Day 3 was pretty light for me...
Started the day later coz I was at the docs' with me wifey. Came in only around 0945hrs.
Started to blog on my reflections and then we started on the usual discussions. We talked about the project and this went on and on and on and on and on... I guess at the end of the day, the easiest thing was to follow the infamous Army motto of "YSWWL" (if you know the abbreviations, you know : P)
Afternoon we continue "the discussion" for a while and then was broken into groups to do our project. Key is to explain how we could possibly introduce "New Media" to complement the existing Mass Media that we have in the Army.
Actually, I realised that we did tried to introduce "New Media" into our already jam-packed Army Training Syllabus! We are now using Driving Simulator at STTC to train our Tpt Oprs. We use Platform Simulators/AGTS/Next Gen AGTS for Leopard and BX training. I tried to introduce VBS2 to complement my cadet training back in 2006/2007. We even gave trainees time to blog on eSilk to share their reflections and to post questions.
Did that help???
In some areas, I have to confess that we did. But in some, I do think that it can never replicate the exact conditions to 'test' the trainees. Because the organisation of some of these 'New Media' platforms are based on games, immature trainees started to 'play' the game. Many were not exactly serious and this leaves the facilitator a monsterous task in trying to guide the trainees.
I also got to realised that today's generation, alot of them are very very good 'speakers'. Can speak well, reason well, but do not exactly do well. Nothing beats sweating it out in the sun and instructors 'barking' next to your ear and 'kicking' you around.
Well, what can I say??? I am just an old dog that prefers to go out to the wild and rough it out... : P
Nothing beats the real thing. But it may be doable for our era but it is enough to engage the gen y and z who prefer to rough it out on screens than in the fields?
ReplyDeleteThe competentcies of instructors guiding the trainees is key to ensuring that New Media platforms not be 'abused' in a wrong manner while conducting training. More often than not, instructors do not know the 'rules' of the tools well enough and hence often either (1) lose control over the trainees or (2) a bad experience for the trainees.
ReplyDeleteThe organisation also registers your point of 'roughing' it out in the field. There have been many calls by the ground people to go for simulations like counterstrike and etc... It has always been rejected because they felt that it was not realisitc and could also jeapodize the image of the organisation that it is just 'masa masa'.