For the past 2 years, ChinesePod and our parent company Praxis Language have set out to become the leader in the filed of mobile learning, i.e. providing learning solutions that can be used on mobile devices on the go. We have been building a Mobile Learning Network which includes products for individual learners (e.g. ChinesePod), for corporate learning (e.g. Wuxian Ketang and for schools and groups of students (e.g. Openlanguage). But why? I will be the first to admit that I didn’t get it at first and not everyone in our company understands the essence of it.

But I had an epiphany recently as we were preparing to launch ChinesePod School to offer face-to-face Chinese classes in Shanghai. During copy meetings, we thought about how to conceptualize our tech edge to the learner. And we started writing long paragraphs about how cutting-edge our Mobile Learning Network is. But that only muddled the message. The key question here is what a learner gets out of the technology. Then it hit me that we were getting too tangled in the technology itself and forgot why we used it in the first place. And it’s based on one simple idea: fit the learning into the learner’s life. We didn’t develop ChinesePod iPhone and Android apps because they are cool and cutting-edge. It’s the other way around, because people are already using these phones and other forms of technology which have ultimately changed the way we work, communicate and entertain. So is the way we learn. But learning has often been slow to adapt to these changes. We still largely see learning as going to a class, reading a book and listening to a teacher. It’s not that different from how people learned in the age of Confucius. Of course, there is irreplaceable value in the practice but learning especially adult learning needs to take new forms that respond to the changing demands in our lives.

So that’s why ChinesePod and Praxis have been focused on mobile learning. And we hope our products (like the best examples of technology) empower you to learn without you having to think about the tech infrastructure. At the end of the day, technology is plumbing. Learning is the goal.