For Immediate Release

Contact: Ed Twardy, 877-687-5101 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Carefree, AZ, August 18, 2011 - The Academic Consortium for Global Education, a Vermont non-profit educational research corporation, has been selected to develop a dynamic, modular, multi-environment course on Instructional Design for a military training division. This Instructional Design training incorporates ACGE’s core competencies in building unique, interactive, competitive learning systems. They are fully operational in a variety of learning settings and based upon the learning needs of tomorrow.

The contract awarded to ACGE will link instructional design methodologies to learning outcomes and empower trainers to better measure student performance. Using key techniques to transform course content into well-designed, technology-rich learning environments, the project will give students hands-on experience through real world simulations.

The new curriculum will create integrated learning modules that dovetail with previously developed courses, resulting in increased instructor competency and a new generation of learner that enjoys being challenged in the educational environment, as well as in their professional capacity. The project will be led by Howard Davis, Director of e-Learning at ACGE, and Dr. Tony Beld, ACGE’s Director of Technology, and will be staffed by a team of developers and faculty selected from among ACGE’s national research affiliates.

About ACGE

ACGE is a non-profit national academic research consortium that counts among its affiliated membership representatives of academic and administrative units from more than two-dozen of this nation's leading colleges and universities. Institutions selected for affiliation with ACGE have demonstrated a sustained commitment to focused outreach and the capacity to apply the intellectual strengths of their faculty to real-world problems and needs. In addition to its corporate office in Carefree, Arizona, ACGE maintains offices in Burlington, Vermont; Charlottesville, VA; and Colorado Springs, CO. For more information about ACGE, Inc. visit: http://www.acge.org

For Immediate Release

Contact: Ed Twardy, 877-687-5101 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Carefree, AZ, July 29, 2011 - The Academic Consortium for Global Education, Inc. (ACGE), an educational research group with corporate offices in Carefree, Arizona, has been selected to develop new pedagogical approaches to curriculum design and delivery in today's military. The new curriculum provides an integrated mix of learning environments, modern instructional techniques and technological innovations to expand instructor effectiveness.

Trainers will be afforded ACGE’s innovative teaching model to transition from traditional classroom practices to interactive learning experiences using role play, strategic challenges and learner engagement, all outside the schoolhouse. Built on web-based social networking tools and supported by collaboration and content contribution techniques, the new training paradigm offers new tools for new training environments and invites repurposing of existing content. The contract awarded to ACGE will link instructional design methodologies to learning outcomes and empower trainers to better measure student performance. The project will be led by Howard Davis, Director of e-Learning at ACGE, and will be staffed by a team of developers and faculty selected from ACGE national research affiliates.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Ed Twardy, 877-687-5101 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

October 14, 2010 – Carefree, AZ - The Academic Consortium for Global Education, Inc. (ACGE) will design Instructor Competency training courses for a major government client. Within this effort, the ACGE research team will evaluate the current operating procedures used in training instructors and develop new pedagogical and methodological approaches to enhance curriculum design and delivery.

Trainers will use the ACGE enhanced instructional paradigm to transition from current traditional classroom instructional models to an integrated mix of learning environments, instructional techniques and methodologies. Understanding how to use, and in what situations to apply, these new assets will result in increased instructor competency and improved transfer of knowledge to their students. Building this new capability will modernize the current delivery system across a diverse set of learning requirements.

Joining the ACGE team as the Director of E-Learning is Howard Davis. Mr. Davis, formerly Vice President of Online Learning at Boston Architectural College, will head a team of faculty to conduct the work.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Ed Twardy, 877-687-5101 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

May 25, 2011 – Carefree, AZ - The final ISLET studies have begun and well over 100 students from the Navy and Marines have signed up to participate - from as far away as Qatar and Iraq. To learn more, click here.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Ed Twardy, 877-687-5101 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

July 08, 2008 -- Scottsdale, AZ -- The Academic Consortium for Global Education, Inc. (ACGE), a Vermont-based non-profit corporation, has been awarded an $8.1 million contract from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to develop a game-based language-in-culture learning program. The program, called ISLET (Integrated System for Language Education and Training), will provide officer, enlisted and civilian employees of the Department of Navy with listening, speaking and reading skills in targeted foreign languages to a proficiency level equivalent to that gained in 4-6 semesters of undergraduate college-level language courses.

The ONR research contract includes a base performance timeframe with three option periods and calls for the delivery of an alpha version of ISLET by October 2011. The ISLET project will produce several intermediate products for the Department of Navy including a series of task-based, mission-specific, language-in-culture learning scenarios and comparative culture learning modules. The ISLET prototype will demonstrate and evaluate curricula in both Sub-Saharan French and Iraqi Arabic.

ISLET research will include the design and integration of innovative learning technologies, speech recognition capabilities, effective instructional methods and motivating interactive gaming strategies to develop a task-focused, multi-learner serious game embedded within an active community of practice. Central to the ISLET concept is the idea that motivated by the challenge of interesting task-based game scenarios, learners will collaborate in a language-in-culture, immersive environment in which they will engage in active military "missions" that require the speaking, listening and reading skills essential to effective communication in other regions of the world.

As envisioned, ISLET will provide the Department of Navy an alternative to expensive, time-consuming pre-deployment classroom language and culture education and training and will be applicable to a wide spectrum of military personnel requiring cultural awareness and language training for personal survival and mission success. The research will evaluate whether a multi-player on-line "game" will attract and motivate language-in-culture learners to invest the time-on-task essential to second language acquisition and skill retention.

Sponsored by the Chief of Naval Operations, Senior Language Authority (N13), the ISLET research will include active participation by the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC), its Military Civil Affairs Group (MCAG) and the Navy's Center for Language, Regional Expertise and Culture (CLREC). These Navy commands will provide subject matter expertise and learners who will evaluate the ISLET components and prototype.

The ISLET project grew from recent studies produced by ACGE, Inc. for the U.S. Navy. The current research team features nationally known faculty and specialists with expertise in foreign language education, learning management systems, language curriculum design, linguistics, game development, artificial intelligence, automated speech recognition, natural language processing, and learner assessment/feedback. In addition to ACGE staff, the team includes sub-contracts with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and ALELO, of Los Angeles, CA, the developer of the Tactical Language and Culture Training System as well as researchers from Middlebury College, Brigham Young University, international professional associations and consulting firms within the gaming and training industries. The Principal Investigator of ISLET is Edward Twardy, Ph.D., President of ACGE, Inc.