FIRE C.AP.T.A.I.N. NYC is a computer program that contains therequired reading materials for FDNY promotion exams, plus varioustools to help you ‘absorb’ the material. The program includes suchtools as: multi- colored highlighting, end-of-section notes, “Hotbuttons,” over 1200 practice questions with progress tracking,integrated chat, and the ability to search the entire library inseconds. C.A.P.T.A.I.N. works offline when you do not have aninternet connection, and when you do, it synchronizes your work withFDNY servers automatically, along with auto-updating the reading material.
C.A.P.T.A.I.N. can run off a flash drive so you can carry it with you anywhere you go, or you can install on any number ofcomputers. A basic version of C.A.P.T.A.I.N. (without some of the tools) is free.C.A.P.T.A.I.N. is not a new way to sell books, but a set of tools surrounding the books to help you learn. The program’s books are onlyincluded, as they must be in priority format to allow the developer tobuild these tools around them. C.A.P.T.A.I.N. has subscription-based pricing, and embraces some concepts of the SaaS (Software as a Service) paradigm, in which software is just a conduit to a service. For C.A.P.T.A.I.N., that service becomes the tools and (cloud)- based infrastructure for which you subscribe.
We thought we would share some personal experiences from the foundersof Inkless Learning Systems, LLC., the parent company of C.A.P.T.A.I.N.; an insight to the incubation of the ideas that became C.A.P.T.A.I.N.
Vincent Moore:
In 2006, I took a FDNY Captain promotional exam. At the time, I had a two year old and four year old at home. My wife worked full time, and we were living in Hampton Bays (About 90 mile from the city). I studied almost two years everyday, and went to a promotional class every week that was about an hour from my house. On Tuesday nights, Idrove into Queens to meet with a study group, and some of the time, I was getting home around 1 a.m. I studied “hard!” Some may say not hard enough, but those closer to me saw my dedication. My college friendscould not believe how competitive and time-consuming studying for a civil service promotion exam could be. I will never forget where I was when I got the phone call from my Dad. “You didn’t make the List,” he said.
“What?!” I asked, “How many were on the list?” “220,” he said. I scored a 69, and failed the exam by one point. One point… In my opinion, the test was unfair – almost evil. I was not alone in my feelings: Many good students who sacrificed thousands of hours were in the same boat. “What now?” we asked ourselves. At that point, I felt that I was never going to pick up a (FDNY) book again.
As time passed, I was encouraged to study again. The current list of Captains was small and moving at a good pace. I decide to give it another shot, but this time I was going to do things a little differently. That’s when the idea of C.A.P.T.A.I.N started to cultivate. It began with moving the study group “online.” Instead of everyone trying to arrange the same time slot to meet – and driving to a location – we decided to email all of our work at 0900 every Monday morning. Rather then compiling a messy batch of questions with paper scattered thought my car and house, I started to build a database of spell-checked, section referenced material that could be stored on my computer or laptop. Before I knew it, I had a database of a thousand questions.
At the time, I was a lieutenant in Queens. I noticed that one of my firefighters was gifted with building computer software. I started to bounce some ideas off of him about setting up a study program; it was a good match. I knew what I wanted in a learning tool and he had the knowledge to create it.
Alan Macleod:
I hate studying! It’s the reason I’m not an astronaut (read “rocket scientist”). Every time I would pick up a book, my mind would wander to ideas as to how to make studying more enjoyable. C.A.P.T.A.I.N. is our attempt to make learning less painful and more productive.
Before becoming an NYC firefighter I taught high school science for the NYC Board of Education, so unmotivated students were not new to me. Much of my time as a teacher was spent pursuing interesting ways to present some not-so-interesting subjects, and very often, this would lead to the newest technologies. This was often audio and visual, but I quickly found that they were not engaging, and students zoned out pretty quickly. Interactivity was needed and computers were the answer.
How often have we woken to find the tenements or engine operations binder spread open on our chest? Great intentions, but reading is too passive to keep most of us interested to a point where we absorb that material to a competitive level.
C.A.P.T.A.I.N. engages us when reading. Its tools urge us to highlight key parts of a text and to add notes to a section to frame material in a way that the individual understands better. ‘Hot Buttons’ help to alert us while we read those key words the test makers love to focus on. Its powerful search functions allow us to research specific topics to see what is written across multiple books and chapters. At the end of most key chapters you will find questions to test you on what you have just read. And if you still have questions, or just want to throw some ideas out there, you can use the chat program to chat with hundreds of others like yourself, or just the few you have in your private group.
With the latest version of C.A.P.T.A.I.N., we have only scratched the surface of what in my mind should be a community-driven study tool. We are moving C.A.P.T.A.I.N. to mobile technology so that it will be available on all platforms (desktop, tablet and phone) and all operating systems (Windows, Mac, Android, IOS…). We are adding functionality that was inconceivable just a couple of years ago with new tools that will make learning as carefree as web surfing. We are changing the very definition of the word “study.”
Visit our website, and feel free to tryout what we feel is simply the beginning of the future of learning!
