Raal Harris, Videotel’s Creative Content Director, encourages the industry to re-appraise the way it conducts and manages training. Referring to his company’s approach, Mr. Harris highlights the importance to design and offer training in accordance with the digital evolution and discusses about the current and future challenges of seafarers’ training. Mr. Harris further notes that although seafarers are becoming more and more open to new technology, we still need to convince them and make the technology user-friendly. For the Generation Z, he expects things to work well considering that this new generation wants to be involved and creative, therefore, a digital library would best work for their training.
SAFETY4SEA: What are the key challenges surrounding the training of seafarers today? In what way do you believe training needs to be developed in order to keep up with industry’s dynamic environment?
Raal Harris: The challenges are essentially the same as they have always been, albeit circumstantially altered by changes in technology and globalisation. In chasing ever cheaper crew, as an industry we have given ourselves a bigger and bigger challenge to maintain the quality of entrants to the labour market. We are often designing our ideas of competence around a first world preconceptions, but we cannot take for granted that education levels around numeracy, literacy etc. are the same everywhere. On top of that we have made the job more complex, more technology, more regulations, procedures and directives. The challenge then is to accept that we might not always find A1 candidates straight out of academies and that a level of investment in the development of promising candidates will be necessary. We need to understand their needs and make it as easy as we can for them to excel and succeed. That means that we have to assess their strengths and weaknesses and provide training that is designed with the learner in mind. We cannot assume that everyone is starting from the same level, so we need to have comprehensive training that engages at whatever level the learner is starting from. We also need to use every trick in our armoury to support the learning outcomes, making it visual, clear, intuitive and rewarding so that they stay with it and remain committed to learning.
S4S: What is your perspective regarding the future of maritime training and what would be your company’s response?
R.H.: Training cannot be seen in isolation. The whole way in which ideas are communicated has been transformed in the last five years and people’s ideas and expectations of all cultures and in every corner of the globe has been radically shifted. People today have more and more competing interests clamouring for their attention and we need to meet that expectation head on. We need to make training interactive, engaging, rewarding and effective, even fun, if we are to meet our goals and effect the change in behaviours that our clients want to see.
S4S: How does KVH Videotel address the next evolution in maritime training? Do you have any new projects on the pipeline and/or plans that you would like to share with the rest of the industry?
R.H.: We believe very strongly in R&D and everything new that you see from us will have begun as a small-scale research and development idea. That was true when we made the first serious games piece and more recently the first VR one. So, we normally have something ‘on the stove’ and we are always happy to share it and talk about it. We’re lucky to have open minded progressive clients that will work with us and make sure that our efforts stay on track. It’s no secret that we are working on immersive technology VR and AR, but some of that is also feeding into our general CBTs. We have some very exciting things coming in interactive 3D in the browser that are really spiking interest. We’ve also made some very big leaps forward on the management software side having completely re-architected our systems around the very latest platforms to ensure that we have the power to be able to work with data in the way that future needs will demand.
S4S: How is the crew responding to the use of new technologies onboard. How can they be better prepared?
R.H.: The world fleet is of course a very mixed picture and many vessels have systems unchanged from when they were installed many years ago. Anecdotally I have heard concerns about crew over reliance on technology and the need to ensure that the basic skills are still maintained. Our Practical Engineering Suite was in part made to help with this. As far as training and training systems goes I feel we have reached a tipping point now where seafarers are much more open and receptive to technology, but it’s by no means all of them. We still have a few to convince but I think making software more intuitive and easier to use will bring that barrier down.
S4S: How training in shipping could be developed to meet the needs of Generation Z?
R.H.: I’m wary of making too many assumptions about generations in an Industry that is as diverse and international as ours is, but there are trends that we need to be aware of. The big change is that these people are digital natives, they have been brought up in a world completely different from preceding generations who have had much longer to adapt to the spread of technology. Generation Z have completely different preconceptions of how information is generated and distributed, they expect things to look good and work well and they quickly lose interest in things that don’t make the grade. The new generation is not as passive as previous ones, they want to be involved and be creative, to personalize their experience and leave their mark. They are much more susceptible to pull than to push as far as receiving information is concerned, and that means that as well as the mandatory training, we need to provide them with a kind of web-like experience on board. A digital library of resources that they can browse, investigate and satisfy their curiosity with.
S4S: What do you think is further needed for both the crew and the office staff for a change to a more digital perception? What could be done for a smooth implementation from theory to practice from your perspective?
R.H.: Well, time places certain inevitability on this, smart operators are gearing up for digitisation and I don’t see much of a future long term for those that do not. Shipping is becoming more and more integrated into a world that demands to work digitally and the smart ship will provide more and more benefits as all the data pieces start adding value to one another. In any big industrial change, there will be unavoidable friction, but there can be smoother transitions if the company works strategically and to a realistic plan. Digital literacy is an area we should all be thinking about to ensure that we don’t exclude good seafarers for whom computers so not come naturally.
S4S: Regarding the future of maritime training, which could be the best practices or other form of meaningful feedback that you may share with the industry to move forward?
R.H.: I think the most important thing is to recognize that no one method of training is going to work for everyone. People learn in different ways and at different speeds. This is why it’s essential to take a blended approach, to experiment and structure things around the people and what works for them. Some people will like to study alone, others will prefer a group session where they can exchange ideas. Some need to be closely supervised, others will take their own initiative on learning. Of course, that means that you need tools to quickly measure how you are doing as a whole and quickly see which individuals are performing and which maybe need a change of approach.
S4S: What is your key message to the industry stakeholders with respect to the ‘next evolution in maritime training’?
R.H.: Our whole industry is evolving and the way people do their jobs is changing. That inevitably means we need to re-appraise how we conduct and manage training. With our software and content, we have gone right back to the beginning and centred it all around user experience. We’ve looked at how the digital landscape has shifted and worked with customers and other stakeholders to design experiences that will not only work for them, but that they can enjoy engaging with.
The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and not necessarily those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
[divider]
About Raal Harris, Videotel’s Creative Content Director
Raal is Director of e-Learning Digital Media at Videotel Marine International, whose headquarters is based in London. In his role he is responsible for production and development of Videotel e-learning materials and digital media strategy. Over the past nine years at Videotel Raal has championed a creative approach to enhance product interactivity and user experience and spearheaded various projects to increase Videotel’s web presence and to deliver training online and on mobile devices.
Prior to joining Videotel Raal gained extensive experience as an interactive designer and consultant, enabling organisations and companies to use new media technology to achieve their objectives. During this time he also undertook lectureships at Westminster University in Interaction Design, Information Product Design and Computer Games Design which gave him invaluable experience of structuring and designing learning material and evaluating student performance.
