conferencing and web-based capabilities to replace face-to-face training courses, federal trainers must continue to foster core competency and skill set development within their workforce.Here’s our solution: Blackboard Collaborate, a solution that delivers highly effective and engaging online instruction, meetings, and help—anywhere, any time—across your government agency.

Blackboard Collaborate combined with Blackboard Learn mimics face-to-face learning that many federal learners have grown accustomed to- but it’s cost effective.  So if your agency is ready to deliver succession planning, streamline knowledge transition, enhance collaborative learning, reduce training costs, and/or improve mission outcomes, Blackboard Collaborate is the solution for you. Here are some top features of the Blackboard Collaborate solution that will deliver cost-effective results for your agency:

We are excited to announce that the keynote speaker for the 2nd Annual METBUG User Conference is Aaron Silvers, Community Manager for Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL).  The ADL Initiative, established in 1997, seeks to modernize training and education management and delivery within the Department of Defense (DoD). After years of classroom teaching, Silvers taught himself to create interactive learning experiences. His work with various clients eventually led Silvers to join ADL and become a contributor to the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM).

As an early adopter of emerging technologies and lead content developer at ADL, Silvers prototyped content examples used around the world and across the e-learning industry. Aaron consults on how technology enables and accelerates formal, experiential, and social learning. You can find Aaron Silvers online at his blog aaronsilvers.com and on Twitter at @aaronesilvers.

As we kick off another exciting year at Blackboard and on the Next Level Learning blog, we wanted to take a look back at 2011 to see which posts our readers liked the most.  Here is a list, in no particular order, of our most popular blog posts from the past year:

Capella U – A Case Study on For-Profit College Online Learning: A blog post examining one school’s successes in implementing online and continuous learning for its students.