Distributed Learning and Training: A Force Multiplier for the Military

Session Description:

Lieutenant-Colonel Doug "Levi" Stroud will share his experiences in implementing two Canadian Air Force wide co-operative distributed learning and training activities which involved extreme differences in scale, technologies and cost.

The first activity, Exercise "First WAVE", was a three-year NATO sponsored large-scale, leading-edge technologies proof-of-concept examination of the value of Mission Training via Distributed Simulation. Canada had a lead role in this very ambitious activity, providing team leaders and mission critical capabilities. Air forces from seven nations collaborated across 8 time zones using video teleconferencing, interactive whiteboard technologies and their familiar life-size flight simulators to plan, brief, fly and debrief the missions in a virtual war zone.

At the other end of the scale, technologies and cost spectrum, was an on-line training program designed to prepare Canadian Air Force personnel stationed in Winnipeg and North Bay for a major North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD) Operational Evaluation (NOE). Using an "office" software suite found in most organizations and applying some creative thought, a NORAD "Best Practices" training program was developed.

Presenter: Lieutenant-Colonel Doug “Levi” Stroud, Chief, Air Operations Centre (AOC) Readiness

Levi has spent the bulk of his 25 years in the Canadian Air Force training personnel to fly high-performance jets or to function in an air operations centre. He has just recently completed an MBA in Digital Technologies Management.