“We’ve now got a base level product that delivers e-learning based on the business requirements of the services and the groups. “We initially planned a ministerial launch of DOMAIN for December this year, and we’ve brought it forward by 10 months,” says MacDonald. So far, though, Defence is mighty happy with its mighty labours, and looking forward only to further improvements as time goes on. The e-Learning Guild says content reuse continues to be a hot topic, but the complexities involved in implementing a Learning Content Management System across multiple business units, and moving from traditional course development to learning objects, can be overwhelming. As e-learning takes increasing hold with rollout of the first phase of the ADO’s Defence Online Management and Instructional Network (DOMAIN), Defence is increasingly looking to content libraries, learning objects and content reuse to help it meet an increasingly urgent commitment to providing all Defence personnel with greater and more flexible access to training and development materials.ĭefence’s Flexible Learning Solutions area is learning a few valuable lessons of its own along the way, like the importance of cultural change in achieving successful e-learning solutions, particularly when it comes to reinforcing the use of learning objects - packages of content and related activities addressing a single idea or topic to support a particular learning objective.Ĭontent reuse - the practice of using existing components of content to develop new material - is one of the true glories of e-learning.
Now they all go to the same school, where they learn the basics common to all three forces and then are initiated into the service-specific skills they will need during their ADF career.
Until a few years back that meant Defence Force caterers went to one of three specialist catering schools - Army, Navy or Air Force - to learn how to cook for their unit, how to order and receipt food stores, manage rations and plan and control catering functions such as formal dinners. “But then you also need to do some service-specific training on how you do it on a ship, or in the field, or that sort of situation.” “How you boil an egg is how you boil an egg, and so the general skills required to do that are fairly well the same across the Army, Navy and Air Force,” says Brett MacDonald, director of Flexible Learning Solutions for the Australian Defence Organization (ADO).