Royal Navy succeeds with LECTURNITY
The Royal Navy's HMS Collingwood, part of the Maritime Warfare School, is the largest naval training organisation in Western Europe.
In 2006, the weapon engineering technicians course, which forms the base for future career training, started within the “Weapon Engineering Training Group” (WETG).
The purpose of the engineering technician grade was to replace all artificers and operator maintainers with an all-round weapons engineer. As a result, during the transition phase, many trainees joined the engineering technician branch from legacy branches with limited background of engineering. WETG therefore had to train a mixed group, with varying levels of experience and education. Initial results had higher than desirable failure rates, and trainees had to be back-classed to retake modules. WETG was faced with the predicament of how to effectively train such a diverse base of sailors.
WETG concluded that the pre-course teaming material was not adequately preparing trainees. The material included a CD and outdated and hard-to-use textbook, offered no interaction, and was often too advanced for those using it, with trainees feeling intimidated and worried about failing the course before it even commenced.
Lt Angela Johnston, project team leader at HMS Collingwood, says: "We wanted a pre-course programme that appealed to a wide learning base, which meant it had to be highly interactive and easy to use. We also required one which was compatible with PSPs, as not only do they meet the MoD's stringent security regulations, but they are also highly appealing to our trainees who are already adept with their controls."
WETG chose IMC (UK) Learning's rapid authoring software, Lecturnity. As the program is PowerPointbased, content production is simplified and trainers can record and produce lessons quickly and easily onto a variety of multimedia formats including a PSP-compatible flash file. Lecturnity was also a cost-effective option that was highly interactive and easy to use for both the SMEs producing the e-media and the trainees using it.
Trainee feedback has been extremely positive. The e-media has been well received and recognised as a definite improvement by trainees and instructors alike. WETG has also seen an improvement in pass rates, particularly for the mathematics module.
Lt Johnston says: "Before we started using Lecturnity, the amount of content that HMS Collingwood had on the Defence Learning Portal was minimal; now we have an abundance of information. In the future we are looking to add more lessons and formative tests to the material and continue to make course content available in a variety of media formats and outlets."