| Submit your comments on this article |
| Science & Technology |
| Signal Magazine: Disruptive by Design: How Pokemon Is Go-ing to Transform Cyber Training |
| 2017-02-20 |
| The U.S. Defense Department and the federal government could piggyback on the recent blockbuster popularity of Pokemon Go, the location-based augmented reality game that catapulted some couch potatoes from their sofas to the great outdoors, to transform cyber training. The mobile app, an overnight international sensation, combines the virtual world of Pokemon with the real world in which people live. The gaming craze offers insights on how to excite people to partake in—and really learn from—cybersecurity training. One area that deserves scrutiny is computer-based training (CBT). The U.S. Air Force already is reviewing how much CBT airmen need for pre-deployment training and to stay up to date on human resources policies. “Can there be other methods used to deliver [training] that are more efficient and effective—and over what period of time?” Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James Cody asked in the Air Force Times in 2015. “Does it all have to be done at the same time, or can we space some of this out and have it build on each other?” Perhaps the most well-known CBT effort is the Defense Department’s mandatory Cyber Awareness Challenge, an annual training course for service members and civilian employees that covers everything from identifying office hazards to protecting classified data and safeguarding networks against cyberthreats. There is also the joint service Level A Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training, a multihour CBT course meant to teach personnel traveling outside of the United States survival techniques should they become isolated, captured or detained. These endeavors could prove more valuable—and less excruciating—if developers mirrored the way players tackle the Pokemon Go game. They could incorporate interactive teaching methods and use the outdoors for training scenarios. After all, how much can someone really apply survival techniques if he or she is learning wilderness survival skills while sitting in front of a computer desk indoors? And then there is the Air Force’s Self-Aid and Buddy Care (SABC) training, a mishmash of lessons that combines CBT about deployments, injuries and general safety with hands-on demonstrations, such as how to apply tourniquets. Again, these are lessons imparted when students sit in the comfort of an office. There was a time when using film, TV and computers for training were new and strange, too. |
| Posted by:charger |