AFCEC team recognized for successes with distance learning

  • Published
  • By Debbie Aragon
  • AFCEC Public Affairs
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The Air Force Civil Engineer Center's Readiness Directorate's education and training team recently earned two industry awards for its successes with distance learning.

The directorate's team members in the emergency management education and training section, part of AFCEC's Tyndall detachment, were chosen as Federal Government Distance Learning Association Pioneer and Innovation Award winners for 2014.

Sam Hazzard, the Air Force EM education and training section lead, was selected as the 2014 Pioneer Award winner. The award recognizes "an individual for demonstrating initiative and leadership in the development and implementation of distance learning in the federal government," according to the association's website.

"Mr. Hazzard has taken the program from a few simple PowerPoint presentations to the comprehensive overarching campaign it is today," said Mike Connors, emergency management division chief. "He has been a true leader of implementing innovative distance learning techniques within the Air Force."

"I have an outstanding team to include on-site and off-site contractors," Hazzard said of winning the individual award. "They are the ones who actually develop the education and training products under my supervision and guidance."

With AFCEC since April 2011, Hazzard said he really enjoys, "helping the troops in the field learn and become more proficient in their job as well as training them how to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies." The ability to "push the envelope" as to the type of education and training his team delivers, as well as new delivery platforms such as mobile applications and immersive training platforms, keeps him energized, he added.

Hazzard and his team are currently working on an immersive training course, which will provide first-person training in a virtual environment.

"Think 'Call of Duty' type training," Hazzard said.

They are also brainstorming on how to deliver educational materials to mobile platforms, he said.

The Innovation Award, awarded to all members in the education and training section, recognizes an organization for its leadership in developing emerging distance learning technologies to provide enterprise-wide solutions for the federal government, the distance learning association's site noted.

The section continuously strives to find innovative ways to enhance emergency management-focused education and training, said Connors.

"The section, led by Mr. Hazzard, has worked very hard over the past three years to create a world-class emergency management awareness program that has been benchmarked by the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA and several states," Connors said.

The program is the most comprehensive in the Department of Defense and covers all hazards utilizing multiple media formats such as posters, social media and mobile applications, he added.

For example, the division recently gave the Air Force's Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear, or CBRN, Defense Awareness Course a technology and content facelift. Now, through the use of video demonstrations using live action models, those taking the training have a more realistic understanding of things like donning their chemical protective overgarments and using their protective masks.

The emergency management education and training section has achieved outstanding results, Connors added. These include creating a tiered training approach to disaster response force training at every Air Force installation worldwide.

The education and training team works so well together, Hazzard said, because "they all have the best interest of the troops in mind."

Feedback from students gives high marks to the products developed by Hazzard and his team. Comments gathered during course completion surveys included, "This course is a massive improvement over the last one, thank you for updating it," "Probably the best CBT created so far. All others should play like this one" and "This CBT was extremely informative and lucid. It provided clear information that was easy to understand."

One of those products, the "Be Ready" application for Apple and Android mobile devices recently received positive attention from Air Staff as well.