The increased rate of deployments in recent years of the Department of Defense's
(DoD) forces, which often involve
rapid, unplanned movements to locations around the world, highlights the need to
provide training on demand to individuals and units deployed worldwide. Accordingly,
because of more demanding deployment criteria and other time-sensitive constraints,
the DoD recognized that yesterday’s framework of "right time, right place" learning,
with its use of set times and places, may not meet future requirements. It also
recognizes that providing "anytime, anywhere" instruction is essential to maintaining
military readiness in the information age, where future forces and their support
activities need to be highly adaptive to address threats effectively and rapidly.
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In response to the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the DoD developed a
department-wide strategy to use learning and information technologies to modernize
education and training. The initial effort in that development was
ADL. Its intent was to set forth a new framework to provide DoD
personnel access to high quality education and training, tailored to individual
needs and delivered cost effectively, whenever and wherever required. DoD envisioned
using the Internet and other virtual or private wide-area networks, distributed
learning experts, learning management and diverse support tools to ensure a "learner-centric"
ADL system. DoD sees ADL programs as part of a continuum of learning that encompasses
many learning methodologies.
In April 1999, the DoD created a Strategic Plan to guide and expand distributed
learning initiatives.
Executive Order 13111: Using Technology To Improve Training Opportunities For Federal Government Employees
tasked the DoD in providing guidance to Defense agencies and advise civilian agencies
in developing and implementing collaborative distance learning standards. DoD's
strategic plan defined ADL as a way to leverage the power of computer, information
and communication technologies by using common standards in order to provide learning
that can be tailored to individual needs and delivered anytime, anywhere. It also
includes establishing an interoperable "computer-managed instruction" environment
to support the needs of developers, learners, instructors, administrators and managers.
An
The DoD Advanced Distributed Learning Implementation Plan
followed in May 2000 to provide a federal framework. It described the department’s
approach to carrying out its strategic plan and provided an update on each of the
Services' and the Joint Staff's programs.
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