DISTANCE LEARNING!!! WASTE OF TIME? WASTE OF MONEY? DID ANYONE ACTUALLY LEARN ANYTHING FROM IT?

Learning is what you make of it, if you are doing just enough to pass a test then that is on you. It is like blaming test makers for a lack of motivation. Here's an idea, how about a person trying to improve the course and making the tests harder and more relevant?

The area you have trouble with go to other sites to get more information on the topic. Just don't wait on help from others. Be aggressive and proactive and make the course yours.

With regards to classes and poor management that requires alerting trainers and educators to these issues. Use the suggestion program to fix the problems that you see. Command elements appreciate improvements that make the job easier and it reflects on you and possibly your entire MOS/AFSC.

In Little Rock at the time we were not required to do radar weather observations as observers but while I was studying my CDC I came across radar interpretation and one evening told to the forecaster that we had a LEWP (Line Echo Wave Pattern) which can be deadly causing high winds, tornadoes and torrential downpours.

Mike was astonished at me picking that up and issued Severe Weather Warnings including Tornadoes and wind shear components. Pilots like to avoid weather, especially the severe weather kind. The point is, extra diligence and motivation led to observers having expanded responsibilities that actually took a lot of stress off our duty forecasters.

If I had of been passive then we may have missed something so important to the lives and safety of our personnel and their families.

Distance learning is a different way of learning. I'll give you that. I personally like it for a few simple reasons. 1) self paced so I can go back and review material as necessary. 2) I am not committed to be in a classroom at a specific time/place. 3) Allows me to set my own schedule on when to take the classes. I understand that some courses have technical glitches as SPC Lizarrga pointed out. Don't get me started on some of them. However, they do have benefits from a personnel and operational management arena. 1) It saves millions of dollars in overhead costs for instructors pay and facility upkeep. 2) They allow for instant updating as doctrine, policy and TTPs change. 3) It allows commanders to keep their staff and Soldiers in the fight without loosing them for months at a time TDY to a school. Some of you might have seen this when your senior NCOs or staff officers depart and you have to fill their shoes for a stint. 4) A the student, you keep your evaluation pure with the job you are in and you may get a 1059 out of it in some cases.

This last point is important to note specifically in the reserve components. As a drilling RC member, your rater only sees you once a month/2weeks per year. If you are gone for 8+ months for ILE, or over several months for a resident NCO course, or your AT is now an ADT for school, what is there to rate you on? Best case is they write "Soldier went to school and completed the requirements". Not much on job performance, and how does the senior rater determine potential for promotion? I recommend to my peers through the years to just nug it out in distance learning unless your civilian career says otherwise. Granted, some have hectic jobs or large school loads. Commanders can't make you take DL for PME but realistically, at the end of the day, its the same box checked.

Annual training requirements in AR 350-1 weren't always DL. But based on OPTEMPO and other requirements, they migrated over there. If you think you will get more benefit sitting in a hot classroom and taking it via "death by power point", feel free to tell your Training NCO to hook you up. Of course, again, its as good as your instructor and what you want to get out of it.

Plus, if you don't like the DL course, write to the owning school house and make yourself known. Things don't get fixed unless you speak up.

I don't think distance learning does much for anyone. I don't know a single person that actually goes through and reads everything or clicks on every module (unless they have to). The fact that the Army just keeps adding more of them to the mandatory list each year makes people even less inclined to do them or learn from them.

All the SSDs are a joke. The only thing they do is waste time. I usually tell my Soldiers just to sit down and get it done so they don't have to worry about it anymore and they can move on with their career.