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PADI Goes Virtual With The Launch of PADI eLearning

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scubaali

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Dive industry primed to grow from this innovative and unique computer-based training program. Comprehensive program targeted to retailers and resorts.

A new age is dawning in dive training and PADI's eLearning, computer-based dive training program is answering the call from consumers. Launching in March, PADI eLearning will provide customers with convenient dive training courses that will help eliminate time as an obstacle. Consumers will be able to take advantage of dive training anywhere, anytime, seven days a week.

PADI eLearning has been designed to meet the consumers need for convenient dive training while keeping customer relationships and profits in the hands of PADI Members. PADI Members who become eLearning Providers (PADI eRetailers and eResorts) will benefit through profit sharing and marketing support.

The eLearning system primary objective is to open the PADI System to millions more potential divers via the internet and tie them to their local PADI Dive Center or Resort. Although eLearning diver education begins on the internet, it continues and concludes with PADI Dive Centers and Resorts.

PADI's eLearning system leverages all the advantages and benefits of on line, computer based training, including student guidance, knowledge of results, flexibility and learner-based pacing. PADI Dive Centers and Resorts will benefit from expanding beyond traditional business traffic through outreach to more consumers who become customers.

PADI IRRA Members can learn more about becoming a PADI eRetailer or eResort by visiting the PADI eLearning Information and Registration Page under the International Resort and Retailers association section on the PADI Pros page at http://www.padi.com/members/.

Website: www.padi.com
 
Will keep the rescue divers and hyperbaric Medics in biz for a long long time...
 
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Pilots are taught with a computerised flight similator so now we can have a dive similator.
Put all your gear on and walk into a room,(backwards of course or you'll trip over your fins), and stand in front of a computer. All of the controls on your gear are similated on screen, ie as you let the air out of your BC you start decending on screen.
Learn to dive without getting wet. Ideal for people who can't swim (that one's not much different from the current Padi course).
You could even pressurise the room, and if they ascended too fast you could give em the bends. You could also show theem what happens if you come up too fast and then fly in an aircraft.
Am I being silly again?
Going camping next weekend, I'm supposed to out the back getting the gear ready.
Poida
 
I guess the machine just grinds on. I seem to be on the losing end of defending PADI - but I'll stand by the good instructors I've had to the bitter end.
Hilarious, Poida. Let me know when they have that - my kids are really good at Xbox and want to start diving soon. : )
Troy
 
is this a joke? tell me this is a joke??

actually it's interesting that i think that this might be acyually no joke at all.

sandra
 
What is the difference between this and having a book tossed in your face and being told to "go do the exercises, bring 'em back, and I'll grade 'em?" except the fact that you are doing it on a PC and get your results from the exercises quicker? This still will not take the place of pool work, Open Water exams, and practical testing. As someone who has gone through a Bachelors and nearly a Masters using "Distance Learning," I don't see what the major problem is with this. You still have to show the same knowledge to the instructor at the end of the day.....

Having said that, I did my Basic OW under NAUI and my Advanced OW under PADI and didn't really see a lot of difference between the methods of instruction.

Bret
 
its not a joke - at the moment it only applies to Scuba Review theory and Discover Nitrox theory and you have to sign up to it through a PADI Store so you have someone to go to to finish your course - basically the same theory as "heres the book and video, go home and do the exercises and come back". I've seen some of it and it works well, some other agencies have been doing this for a while.
 
I actually just realized how much of a problem this is. Brett (durett) helped me see this because at first reading I was in agreement. The difference between this remote class and in class would be how much the instructor can really evaluate. There was a lot of interaction in my class with everyone having to answer questions individually - no one could give you the answer while you type it in for example. And these were complete sentences, for the most part (there might have been a grunt once), instead of just the dot for a multiple choice answer on a test. There was a young kid that really couldn't answer the questions well and he didn't pass - yes this really is true - PADI instructors did NOT, I repeat, DID NOT, pass this kid!!!! Amazing, I know. The knowledge isn't really evaluated in the pool - just the basic skills, right? So, they end up without that check if someone can't read and therefore doesn't really have the knowledge to be certified. A dive parent let's say, without realizing, might sit there and feed a kid the answers for an online course for example. We can't look at this just from our own experiences with online courses - those are usually at the high school or college level which require quite a few more prerequisite years of at least some in class participation - so far anyway. Ya, I know I just have too many hang ups about what might go wrong - too many years of systems development and Murphy's Laws.
 
bret and sam

if this is what this elearning is about then i agree that it really isn't that much different than the current system of book/video.

still, i personally disagree completely with a way of teaching students in which a instructor isn't teaching but instead just sends students off to learn by themselves. and evaluating knowledge using those multiple choice tests is a bit ridiculous as well.

please acknowledge that i do know that there are some dedicated instructors but i am also aware of a bigger percentage being totally underqualified to teach.

i'd be very happy if it would be included in the schedule to becoming instructors if a requirement was to have worked as a guide for a while (means have some actual experience!) because then a prospective future instructor will see how good all those certified divers really are and maybe one gets the ambition to try to teach ones own students a bit better.

sorry if i am a bit negative about how all those good intentions work out in reality.

...don'y hate me, please :waterwork

sandra
 
Hey,

I've been a PADI Instructor for 15 years and have traned over 600 divers. I think that finally PADI and it's educational designers (you know the guys who have masters and doctorates in education design at PADI) have got it right.

Student reads the interactive material online, completes to quizes, fills out the knowledge review and takes it to their instructor to be perscriptively taught. The instructor fixes anything that the student may have missed while talioring it to the local diving environment...

Then the instructor focuses on the the practical dives... This is so much better than the system that was in place years ago...

Well done PADI for being smart about education, I only wish the school system would take this approch rather than teachers droning on in the class when students have already read the materials.

This makes me proud to be a PADI Instructor and on the cutting edge of diver education
 
hello scubaman

in my experience filling out the quiz doesn't mean the student has understood anything. it's quite simple and quick to fill out the test correctly having the book there (or a pc). students want to pass, instructors have the time frame to work with, so things are being done quickly. i've been to places where divers are mass produced (cairns, ko tao) and i see students more in bars than in books. this is all quite normal there.
i don't doubt at all that a lot of clever people spent a lot of time creating all this, but obviously it is all tailored to get the biggest number of people through the course in the shortest possible time. i think they call it business.

and everywhere i hear instructors talking about how they have covered their backs, because they keep all the signed quizzes and knowledge reviews for years. in case they get sued.

the system is obviously only as good as the instructor who uses it. a good instructor uses any system effectively.

with your experience in teaching i'm sure you have yourself a great many stories to tell about unqualified instructors, bad courses, questionable procedures. all not according to PADI standards. maybe you can tell me why it is possible then, that in a place like ko tao (i stayed there last year for 2 months), which is undoubtly producing an amazing amount of divers, there is not much done according to the system that those educated proffessionals have designed. maybe noone wants to really interfere, because there is still a lot of money to be made?

please note that i'm not critisizing PADI per se but rather the way people are being tought diving. real life is different than what the book suggests. at least these are some of my experiences.

sandra
 
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