MCGHEE TYSON AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Tenn. -- Often when you think of training, your mind goes straight to “death by PowerPoint.” However, when it comes to education, TEC University staff are constantly working to create lessons to fit the students’ needs in innovative ways.
The staff here recently created a new course for transportation officers across the Department of Defense after advancements in online learning technology.
“The transportation community came to us three years ago with a request for an online course, however, due to the fact we didn’t have the needed technology, it was impossible to do,” said Lawrence McCoy, the superintendent of Learning Development, with the I. G. Brown Training and Education Center here. “But, with the acquirement of our own learning management system and the course development tool Articulate, we were able to complete their request.”
Articulate is a web-based program for online course development. Articulate 360 can also be used across all devices, whether it’s a desktop computer, smartphone, or tablet.
“This course was developed to give the career field a comprehensive and up-to-date, interactive course that will allow incoming officers to gain a working knowledge of the job without going through a technical school like enlisted member do,” said U. S. Air Force Master Sgt. Todd Beran, curriculum developer and instructor here.
The course itself includes 12 lessons that are meant to be an introduction to the transportation career field for new transportation officers. It covers background on the various areas of the job to include rules and regulations from both the Air Force and DOD, the different jobs involved in the movement of equipment, goods, personnel, and remains. Additionally, it includes three separate tests to ensure understanding of material.
“The course was taken from hundreds of PowerPoint slides and converted to a fully functional, student interactive course,” McCoy said. “Our team took all the available data and, with very close assistance of the transportation subject matter experts, created a very viable course, consisting of 13 modules and interactive testing.”
McCoy’s team spent over 420 man-hours putting this course together. It is undergoing evaluation to become the Air Force standard for training transportation officers in the total force.
The Army and Marine Corps also expressed interest in the course for training their officers.
“The Learning Development branch at TEC University fully embraces the mission to train and educate today’s Airmen for tomorrow’s fight,” McCoy said. “We take it a step further by creating education that can be used by the Total Force. With technological tools like Articulate, we develop cutting edge, fully integrated courseware for the DOD.”