E-book technology offers savings, faster updates for weather training Published June 25, 2009 By Susan Griggs 81st Training Wing Public Affairs KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, BILOXI, MISS. -- They're all the rage on talk shows and top sellers on online book stores -- and now the latest electronic book technology is an integral part of training in the 335th Training Squadron's weather training flight. "An e-book is basically an electronic book that allows you to flip through the pages, highlight the text, take notes and even fold the corners of pages so you can go back to reference them," said Capt. Brian Miller, weather officer course instructor. "We're the only ones using them right now at Keesler, but they already use them at Maxwell (Air Force Base, Ala.) and Hurlburt Field (Fla.)" "We're excited to be bringing this technology from the marketplace into the training environment," said Maj. Matt Stratton, weather training flight commander, who said the e-books the flight uses are similar to the popular "Kindle" developed by Amazon.com. Right now, e-books are being used in Captain Miller's course and the open principal user processor radar manager course. By the time the weather flight's operations course starts using e-books next month, the number of students using the devices will top 100. "The next step will be integrating e-books into the 7-month weather forecaster apprentice course, if additional e-books can be procured," Captain Miller commented. The flight originally proposed e-books to the 81st Training Group to reduce printing costs such as paper, ink and wear and tear on printers. As currently implemented, students are issued e-books that are pre-loaded with student texts and slide show presentations. In the future, all reference material will be provided on the e-books as well, including Air Force Manuals and Instructions. However, the cost of printing is not the only advantage to e-book technology, according to Captain Miller. Another benefit is the quick turnaround on course updates and material corrections. "In the past, corrections would be pen-and-ink changes until all material was used or would be an additional cost to the flight to send material back to printers," the captain explained. "Course updates waited for all material to be used before being incorporated into the student text. Now this information can be added overnight, versus the one- or two-week turnaround required for printing." Additionally, the benefit of new technology into the courses brought something today's Airmen are used to seeing and using to the Air Force classroom. "The flight received mixed reviews during the first couple of classes, as it took both instructors and students awhile to get use to using the new technology," Captain Miller pointed out. "Now the feedbacks are mostly positive, with a special note to the ease of carrying and maintaining one e-book versus the amount of paper materials that used to be carried to class every day. "Another benefit that the students enjoy is having access to the PowerPoint slideshows," he added. "This enables the students to be active in class instead of trying to write everything down that is shown on the board."