Posted on Mar 13, 2014

Is distance learning realistic for National Guard, and Reserve Soldiers?

SGT (Join to see)

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After nearly an eight year break in service I decided to once again serve my country and I joined the Army National Guard. While it has been a great experience thus far I find myself and peers to be quite frustrated with ALMS/AKO/ATTRS. I am not saying that National Guard/Reserve Soldiers should not be held to the same standards as our fulltime brothers and sisters. To the contrary, I think that we have an obligation to chase knowledge and be ready to step into an active role at a moment’s notice. My issue is that the programs mentioned above are poorly written and the help desk is often unable to assist with issues that arise. Guard/Reserve Soldiers are not sitting in a computer lab on an active duty post with staff at our beckon call to assist with system errors, programs freezing up, etc. Also, I feel all of these programs could be one system, making navigation and assistance a lot simpler. If I’m way off base or am missing a critical piece of information please educate me.

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Edited 11 y ago

Posted 11 y ago

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2LT (Join to see)

Posted >1 y ago

It is a burden, yes. Often times it can be difficult to get what you need because of what you said, support is sometimes hard to get on technical issues. I remember about a year ago during finals week in college with CPT (Join to see), staying up for hours as he completed online courses.
That being said I think they should remain for the guard/reserve. While it may be difficult at home, we still have other duties we must do outside of drill, such as PT. It is just a unique challenge of ours.

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CPT (Join to see)

>1 y

Oh the agony. And SSD2 while deployed was even more of a hassle. I had to stay up until midnight to talk to help desk. DL is pain

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SSgt (Join to see)

Posted 10 y ago

I feel that the required courses ARE an extra burden on guard soldiers, as they have to be completed on personal time, as it interferes with actual training if it has to be done on a drill weekend. It's a 35 minute drive for me to get to the nearest "distance learning center." And I live closer than almost anybody else. Besides that fact that the armory is ope 8 to 4 mon-fri, while soldiers are working. So I took the effort to get my personal computer set up, and got SSD1 done, and have knocked out all the other random courses as I get assigned them. It's just part of being Guard, and getting the job done with less!

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SSG (Join to see)

Posted >1 y ago

I've run into issues trying to run SSD and enterprise from my personal computers. I ended up finding some online help after navigating through the endless labyrinth of self help links. I took my older laptop and downgraded IE, Java, and Adobe and had to make some adjustments in my browser settings, but it all works now.

If you happen to have two systems, bring up the help page on the more up to date one and make the adjustments on the more obsolete one. I tried calling the help line once and the person on the other end sounded like they were at a call center in some ramshackle single-wide in West Virginia. They were no help at all.

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COL Vincent Stoneking

>1 y

Configuring your computer "just right" is definitely the hardest part. I used to have a virtual machine running Windows on my Mac, but it became too hard to remember what parameters to set for what. I now have a separate windows machine configured for the most common parameters of the various programs and websites I need to use. I think it's running IE 9 and an old version of Java. That said, I still find myself needing to toggle compatability mode on for one website and off for the next. My most recent discovery was that I could only sign evals in the new EES if I launched IE "as administrator" !! (It has been a few months, I sincerely hope that one has been fixed. Lots of people only have access to computers where they are not admin level users.)

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MSG(P) Michael Warrick

>1 y

Yes and no depending on the subject that is at hand. Phase 1 should be distance learning to ensure the SM is knowledgeable of the subject before coming to Phase II through all phases required and then getting into more depth with hands on training. It is not helpful really for D&C and PFT Training that SM should know how to do !

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Is distance learning realistic for National Guard, and Reserve Soldiers?

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