Challenges and approaches to seamless learning in security and defense

Abstract

Professionals in military and international humanitarian organizations increasingly have to perform under unstable conditions in dangerous environments during crisis and emergency response missions. Therefore, every professional in these organizations requires continuous training and development. While information technology has made a valuable contribution to satisfying the organizational and professional needs, there are many seams between the different activities and tasks as well as between the technologies that are used to support professionals. This chapter addresses the underpinning conditions and the design of mobile solutions for bridging the seams of technology support in professional education and training in the security and defense sector. This chapter analyzes the domain-specific conditions and seams for using mobile learning solutions in professional development and maps them onto those that were previously identified in formal public education. This mapping helps guiding the development of new concepts and solutions for seamless learning in professional education and training, which is illustrated by analyzing four application cases of mobile seamless learning in order to map the state of existing solutions and to identify gaps for further research.