E-TRAINING

National Guard, Dec 2006 by Cotton, Erika N

GUARD DISTANCE LEARNING PROGRAMS BRING TRAINING TO SOLDIERS AND AIRMEN

Staff Sgt. Shayne Chapman, a full-time Rhode Island Army National Guard computer specialist, and his wife Jennifer welcomed a child, Tyler, into the world last November.

But the birth of his second son wasn't his only achievement late last year. The sergeant also completed his computer specialist training without having to travel to Ft. Gordon, Ga., where he would have spent four and a half months away from his family.

He was able to stay home with his pregnant wife and their now 2-year-old son, Devin, without missing a beat because he took advantage of the National Guard's distance learning network to complete his military occupation skills qualification (MOSQ) training.

"Command really won. They got to have me here and have me productive at work. We were real short of staff because of deployments," he says. "And because I had just had a newborn and a 1year-old at home at the time it was nice to be able to be with my family."

The distance learning network is not new, but as technology has advanced, more Guardsmen have begun to take advantage of the state-of-the-art multiuse computer and telecommunications classrooms.

In 1995, Congress established the Distributed Training Technology Project (DTTP) (box, page 30), in pan, to solve a chronic Guard training problem: providing soldiers and airmen the training they needed closer to home.

Since then, the distance learning network-the DTTP's data highway-has grown from one test site in Iowa to more than 336 virtually interconnected classrooms throughout the Guard's 54 state and territorial organizations.

All of the classrooms have Internet access as well as voice, video, video teleconference (VTC) and data transfer capabilities.

Although the number of distance learning classrooms per state can range from one to 18, most states average about six, according to Kathy Pritchett, chief of joint information technology programs at the National Guard Bureau.

They are usually interspersed throughout the state at college and university campuses, Guard armories and bases and other suitable facilities.

The network supports many types of military training, including first-responder instruction, casualty assistance training, emergency operations support and anti-terrorism training. It also supports professional development courses, ethics briefings, brigade and battalion meetings and enhanced language development.

"The distance learning classrooms also support our homeland security and our homeland defense missions by providing training for our emergency management and emergency response teams, civil support teams and local and state officials," Ms. Pritchett says.

More recreational purposes, such as checking e-mail, online banking or taking online distance learning courses from colleges or universities is also an option in the classrooms.

"The main difference between distance learning that can be done on any computer and this is that here you link to a live instructor that you don't get with computer software," says Tina Holloway, distance learning manager for the Texas Army Guard. "Most of our courses are interactive courses. You can see the instructor and hear the instructor. The instructor can hear you; the instructor can see you."

This VTC capability allows for face-to-face interaction via satellite and is popular among Guard families, Ms. Pritchett says.

"We always see a big boost in usage right around the holiday season-Thanksgiving through Christmas and New Year'sbecause at this particular time of the year, as well as throughout the course of the year, military families will go to their DTTP classroom and schedule a VTC with their loved one," she says.

STUDENTS MULTIPLY

Usage isn't just up during the holidays, though. The reported total usage hours for the network exceeded 315,000 in 2006, up from about 290,000 hours in 2005, Ms. Pritchett says. And the system logged more than 600,000 users this year, up from 317,000 in 2005.

The reason why isn't hard to figure out, according to Col. Patrick Hamilton, director of joint training, exercise and professional development for the Texas Army Guard.

"The word is getting out," he says. "Believe me, guys don't like to drive down to Austin and spend three days going to class." (The Texas Guard's primary training facility is located in Austin.)

Ms. Holloway agrees, adding that the network is also a huge cost savings for the state, which does not have to pay per diem rates for trips from around the nation's second largest state to Austin.

Ms. Pritchett also says NGB saved approximately $83 million in 2006 by using DTTP instead of sending Guardsmen to school on temporary duty (TDY). That's an estimated $6.9 million per month.

"The cost avoidance is staggering," she says. "The network has paid for itself four-fold with just the cost avoidance reported."

In addition, increased mobilizations and technology improvements are also driving the growth in usage, Ms. Pritchett says.