ADL Initiative Focuses on Outreach to DoD and other Federal Agencies

Many high-quality science and technology prototypes fail to transition into real-world use, instead falling into the research-practice gap.  To address this at ADL Initiative, we strongly emphasize outreach, that is communicating early and often with end-users, fostering collaboration networks, and actively facilitating the adoption of research and engineering products. For example, ADL Initiative has recently begun providing technical workshops to DoD and other Federal agencies on the Experience API (xAPI), Virtual World Sandbox, and instructional excellence techniques.

In October, Rob Chadwick, ADL Initiative senior software engineer, along with Bob Ludvigsen, friend of ADL Initiative from the Royal Danish Defence College and distributed learning innovator, provided a day-long workshop on the Virtual World Sandbox to the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine in Dayton, OH. The workshop started with an overview of the open source, browser-based, collaborative simulation tool.  The attendees then worked with the software, eventually building a small simulation involving an IVAC infusion pump, one of the tools medical airmen use.

Employees from the Customs and Border Protection Distance Learning Center visited the Alexandria Co-Lab in November and received a similar workshop on the Virtual World Sandbox.

Dr. Sae Schatz provided a tutorial on Instructional Excellence for the Expeditionary Warfare School faculty in Quantico, VA.  This interactive tutorial summarized research on instructor effectiveness and translated those concepts into a military setting.  The tutorial highlighted the skills of an effective military instructor, exemplar instructional tactics, scenario-based learning methods, and assessment techniques.

Most recently, the ADL Initiative team facilitated a day long workshop on xAPI on in Quantico, VA for attendees from the U.S. Marine Corps College of Distance Education and Training, Marine Corps University, Office of Naval Research, and Customs and Border Protection. The workshop began with an overview for decision makers and then increased in technical complexity throughout the day. By the end of the workshop, attendees were writing xAPI code and working with existing SCORM®-based courses. Resources from the xAPI Workshop can be found here.

Do you represent a DoD or Federal agency who is interested in an ADL Initiative workshop? If so, reach out to us!