A Terminal in Front of Every Citizen Soldier
DISTANCE LEARNING AND THE EXPANDING ROLE OF THE INTERNET IN TRAINING WEEKEND WARRIORS.
The productivity and efficiency advantages offered by Internet technology are transforming the way the Army National Guard trains its part-time soldiers.
The high cost, time and inefficiencies involved with training soldiers at separate sites across each state and the nation as a whole lead the National Guard and the other Armed Forces a decade ago to embrace electronic distance training as a means of achieving more effective and costefficient learning for citizen and fulltime soldiers alike.
With rise of the Internet and its offering of even greater efficiencies and more effective distance learning, what started out as a small program to teach via computer software-based training programs as well as with audio and video teleconferencing has given way to a broader Web-based model that promises to only grow in usage as a powerful tool for training individuals as well as groups.
DoD officials have embraced Webbased technology as the de facto standard for distance learning. While not applicable for all training needs, Web-based video conferencing as well as software-based and Internetdistributed individual/group training programs provide a cost-effective and efficient means of ensuring National Guard readiness in a host of areas.
“There is such a wide range of things (that can be taught through Internet-based distance learning) on the functional side,” the chief of the National Guard Army Training Division Distributive Learning Branch, Lieutenant Colonel Craig Bargfrede, told Military Training Technology. “Because the National Guard is restricted in the amount of time we have available—the one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer adage—and because we are geographically separate, distributed learning is a key way for us to get learning to our soldiers. It [also] saves time and money not having to have a soldier travel to a central location.”
The Internet is being put to use for distance training in a number of ways, including in straight-forward classroom settings with the students at various locations nationwide connected and all participating via an interactive Internet video signal; in shared training exercises for military personnel at different sites with communication facilitated by online-connections; and through individual software-based training programs accessed through broadband access.
Bargfrede said the aim of the Guard’s distance learning, or DL, program is to help implement cost-effective individual as well as collective electronic training in everything from infantryman skills, engine maintenance or administrative training and other enlisted courses to programs for officers, like the Army’s Captains Career Courses.
Supply training, recruiting and retention courses, Hazmat and petroleum handling courses, and even retirement counseling have all become part of the software and Web-based videoconference training courses that have been put online.
A 16-week training course can even be broken down methodologically and implemented in two or three phases that include, at the end, a two-week residency phase. The Guard finds this more costeffective and much more palatable to the soldier as well as his employer.
“Now with technology you have the ability to do things over the Web. You can instruct synchronously, asynchronously, anyway the technology allows,” said Bargfrede. “There are so many products out there where you can be geographically separated and still do a class synchronously.”
Dr. Robert Wisher, director of the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Office of the Secretary of Defense told MT2 that beyond the time saved shuttling trainees to a central location, distance learning offers other advantages, including the potential for instruction in the same amount of material in a shorter interval as well as the central storage of training software and records.
“There is big savings in terms of location, and it can be used immediately,’ he said. “It is the anytime, anywhere model.”
Wisher added that for the Pentagon, Webbased distributive learning development provides for easier integration of training skills perfected in one branch of the armed forces into another and the reduction of training redundancies across the whole because it is easier to track the individual training needs of each branch.
While Internet-based video helps provide a more traditional classroom environment setting for larger groups of trainees at different locations, the Guard has embraced an individual training model using HTML and Flash-coded programs, the potential uses of which are only limited by the ability to use this technology in a given training situation.
Internet-based programming also provides a key advantage over the hard copy-based computer software training programs of the past because they can easily be updated on the fly. In the past, training software compact discs had to be shipped all over the world and often within six months to a year were out of date.
Videoconference training in a more traditional classroom is being adapted to take advantages of what the Internet can bring to the table, not only as a transmission vehicle but also in terms of flexibility.
For example, the Internet allows for quality multi-site training for a minimal infrastructure investment and cost of operation as well as for computer-based interactive capabilities.
Overall, the U.S. Army and National Guard alike use video conferencing in multiple formats where the aim is to provide factual knowledge and step-bystep procedural training.
For example, The Pennsylvania National Guard’s NCO academy conducts basic and advanced courses via video conferencing.
“The classroom [still] dominates overall, said Wisher. “Institutional training is very strong in the military.”
He said that because of this natural fit, online videoconferencing would continue to grow very quickly as an adaptive force.
Wisher added that the view at the Pentagon is for the armed forces to use the power of the Internet to also engineer electronic repositories for training programming and other information.
In conjunction with the Corporation for National Research Initiatives and the Learning Systems Architecture Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, his office has spearheaded the development of a Defense Department-wide registry for learning content, logically dubbed the ADL Registry. The system is based on the Content Object Repository Discovery and Registration/ Resolution Architecture (CORDRA), an open-source standard for electronic repository design developed through the agency.
Collective training exercises involving large teams of people at different sites are also being implemented for the National Guard and military more broadly using the Internet to connect the participating personnel.
“We are also moving into having the ability to do collective training via DL,” said Bargfrede. “You take a staff section like at a battalion or brigade level and, utilizing some of the battle command system units we have today, we are able to push out over a wide area network the ability to have [different] staff sections train their sections together without having to come to one central location.”
For example, one battalion can be doing their telemetry decision-making and provide that information up to the brigade electronically and horizontally to the sister battalion over a wide area network.
According to Bargfrede, such a training exercise can be facilitated with as little as half a dozen technical support personnel, eliminating the need to hire as much of the sort of support contractors and other personnel needed in the past for similar exercises executed at a single physical location.
This concept drove one such Web-based training exercise for the Army’s Armor Captains’ Career Course, which relied on virtual operations scenarios. Once a month, the trainees convened online to go through armor advancement exercises, collaborating as a team from multiple sites nationwide. The teams never met until the final two weeks of training.
