MyBase takes top AETC prize

Published Jan. 27, 2010
By Angela Cutrer
Keesler News staff

KEESLER AFB, Ms. -- The 81st Training Wing's MyBase prototype project team pushed hard to usher in the latest teaching technologies with its virtual classrooms. For its work, the team was recognized at the 2009 Air Education and Training Command Symposium with the top prize in the second annual Learning Innovation Award program.

"Having an innovative thought or idea is wonderful," said Stanley Hall, training technology flight chief for the 81st Training Support Squadron. "Putting all the individual pieces together to make the idea a reality is outstanding. The group effort across all these squadrons showed what Team Keesler is all about."

The award was open to all AETC personnel, civilian and military, and the winners were selected by a panel composed of AETC personnel from the disciplines of operations, communications, plans and programs and information technology. Nominees submitted narratives based on advances in future learning efforts as embodied in the AETC white paper, "On Learning: The Future of Air Force Education and Training."

Keesler's team won in the training category, which considered teams on the basis of "an improved learning result based on advanced technologies or on the basis of technology inserted into existing active courses." Submissions could include, but were not limited to, "any learning innovation which contributed to the effectiveness and efficiency of the learning process."

The Air Force's new interactive, avatar-centric, computer-based virtual classroom time has not only found itself a home at Keesler, but as a virtual environment for collaboration across institutions as well as for service training. MyBase came to be in an effort to find a cost-effective -- as well as technologically edgy -- approach to bring education to the military masses. It's a virtual education system aimed at the public as well as recruits and career airmen, said a recent military story about the concept.

"The young men and women who will lead our Air Force in the future have been living in a digital world their entire lives and are better prepared than any other generation to operate in this environment," said Gen. William Looney III, former AETC commander. "It is imperative that we understand their needs and expectations, and develop an enterprise-wide system that fosters learning and captures their most critical asset -- knowledge."

That's just what Keesler's team did Oct. 14 with the kickoff of the communication and electronics quality assurance course that normally would have been conducted on-ground in Jones Hall at Keesler with the instructor front and center.

The new delivery mechanism staged the instructor nearby in another room, communicating with students via the virtual classroom. In the final increment of this prototype, the instructor may be at Keesler, but the students could be located anywhere in the world. "We are trying to duplicate the in-residence training exactly, but in a virtual environment," Mr. Hall said.

"When all is said and done, the students can take that same course (while physically located at) their own base rather than coming to Keesler on temporary duty."