In order to introduce the world of ATC to potential air traffic control trainees, the Deutsche Flugsicherung [DFS] have put a number of games / tests online for free.

These tests are fun to do and give a good insight of some of the skills one needs to become an air traffic controller including:

• Continously splitting attention over a number of task – whilst maintaining an overall picture.
• Extrapolation of spacial position and conflict resolution through turning [vectoring] of aircraft.
• Memory
• Appreciation of left and right turns
• Etc.

Have a look at these games and tests, I am sure you’ll like them.

My favourite is Pushing Thin [comes with an addiction warning]

Well done to DFS. Great inititive and great tests!

Click here

If anyone know of other similar games and test, please share with the rest of us by commenting to this post.

Thanks!

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How do you motivate students to learn appreciating headings on a radar screen?

Talking with a colleague instructor who has teaching these skills to ab-initio students as part of his tasks seems to have found a good solution:

First of all he uses a radar skills trainer[RST] to introduce the tool instead of putting his students straight in front of a complex simulator.

On top of this following a theoretical introduction of what headings are and when and how they are to be applied, etc., before going to the RST he asks his students to take 2 hours playing with the headings tutors games.

And how does he motivate them even further [the games in themselves are already good motivators] to play and win?  He offers a bar of chocolate to the one with the highest score at the end of the session.

He says it works all the time – and at least at game level the proof is that his students have the high time scores on a central database which stores all scores of the game played on-line.

Pedagogically he says it is much easier to teach heading appreciation this way than it used to be when he used to get them in front of the simulator and run them an exercise.  I believe him!

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I am very proud to present to you Sea Patrol, a fun game which aims to improve the heading , vectoring and range appreciation to ab-initio ATCOs

To go to Sea Patrol, click here

Sea Patrol was a spin-off development of a highly motivated task force made up of different e-learning developers and subject matter experts from various European ANS training providers called EDTF.

In the future, EDTF intends to develop other interactive training tools in a collaborative manner aimed to provide training alternatives in ANS.  So watch this space…

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My colleagues are developing a game which will teach student air traffic controllers to appreciate bearings and distances while having fun.  What a great idea.  Even better they intend to make an abstraction of the skills necessary to perform the tasks, take them out of the immediate context of air traffic control, and place them in another environment.  In this way, the students will feel like they are doing something else whilst in fact they are learning.

When would you think you would remember a lesson better, when the meaning is abstracted and told in a fable in the Esopic style or when you are told bluntly: You should do this or that?

Stories are being used extensively to teach young and adults alike, and air traffic management is no exception to this.  We already prefer to illustrate learning objectives by telling stories, especially in the context of refresher training where the audience is experienced and can easily relate with the stories told.  The results are impressive.  Those using this technique usually get feedback such as: “Me too I have had a similar experience”;  Every learner knows that when a student tells him this, they have hit goal!  Needless to say, those not using this technique are strongly encouraged to do so.

Now back to games.

Similar to stories, games have the ability of giving a context to the objectives to be learned [skill, knowledge or attitude based].  In addition the context can be different to the working one and thus in a number of situations can be perceived by the student as alternative, fresh and fun.

Games also have the ability of including elements such as competition in an environment where its serious counterpart [real life] should not be.  A game which has nothing to do with air traffic control but which teaches bearing and distance appreciation could be competitive, for example having a car riding through a track and arriving first to destination can easily be competitive, whilst giving headings to aircraft to maintain separation is too near to reality and probably should not be perceived as a competitive endeavor.

Outside ATC and into the broader ATM environment, games could also be used to teach how to deal with new situations.  Imagine a future supervisor having to deal with his staff, the operational environment and his management in a ‘Sims’ way, or a future safety manager having to provide related services in a different environment than air traffic management – maybe for example within a formula 1 team!

To conclude, both games and stories have high training potential.  We just need to be creative to be able abstract what we want to teach from its immediate context, put it into an alternative one, and create an environment which naturally motivates the student to listen or to play!Â

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