By PATRICK MERLINO
The fire and EMS industries are talking a lot about E-learning. Today’s young firefighter has grown up in the computer age, with gaming, Internet surfing, keeping track of friends through social media, and even online college courses. Classes and seminars taught online are a natural for him.
With E-learning, gone are the days of teaching classes multiple times, manual record keeping, and chasing down crews in the hallway regarding class attendance and compliance. Affordable online presentation builders and tools that post PowerPoint® presentations on the Web are now available. You can put tests online, have them automatically graded by the computer, and drop the results into the class and individual training records. Distances between stations, crew shifts, and volunteer schedule conflicts go away when the information they need is available on their station or home computer through the Web.
VARIETY OF EXPOSURES
Departments face different response challenges in their jurisdictions: oil refineries, hospitals, marinas, nursing homes, warehouses, and industrial, to name a few. Training varies greatly in departments in terms of standard operating procedures (SOPs) and types of services. A department training officer may have to cover EMS; fire; hazmat; rope, water, or confined space rescue; and other topics. Training videos and DVDs can help, but they may not be tailored to your specific department’s policies, protocols, and exposures. You should teach and present your own curricula to your crews.
MEDIA AND WEB TOOLS
With the advent of affordable digital cameras, Web video (i.e. Youtube), and mp3 audio perfected for music players, technology is rapidly crossing over from entertainment to teaching tools. It is now possible to show a fire or rescue scenario and allow the student to analyze and assess the scene and decide on the appropriate action or response. You can even review the dispatch call as a learning tool.
The benefits of such powerful teaching tools are obvious. If you can keep it interesting, you can keep students awake long enough to learn. Volunteer departments know that if the crew is not enjoying the experience, retention becomes a problem. The tools necessary to put this kind of learning presentation together used to require a lot of resources, budget, and integrated technology knowledge, but now the videos and pictures are available online and are downloadable, and other presentation software can easily incorporate video and audio.
WEB SITES GO TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Many departments use their Web sites as community public relations tools. Currently, departments are moving toward password-protected areas on their Web sites for personnel. News items/blogs, “Messages from the Chief,” training schedules, sign-up sheets, training histories, and internal messaging and texting are all great tools to improve the communication levels within the department.
It can be difficult and expensive to build and update these types of pages. Progress is being made, however, with software packages that allow the department’s Web technician to update online department Web pages without needing to code in HTML. Imagine updating your Web site by clicking the edit button, typing in the new text in plain English, and clicking “Save.”
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE FUTURE, TODAY
A firefighter signs in, sees the day’s message from the chief, clicks on “Newsblog” for the latest SOP announcement, and then sees his assigned training class and test to take to prepare for Thursday night’s drill. He clicks on “Vehicle Extrication”; views a 15-slide presentation online, a video clip, and digital pictures from an actual rescue scene; studies the “Lessons to be Learned”; and takes an eight-question quiz.
The computer grades the quiz, prints a certificate of completion, and drops it into the firefighter’s training record automatically. His training officer is notified that he has completed the course and is ready for the Thursday night drill. The firefighter checks the schedule, signs up online for the offsite training seminar coming up next month, and reads the department newsletter. At seven days and again at three days before the event, he will receive an e-mail reminding him of his seminar.
All this technology is available now and is easy to use and affordable. Training officers who use the computer and Internet can gain back many hours of time, save the frustration of teaching classes multiple times, make things convenient for the crews, and raise the department’s communication levels. You can alleviate problems with class availability, schedule and shift conflicts, class interruptions because of response calls and trainer follow-up calls, record keeping, and audit concerns. E-learning and its associated benefits are here.
PATRICK MERLINO is a lieutenant with San Juan (WA) Fire District #3 and a vice president and developer at FireCoTraining.com, Inc., an E-learning software company for fire and EMS designed for training officers. Merlino has nine years of experience in online education.
