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Army Embraces Distance Learning
By Charlie
So you're back from your first (or second) (or third) deployment, and returning home... only to have your next assignment orders a couple hundred miles away for a training course. This has been a minor issue in retention for a while, but the Army seems to have devised a way to get ahead of it. Distance learning (online classes) have been used for years in the civilian sector -you can now take college courses online, in addition to a litany of corporate training that many companies have put online to lesson their training budgets. Now the Army has caught on. I think this is a good thing, because of the following:
-It frees up teachers and brick and mortar facilities at schoolhouse installations. These buildings and instructors can be re purposed to better streamline the force.
-It allows the troops taking the training to do so without being separated from their families, especially after long deployments.
Using distributed learning techniques, such as MTT (mobile training teams) and distance learning, is already happening in the force, and is another example of the Army getting it right:
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, April 27, 2008) - Mobile training teams are taking Basic NCO courses on the road and allowing Soldiers who recently redeployed home from Iraq to attend without spending more time away from their Families.Thirty-eight sergeants and staff sergeants graduated Friday from a 25U radio operator maintenance BNCOC course at Fort Hood, Texas. NCOs attending from the 1st Cavalry Division at Hood and the 1st Armored Division at Fort Bliss, Texas, had returned home from Iraq within the last few months.
Normally, the course would have required the NCOs to spend more than six weeks away from their Families at Fort Gordon, Ga., said Command Sgt. Maj. John L. Murray, commandant of the Signal Regimental Noncommissioned Officer Academy.
"The NCOs that graduated were so thankful to the Signal Center for coming to Fort Hood and conducting this MTT," said Murray who attended the graduation at Fort Hood Friday. "I must have been thanked a hundred times from Families that were so grateful that their spouses could come home at night after training, after such a long deployment."
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Comments
Well maybe, but the "box of books" CGSC program seems to be history, as does the JAG Basic class (gotta all do BOLC now - which may be good, but does require physical attendance).
On the other hand, if you Google(R) it you can find more then one site with the answer keys to any AIPD class you want (I must be naive, because when I found this out I was horrified).
Allow me to offer an alternative view...the Army is shirking on education to save money. Granted, there are many cases where Distance Learning is a good option. Other times, not so much. For example, the Army now has a Distance Learning version of the Sergeant Major Academy. Normally a 9 month residential course, they now want a portion of the newly promoted sergeants major to go straight to their next assignment and start being a sergeant major while covering the material from the Academy on their own time as homework. All of the mentoring and sharing experiences with colleagues that happens at the residential course just doesn't happen. I got back from Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago, where our team NCOIC had been promoted to SGM during the year. The Army tried to pull the whole DL thing on him, but he eventually got a slot at the residential course by threatening to waive the promotion and drop his retirement paperwork if they didn't send him to the "real" academy.
I'm on leave right now but I've got some "homework" to do before I show up to the Captains' Career Course. There's a Distance Learning component to that now too. So I have to spend my leave time doing this work instead of relaxing or spending time with my family. The National Guard has it even worse. They are expected to do almost the entire Career Course through distance learning while they aren't even on active duty (i.e. for free while they work their civilian job)and then attend a two week FTX. This is supposed to prepare them for company command in combat just as well as attending the residential course full-time. I was at the same FOB with a NG 1LT(P) who said that he was going to get out because the Army didn't think he was worth sending to the "real" course, despite the fact that his job in combat would be just the same as the AD captains.
Distance Learning does not provide all of the benefits of a residential course. There is a intangible benefit to conferring with your peers and getting face to face mentoring with your instructors. And also, schools, especially the long PCS ones, are much needed breaks in a soldier's career. Distance Learning is a chance for the Army to put all of the burden of a soldier's education on him or her, allowing the Army to get them nominally "trained" at almost no cost while simultaneously putting them back into the deployment hopper in a line unit as quickly as possible.
Sorry about the rant. I'm not sure when I became such a malcontent.
Huua WOW,
Born of experience, our previous poster has stated. With a degree of knowledge of the real world of post dated training reps. that they who serve must endure (sic). Seems like it is time for the higher ups to adjust to the REAL TIME a-symetrical training AND promotion confab that is the present day ARMED FORCES! Just an observation, WWII was a LONG TIME AGO! Yes maintain HONOR, YES maintain DUTY, but HONOR the DUTY that requires so much more in this complex battlefield, global as it is...
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Thank you Charlie,
Given the strife and hardships heaped upon this "At Will" armed forces, it is the grateful am I that sees the steps now being taken to buffer the harsh, so to speak.