The Future of Air Force Learning Technology

Col. John Thompson is the Future Learning Advisor to the Air Education and Training Command (AETC) Director of Plans, Programs, Requirements, and Assessments. He is responsible for facilitating innovation across AETC’s recruiting, training and education mission.

Gen Stephen Lorenz, the Commander of Air Education and Training Command (AETC), directed the command to adopt innovation as the command’s fourth core competency. With Gen Lorenz’s vision of delivering unrivaled air, space, and cyberspace education and training we have stood up a future learning division which works on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of AETC’s programs.

Innovation has always occurred within AETC. Instructors and students have always found new ways of completing their mission more effectively or efficiently. What they haven’t had until now is access to headquarters’ resources. The command now offers Advanced Learning Technology Demonstrations (ALTDs) where an instructor can submit a great idea, have it resourced and independently tested, and possibly used across AETC.

To manage the variety of ideas that are input as ALTDs, we have organized ourselves around five focus areas:

■Instructional Design

■Knowledge Systems

■Virtual Environments

■Mobile Learning

■Simulations & Gaming

As we continue to pursue unrivaled education and training, we envision an environment with easy access (knowledge systems), available anytime/anywhere (mobile learning), instruction well designed for the delivery system (instructional design), that is interactive (simulations & gaming), and simulates difficult environments like cultural immersion (virtual environments).