XplanaZine

There were very real strides made in 2004 in understanding how best to deliver distributed education to individuals in harm’s way. The need for e-learning in war zones and areas of natural disasters continues to grow, and there are rewards for finding innovative ways of providing the services.

Behind the glowing success of distributed learning in war zones and sites of terrible natural disasters are the teams that make it happen –faculty, instructional designers, network administrators, support staff, curriculum developers, and administrators. Their commitment is often irrational — these are people with a dream that verges on obsession to provide a lifeline to those who otherwise would not have an opportunity to obtain a higher education. This decision means a great deal here and now. It means even more in the future, as individuals come back from their commitment to national defense and they find that their opportunities for economic access depend on their education.

Their future opportunity also depends upon whether or not support programs are available to help them if they are disabled, or if they or their family members are suffering from war stress, or post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Here are a few items that came to the forefront in 2004, and which will undoubtedly continue to be important in 2005.

Situated Learning for Deployed Military. Perhaps one of the most important instructional strategies for courses offered to deployed military is to situate the learning. This approach incorporates an apprenticeship philosophy, meaning that learning activities have a direct bearing on real-life situations, preferably those of some relevance and urgency to day-to-day life.

Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Games and Military Training. Distributed learning has truly come of age as all branches of the military employ multi-player video game-based simulations to train personnel for battlefield conditions, tactics, equipment, and team coordination. XBox Live games echo this technique, with games emulating urban combat.

Warblogging, E-Learning, and Communities of Practice. Viewed cynically or suspiciously at first, warblogs are proving to be very valuable in developing a community of practice, which can be invaluable in certain e-learning settings. Warblogging is effective for leadership courses, creative problem-solving, creative writing, and international studies. It can also be highly effective for other courses. Surprisingly, warblogs cover the entire spectrum — from fiercely political, to contemplative and reflective about culture, psychology, community.

PDA-delivery. A web course on a palm? Is the screen to tiny to be of use? PDAs are an ideal solution for space-starved environments, such as ships, submarines, and temporary quarters. Both the Navy and the Coast Guard are promoting this delivery method, which requires institutions to rethink their learning activity and a possible over-reliance on live connectivity.

PTSD and E-Learning. Post-traumatic stress syndrome is largely hidden from the general public’s view, but make no mistake — it is real, and it is affecting not only combat veterans, but also their families, not to mention health care providers, particularly med-evac pilots, medics, and battlefield nurses, doctors, and medical support staff. PTSD is also manifesting itself in the survivors of terrorist activities, natural disasters (namely hurricanes and tsunamis). Online programs must recognize this and make accommodations.

Be aware of

• Cognitive issues, word-image associations that could be used therapeutically, or to enhance learning
• "Triggers" to associations and/or flashbacks (can be images, audio, text/content)
• Intrusive thoughts — understand the patterns; work with/around them
• Fugue states: recognize the possibility of students having them
• Color / design: can be "triggers" or, at the very least, distractors
• Low vision accommodations (JAWS and other screen readers)

Access for Disabled Veterans. Access means making accommodations not only for physical impairment, but also cognitive. This requires careful planning, clear design, minimal distractors, clearly understandable learning goals and objectives.

Experience-Based Learning. Embed the concepts within activities that pertain to one’s lived experience. Make them relevant and meaningful. Acknowledge real situations and real feelings — maintain an attitude of honest acceptance, and reward positive transformations, transformational thinking. The focus is on deep learning, while being able to function in a number of settings, to heighten flexibility.

Ops-Tempo Considerations. Develop units and activities with appropriate granularity to accommodate learners who may only have 15 or 20 minutes at a time to do activities. Make activities easy to do, with or without "live" connectivity. Privilege asynchronicity. Create activities that require contemplation and connection-making during one’s daily life, with the time on task aspect simply a summative activity.

Repurposing Instant Messenger. Use Instant Messenger as a way to mentor, guide, or test individual learners. Be sure to save the IM transcript.

Online Support Services — Simplify — Now More Than Ever. Enrollment management, fiscal services, library, and other services must be simple to be functionally effective. When possible, allow proxies to do some of the tasks.

These are only a few of the issues that emerged in the forefront as "make or break" to an online program that involves deployed military, particularly those in harm’s way. More are emerging, particularly in the area of curriculum design and learning outcomes assessment. These will be studied and reported upon over the next few months. Stay tuned.