Second screens have become the norm these days with the vast majority of people carrying a smartphone or tablet or both! We google speakers during conferences and tweet comments about training sessions we are attending – we have become master multi-taskers.
Although most second screens are personal devices they are increasingly being used in the work and learning environments as additional resources. In his Learning Trends blog on March 25, 2011, Elliott Masie listed some of the potential implications for Learning and Corporate HR given the growing prevalence of second screens in our lives.
Learning Implications:
* People are using their Second Screens to continually enhance, contextualize and expand the CONTEXT side of CONTENT that is being viewed.
* Workers are able to collaborate – internally or externally – with formal or personal clusters of people as part of or in competition with the learning activity.
* Learners will have access to more back-channel and secondary content, context and opinion as they engage in learning.
* Tracking Second Screen activity will be a major challenge, if not impossibility.
* Learners will demand greater connectivity and access to at least some corporate assets on their Second Screens.
* When do we allow or restrict the use of Second Screens at work, in a leadership program or in the field?
HR/IT Implications:
* Selective, layered and location specific access to online assets from Second Screens will be requested from workers at the office, on the road and at home.
* Security issues – including Intellectual Property challenges – will arise as Second Screens are used, especially when the content is cached rather than just viewed.
* Second Screens will rapidly become HD-enabled Video Presence Units, competing with the quality of the $250,000 telepresence suite and placing intense loads on bandwidth.
* Equality and Discrimination issues will rise when employees buy their own Second Screens and are competing for performance with others who cannot afford the luxury.
Given these observations the question now becomes, much as it did with the issue of Facebook in the workplace, how to leverage the Second Screen to enhance learning and productivity. Any Ideas?
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