Carol S Sikes

Brilliant Warrior: Information Technology Integration in Education and Training Carol S Sikes

Publisher Marketing: The Air and Space Force of 2025 will be a smaller and far more technical force than even today's Air Force. It will be a matured Third Wave information age force, incorporating new technologies, new operational concepts, new tactics, and new organizational structures. The advanced weapons of 2025 will require brilliant soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. The military of the future will need warriors who are not only comfortable with high technology equipment, but can also deal with diverse people and cultures, tolerate ambiguity, take initiative, ask questions, and even question authority. As a result, the Air and Space Force of 2025 will increase its emphasis on education and training to give its warriors the best possible learning opportunities in an effort to make them as productive as possible quickly and economically. To achieve these goals, the Air and Space Force will develop an integrated Adaptive Learning Environment (ALE) centered on four overlapping areas which impact education and training. These include the people involved in the learning process along with their changing roles and responsibilities; the evolving goals and objectives of education and training programs; the new skills, knowledge, and competencies required in the information age; and rapidly emerging information systems technologies such as high capacity global networks, digital knowledge-bases, advanced software, and virtual reality systems. Education and training in the information age will rely only partly on the application of advanced technologies; the human element will remain the most critical element to successful information technology integration and exploitation.