APEX Mentoring

  Teach a student a lesson, and they can learn for a day Teach them how to harness technology, and they can learn for life      This week's dive into integrating technology was a  reflection on how we use technology, how we incorporate new technology into students' lives, and how students can range from  digital immigrants to digital natives . The goal for instructors & educators is to reduce transactional distance by personalizing the student's journey through the use of technology, essentially meeting the student where they are and bringing them along from there (Kang, 2025).       First, let's understand what Transactional Distance (TD) Theory is. TD is simply the space between the teacher and the learner caused by geographic distance. Teachers need to find ways to bridge this gap (Mooer & Kearsley, 2005). Personally, I would argue that TD should include more than geographic distance, as there are hundreds of factors tha...

  Technology Acceptance Model Is the Tech Right for You? This week’s venture into educational technology was an adventure into the Technology Adaptation Model, or TAM for short. My tech buddy “Fab” (his callsign in the Navy), probably already knows about this, and this is why when we talk about making an app to solve all apps in the military, he has emphasized the need to make them intuitive – and I thought he was just that brilliant and using common sense! In fact, he probably has learned about TAM in his studies, and it just took me a minute longer to get there (cut me some slack, I’m a polysci guy and he’s an engineer). So, let’s examine the TAM models and discuss their key takeaways on how the Army seems to misapply them. Both of these screen captures come from Venkatesh and Bala (2008, pp. 276 & 280) and have the original TAM outlined in the dashed box. Starting with the base model, TAM, the model shows how technology becomes adapted by the user and involves the technology...

  Mentorship Minutes:  A Journey of Self-Directed Learning Malcolm Knowles said in his book Self-Directed Learning : In its broadest meaning, “self-directed learning” describes a process in which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human and material resources for learning, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes.” (1975, p.18). This definition of the self-directed learner from Knowles resonates with me deeply. Driven by my core value of curiosity, I took the initiative to learn about mentorship. This journey began as a weekly email to the Huachuca ROCKS non-profit group I was part of at the time and evolved into a LinkedIn newsletter or blog - the Mentorship Minute Monday  (Slininger, 2023).  When integrating technology into adult learning, you have to ask two questions: Who are the learners? What technology...