“Everything was online and it was a big success,” said Wisher.
A host of companies provide support for the National Guard’s distance learning initiatives, both on the IT end as well as for developing the training programming, including El Segundo, California-based Computer Sciences Corporation and San Diego-based Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) among many others.
Prior to 1999, a multitude of competing specifications were promoted by the elearning industry. The Army’s ADL program developed the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), which integrates and connects several standards into a global framework for distributing services, tools and content over varied platforms on the Internet. It has continued to refine the standard in the ensuing years.
Although most companies contacted by MT2 that deal with the National Guard’s distributive training programs cited security and business concerns for their reluctance to talk about their dealings with the National Guard and U.S. military more broadly, Tom Garnett the manager of McLean, Virginiabased Alion Science and Technology’s education technology and training division spoke to MT2 about his company’s broad efforts in the overall military as well as commercial distance learning sectors.
Alion provides back-end support for military distance training programs, including those of the National Guard by helping ensure they are sustained on the Web and that links remain functional.
Garnett said the work they do is in some ways secondary, noting that the major questions tend to center around getting the technology and training program up and running in a minimum amount of time.
“We find we don’t really need any unique technologies to do this,” said Garnett. “We are using standard HTML and different software applications. We are not finding a need to do a lot of exotic sorts of things.”
He said that the use of Web-based distributive learning techniques across the armed forces is changing the way soldiers train for equipment usage.
According to Garnett, it is becoming the norm industry-wide to provide Web-based training programs for military equipment, doing away with training manuals, and to a certain extent, the multi-day training courses of the past. The programs are then backed up with a phone-in help desk. This is accomplished with off-the-shelf technology.
“The user has an ability, through an electronic device linked to Web-based access, to pull down the most current version of a training program and use that as a refresher or as new training,” he said. “It is a practical model for a piece of equipment or certain processes or procedures. That is what our customers are asking for and this eliminates the need for days of training and three-inch thick manuals. The sophistication in the community is such that most companies have the capability to offer associate training that is distributed electronically.”
The National Guard Army Training Division Distributive Learning Branch is responsible for the day-to-day operations of a couple of National Guard distance training development centers that do the lion’s share of actual program development and fund the actual development of training software and systems.
Bargfrede’s team—in coordination with other training divisions of the Guard, including the Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)—work in close association with the Army Reserve to identify training priorities and pick the courseware.
His office also works with the Distributive Technology Training Project (DTTP), which sustains the IT and security infrastructure at over 300 classrooms used for distributive learning by the Guard in every state and in all U.S. territories.
Both a terrestrial network as well as satellite technologies link the classrooms.
Bargfrede said those centers and the distributive learning programs are becoming an integral part of maintaining National Guard readiness.
“In these times of constrained budgets and constrained resources, using distributive learning is a way soldier units are going to have to turn to maintain proficiency and education,” said Bargfrede. “It is the way units are going to have to train in order to maintain their proficiency, their readiness.”
However, it is important to note that modern Internet-based distance training cannot replace all military educational and training needs.
The Pentagon’s Wisher said that it remains impractical to train for maneuvers and certain warfighting skills via distance methods, even with the advanced Internetbased training techniques that have been developed.
“Certain warfighting skills must be practiced in real environments,” said Wisher. “It is a matter of finding that balance point.”
Bargfrede concurred, but noted that distributive learning does have a role in providing some basic training in certain scenarios that in the past required personal instruction.
“DL can’t replace everything,” he said. “There are certain tasks that you have got to have a soldier qualifying with, like an M-16 rifle in a rifle range. You can’t do that with DL. However, you can teach soldiers via DL how to conduct misfire procedures and do some basic marksmanship.”
Security also remains a key issue for Internet-based distributive learning with questions regarding the transfer of classified content. Usage is sometimes limited by whether a site has the appropriate secure Internet capabilities.
“Technology is good, however, sometimes it is our most limiting factor when you talk in terms of bandwidth security,” said Bargfrede. “Security is a major issue. It is an ongoing communication flow between the training community and the communications side of the house with people who manage and operate the network. There has to be a constant flow of information to those folks making sure what our requirements are.”
As to the future of distributive learning, all three see the electronic video conferencing and Internet-based softwaretraining model remaining the standard into the foreseeable future.
Nevertheless, Wisher noted that the Pentagon is looking into other advanced applications taking advantage of the technology involved.
One program in development, dubbed Reach Back, would allow servicemembers in the field to gain immediate electronic access to information answering questions of a varying nature be they strategic, technological or medical. Even issues related to tactical decision-making could be addressed.
Implementation is reportedly some years down the road, but is envisioned as involving a centralized center to shop questions via an electronic interface.
For his part, Garnet says that the future of distributive learning is really dependent on customer needs, but that one current program design concept Alion is exploring would allow users to go into instructional programs and quickly pull out individual programs that address user-specified needs.
He added that having training programs embedded into the equipment and analysis tools the soldier uses—anything from a handheld computer to a tank—is an area of interest and promise from both a military and commercial market perspective.
“Embedded training, having training built into equipment used on the job site, that is where most tech people are looking,” he said. “That is where I think people are going.”
In the near term, Bargfrede says that the National Guard’s Internet-based learning technology will only get better as it is further integrated into soldier training.
“I see it as something that will continue to grow,” said Bargfrede. “We have embraced this technology and it is the paradigm we are going to continue to be dealing with. I see us pretty much staying the course with doing the majority of things on Websites. When you look at using and applying DL there is not a young kid you have to win over. It is the senior leaders who grew up in the days of grease pencils and acetate maps. A lot of them are not as technologically savvy as the young soldiers are.” ♦