Army News Service Spotlights Army-Wide Release of ELITE Counseling Trainer

An Army News Service story covered the Army-wide availability of ELITE, a computer-based counseling training system developed by ICT.
The article explains that students can interact with uniformed avatars that have problems ranging from disagreements with their platoon sergeant to driving under the influence and sexual harassment. Responses provided to the avatars determine the direction of the counseling sessions.
Five ELITE Lite training modules are now being used as part of cadet leadership classes at the U.S. Military Academy. And the virtual scenarios may soon be part of the curriculum for junior NCOs in the Warrior Leader Course.
This new type of interactive training is the wave of the future, said Marco Conners, chief of the Army Games for Training program at the National Simulation Center, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Today’s training tools need to have an element of “captivation and entertainment,” he said.
“Soldiers today have grown up in a digital age,” Conners said. “Students tend to learn faster and more if you place it into an interactive game environment instead of standing up there with a butcher board.”
Simulations fill a vital need, he added.
“It’s critical that our young leaders learn how to counsel Soldiers,” Conners said. “Counseling skills help these leaders prepare Soldiers for any mission. Just as important, ELITE helps Army leaders develop to their full potential.”
The story notes that ELITE was developed in collaboration with the Army Research Lab’s Human Research and Engineering Directorate, Simulation and Training Technology Center (STTC). It also states that the Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation, helped develop long-term logistics support for sustaining the software.