Linking Blended Learning to Navy Fleet Performance Requirements, REAL-TIME

1. Linking Blended Learning to Navy Fleet Performance Requirements, REAL-TIME Jake Aplanalp Naval Air Warfare Center, Training Systems Division

2. Topics • Missile Technician (MT) Project Background • MT Continuum Project Hurdles • Current State Technical Solution • Future State Technical Solution • Project Team Lessons Learned

3. Missile Tech (MT) Continuum Project Background • Strategic Systems Programs (SSP) re-engineering 30+ week traditional training pipeline for TRIDENT submarine Missile Technicians (MTs) • Re-engineering effort includes: • Development of a blended content continuum to be taught across an MT’s career • Continued use of Navy GOTS ILT (Instructor Led Training) content authoring toolset (AIM) • Incorporation of GOTS e-Learning development tool (VENUS) • MT Continuum blended learning toolset design team: • SSP/Support Contractors (Requirements), NAWCTSD/Columbus Tech(AIM Toolset), LSI (ISD support and Venus Toolset)

4. Front-Loaded Training vs. Career-Long Continuum

5. Missile Tech (MT) Project Hurdles • Geographically dispersed SSP team members contribute to creation and sustainment of MT content by providing: • Subject matter expertise (SME), Content design/development , Concurrency management

6. Missile Tech (MT) Project Hurdles Part II • Technical data source requirements change quarterly, and training must stay current • No other tools or business process alternatives support requirements within SSP project constraints • SSP has limited funding: • Current GOTS tool and business approach yield 350-400% ROI • SSP project goal to duplicate current efficiencies with re-engineered, blended ILT / Learner Directed Content (LDC) continuum

7. Current State Technical Solution

8. Future State Technical Solution

9. Project Team Lessons Learned • Technical Collaboration • Immediate establishment of relationships among technical team working staffs – REMOVE BARRIERS! • Clear functional roles and requirements among the multiple toolsets – much clarity was achieved after project began • No “Toolset Territorialism” among ILT & LDC technical staffs – focus on DATA instead of TOOLS

10. Project Team Lessons Learned Part II • Content Development Process • Definition of standard project process/roles/responsibilities for each contributor – leveraging past lessons learned and expertise from each • Focus on configuration of ILT, LDC, and other technical tools to support the project process – this is the project’s “secret sauce” • Training of all participating developers in the project process, targeting only the functions in tools needed for development – using REAL MT DATA to train users • Ensuring sufficient SME inputs to content development teams • Ability to “pull” versus “push” critical project data via a web-enabled collaboration portal

11. Project Team Lessons Learned Part III • Government and Contractor Teaming • Obsession with communication – achieved through initial face-to-face meetings and supplemented by frequent web meetings and circulated reports • Commitment to sharing all feedback within integrated team • Contractual Relationships • Painfully clear delineation and documentation of roles for each contractor partner • Frequently revisiting designated roles

12. Summary • MT Training requires a continuum of blended learning that can be updated and maintained current, “real-time” • Current GOTS tools being leveraged and modified to support blended continuum requirement • Lessons learned takeaway –coordination, communication, teaming are more difficult than achieving technical solution • Authors believe this capability needs to be reproduced and further refined across other organizations to exploit: • Learning content tightly integrated with performance requirements • ROI from improved life-cycle management • Real-time currency of all training materials

13. Questions?