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Today we're finding more and more professional military education programs offered online, the idea of this thread is to offer a place to discuss the development of this relatively new platform... the good, the bad, and the indifferent; essentially, all things online military PME (as well as the development of online military training). The quality of military online education that I've personally experienced has been outstanding, though a well rounded and realistic discussion is highly encouraged in order to ensure we touch on all aspects and angles of the discussion. Please feel free to share your thoughts, experiences, research, scholarly articles, materials and/or professional conclusions/remarks on the subject. Given the current state of the force and budgetary concerns, we're very likely to hear more discussion about online options for major military coursework (BDE, IDE, SDE, etc.) in very near future... I'm certain there are folks out there w/ experience and idea in this area; so, fasten your seat belts, pull up a keyboard, and let's get this thing started, thank you for all that you do, and... see you all in the discussion threads!
Military Career
Education
Professional Development
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Training
Edited 11 y ago
Posted 11 y ago
Responses: 12
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I just finished ILE via distance learning. My year group was so backed up to attend resident ILE, that my only option was to complete via DL. They give you 18 months to complete…and it sucked!
Here is why: I have a lot of peers that were fortunate enough to attend resident ILE (although fortunate…is a matter of opinion…I've been TDY to Leavenworth in the winter…not my ideal place)…and they are set-up kind of like CCC…in small groups.
First: In small groups you have the benefit of getting various opinions, the ability to bounce ideas off of your peers and group work. Via the DL learning venue - it is ALL YOU! All writing assignments, lessons and on-line tests.
Second: Some assignments via DL cannot be turned-in until a previous assignment has been graded…which puts the brakes on you until you get it back. Some of my assignments took upwards of 25 days to get graded.
Third: There are four books that DL students have to purchase…around $250 bucks. Resident students can just go to the library and check them out. (Not a big deal…but still an expense that resident students don't have)
Fourth: While they say that you are 'supposed' to get duty time to work on ILE…rarely has that happened. Although I had a supportive CoC…I just had too much going on as the BN XO to take time out of my day to work on ILE.
That's about it…if at all possible…GO RESIDENT ILE…or at the very least…Satellite version of it. (Although now that folks get boarded to decide whether they go resident, satellite or DL…they may not have much say in the matter).
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COL Vincent Stoneking
Having done the online ILE and taught the RC ILE (2 2 weeks and 8 months of 1 weekend a month), I feel your pain. DL ILE is not well constructed.
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I think online education is great, provided it's academically rigorous. If Service Members are able to complete their PME from anywhere, it eliminates the problem of "time removed" from the line and allows for continued immersion in your duties. It also helps prevent the relatively common problem (at least as far as I've seen) of commanders holding onto their Soldiers long after it was time for them to go on to PME simply so they can have their go-to team for the current deployment or CTC rotation.
Maybe this is better for another topic, but where I find the biggest problem with Army PME, not sure how it is in the USAF, is the fact that it's not academically rigorous. Sure, we claim it is challenging, give people writing assignments, long tests, presentations to prepare, etc... but how many actually fail? I mean, if it's supposed to be a challenge, how come we're afraid to fail people? We see someone struggling and either help them out to the point they're not doing their own work or just sweep it under the rug. For example, one of my co-graduates from the Captains Career Course failed both the final PT test and the capstone military decision making process exam, but no one bothered with a retest and they went on to better things. Should that person be promoted to major as a CCC graduate and become a staff officer? Especially now that we're looking for excuses to trim down the force, shouldn't PME be another method to weed people out? If we claim to only want the best of the best in the armed forces, I would think proving your worth academically in PME is just as important as proving your capabilities in your duties.
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LTC (Join to see)
That was back in 2008- though I'd hazard a guess that the damage is done and that officer is probably a major by now with no record of ever having been a failure at the MDMP test. Fun to think they would now have basically equal footing on the OSB/SERB boards because the system is too afraid to fail folks.
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While I prefer to take many of my college courses online, I feel that the in-class interaction is extremely beneficial. When a student has a question in a class, many times a student may not remember the words to the answer from the instructor, but they remember an action or something that the instructor did in the class to help remember or trigger the answer. I am big on looking at people during interaction, but the online method does save money....
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