Australian Taekwondo is excited to introduce a new education and training platform that will enhance the experience of practitioners across the Taekwondo community. The new Learning Management System (LMS), which went live on 1 July 2024, replaces Australian Taekwondo's Virtual Dojang.

Importantly it will be housed in the Australian Sports Commission's (ASC) Australian Sport Learning Centre, which aims to deliver sector-wide learning and development outcomes by centralising all learning activities, including online learning. A key benefit of the LMS will be streamlined access to courses provided by the ASC, Sport Integrity Australia (incorporating Play by the Rules), and Australian Taekwondo in one central location.

Clubs, coaches, athletes, officials, and parents will now be able to confidently develop their skills and knowledge by accessing training in:

• Community Coaching
• Child Safety
• Community Officiating
• Sport Governance
• Inclusive Sports Practices

Australian Taekwondo will gradually migrate its existing course suite to the new platform, starting with the Kyorugi Performance Coach Accreditation, which it’s worked hard on to simplify the renewal and document upload process.

The new platform also enhances learning opportunities for Australian Taekwondo volunteers, empowering them and providing the support they need to deliver positive sports experiences.

A focus on education

“To successfully grow participation and engagement in Taekwondo, we recognised that education had to be a key focus,” explains Robbie Wallace, Head of Participation at Australian Taekwondo. “To make a real difference, our sport urgently needed to implement some fundamental changes, ensuring it was feasible to effectively deliver our own educational resources.”

In addition to being a key element of Australian Taekwondo’s future growth and engagement strategy, the shift to the new LMS is vitally important for the overall customer experience it provides, as well as the ability to reach out and engage with many more people across the community.

“Moving to the ASC’s Learning Centre gives us access to all of the courses and content the ASC produces, all in the one spot. Some of their content even forms a mandatory component of our coaching and officiating courses. This update makes the user journey so much easier. It opens up opportunities for far more integration of all the learning pieces available,” Wallace says.

“And because we’re making it easier to access, all of a sudden our education framework is resourced to a far higher level. We’re able to leverage more easily the excellent work being done by the ASC. That’s a real benefit.”

But improved integration with ASC resources only scratches the surface of what this initiative can achieve.

“Within that framework, we now have the ability to author, upload and manage content ourselves. This will open up the opportunity for us to provide a lot more content than we currently do,” Wallace adds.

“It will also allow us to be very confident at putting out bite-sized chunks of content, knowing that we can easily make edits and updates within our courses – for example, rule updates from World Taekwondo – because we will have full editorial control. So we’ll be able to share bits and pieces for our community to consume, without the fear of spending money to create something that might only have a shelf life of 12 months. On the back of that we can produce more content, knowing that we won’t be creating any problems down the line from having outdated or inaccurate resources online.”

Moreover, the new LMS is designed to better support the Australian Taekwondo community by getting coaches, officials and club owners more involved in the education and training process.

“Practitioners can tell us what types of specific education pieces they would like to be provided, and help us provide, so that we’re offering added value to our sport for years to come. They’re the masters, they’re the ones with all the amazing knowledge about our sport, and we can use that expertise for the benefit of all,” he says.

Future outcomes

In terms of future outcomes, what would success look like for the new and improved learning centre?

“Having content that not only the coaches and officials are engaging with, but parents, children, the wider community, and general participants are jumping on board and accessing. A key initiative will be putting our TKD10 components and videos within the LMS to help continued participation after school programs have been delivered,” Wallace says.

“We also want to reach remote and regional communities where people may not have access to clubs that allow them to experience Taekwondo. Not only will we encourage growth in those areas, at the same time we will be able to measure the results so we know what's being effective and what's not.”

Ideally, in the long term, Australian Taekwondo hopes the majority of its community and membership take advantage of the new LMS, according to Wallace.

“In the short term, success will be improving the experience for coaches and officials, and getting wider engagement beyond those two groups to build up a library of content, such that every single participant's journey within Taekwondo involves touching base with and benefiting from the LMS in some way,” he adds.

“We would love to hear what people think. This is very much a tool for the community, and everyone’s input can help us develop that tool as the community sees fit.”

Australian Taekwondo is grateful to the Australian Sports Commission for this powerful opportunity to link with its Learning Centre and benefit from its strength as an organisation. 

“We thank the ASC for the fantastic support and knowledge it has provided, not just during the migration process, but for how it will continue to help us as a sport after the migration is complete. Well done to the ASC for taking this complex and brave initiative to provide a platform for all sports to use if they wish.”

Access to the LMS is free and available to any member, including volunteer members. To access the LMS, log in via the Australian Taekwondo website (member login button) using your personal credentials.

If you would like to share any ideas or thoughts about developing content for Australian Taekwondo’s new Learning Management Centre, please reach out to Robbie Wallace, Head of Participation, by email: rob.wallace@austkd.com.au