LATIST: A Performance Support Tool for Integrating Technologies into Defense Acquisition University Learning Assets

摘要

As of September 30, 2008, the Defense Acquisition Workforce was just under 126,000 personnel; an estimated 76 percent of that 2008 workforce was classified as baby boomers--the majority of which are now approaching retirement (DoD, 2007). Waiting in the wings is the gamer generation. As these gamers enter the workforce and subsequently become students at the Defense Acquisition University (DAU), they do so with expectations about their educational environment. The new generation finds classroom settings that have little visual stimulation, passive lectures, and ineffective or unengaging use of integrated technology (Kapp, 2007). DAU recognizes this change in expectations and wants to enhance its learning assets and prepare for the future by smartly integrating available technologies (Anderson, Hardy, & Leeson, 2008). For example, DAU is already using innovative approaches to develop games and simulations designed to improve performance outcomes (Sanchez, 2009). However, the pace from invention to production to maturity of these new technologies is shortening dramatically (Oehlert, 2009). Keeping pace with these new technologies, their capabilities, and impact as possible tools for training and education is an ongoing challenge. As such, DAU partnered with the Instructional Technology Immersion Program at George Mason University (GMU) to conduct comprehensive research on Advanced Learning Technologies (ALT) in order to determine how best to integrate such technologies into its learning assets.