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Education
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Training without travel
Air Force bases save time, costs with satellite-based distance learning
Jun 21, 2005
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by Nancy Caronia
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Satellite-based distance learning has become the training method of choice for many DOD agencies. One of the largest deployment methods for this type of training and education within the Air Force is the Air Technology Network.
Founded 14 years ago, the ATN uses compressed digital video to reach nearly 10,000 students at 150 sites within the Air Force, including 15 locations in Europe and the Western Pacific. Programs are broadcast from uplinks at Wright-Patterson, Maxwell, Sheppard, and Keesler Air Force Bases.
Convergent Media Systems, in partnership with AT&T Government Solutions, operates and maintains the ATN with around the clock network management. In addition, Convergent provides design, integration, installation, and monitoring services for all ATN satellite uplinks and downlinks.
“We were the first to pioneer an intergovernmental network and the first to use digital satellite in the federal government — and now we’re connected to 17 other agencies. In 1992, we did our first satellite digital broadcast using Compression Labs, Inc. Spectrum Saver,” said Philip J.-L. Westphal, Ph.D., director, Air Technology Network, Air Force Institute for Advanced Distributed Learning.
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| Distance learning videos are produced at Dobbins ARB to train Air Force field personnel how to load aircraft with heavy gear. |
In Touch For Less
ATN is interoperable with the Air National Guard’s Warrior Network and the Army’s Satellite Education Network. These three DOD networks are part of a larger network known as the Government Education and Training Network, which ATN pioneered. GETN has approximately 8,000 scheduled hours of broadcasting (3,500 from ATN alone) from 14 uplinks reaching out to more than 1,100 receive sites on a yearly basis.
ATN is an interactive television network that consists of one-way video uplinks reaching receive-only downlinks with two-way audio interaction. What makes this unique, according to Westphal, is that the downlink can receive the satellite video and audio feeds live from the originating base or unit. Plus, through the live two-way audio feed, students can communicate with facilitators, educators, and other students through the audio conferencing unit’s push-to-talk microphone.
Tech. Sgt. Glenn N. Kanak, distance learning program manager, Air Force Reserve Command, concurred, “The audio return is integrated into the broadcast or uplink, and that means we can have every single vocation in the world on this network. The added feature allows someone in Wisconsin to ask a question and another person in California to hear it.”
Additionally, the Wright Patterson hub saves almost $250,000 a year through its ability to multiplex, said Westphal. “We’ve been doing digital video for about the same price, but now, with multiplexing, the cost is driven down to $160 per hour. We can hit the whole world at that price. We started out at $200 an hour, but if we simplex the signal it’s $265 an hour,” he explained. “We use eight Tandberg 6000 encoders and get feeds in from 13 different locations into those encoders. The terrestial link is so cheap because the bottom has dropped out of plain old telephone costs.”
Simplified Production
While it’s clear that satellite-based DL education and training is an effective cost-cutting device and enhances the quality of life for trainees, military agencies must find a way to produce professional quality broadcasts with personnel who are often inexperienced videographers and post-production neophytes. The Georgia-based Dobbins Air Reserve Base and Robins AFB turned to Convergent for a studio-in-a-box solution that allows them to create professional quality videos without a large or professionally trained staff.
Convergent’s ADEPT (Advanced Electronic Production Technology) offers all the functions of a traditional TV studio compressed into a one-person control room. It provides digital recording, editing and playback capabilities, robotic cameras, as well as virtual sets and low-heat florescent studio lights.
“ADEPT is a full broadcast quality television studio with lots of tools that allow high quality graphics. It has an ergonomically designed one-person desk with three electronic screens to run all elements of the broadcast,” explained ADEPT design engineer Phil Tweedy.
The robotic cameras are controlled remotely and Tweedy said that Sony and Panasonic are his robotic cameras of choice. He also noted that Dobbins asked for and received a third manned handheld camera. The base also uses a Mackie audio board with wireless mics from Shure and Tram, as well as a GlobeCaster from GlobalStreams for editing.
The Dobbins ARB studio was completed in 2004 and provides training for approximately 3,000 personnel per year. The ADEPT studio is used to design and create programs that train Aerial Port field units on the protocol, processes, and procedures for loading aircraft, according to Kanak. Loading aircraft with pallets, trucks and other heavy gear is no easy task, and designing effective DL training videos can be challenging, particularly in the small studio space located within an aircraft hanger.
“Dobbins, by virtue of what they’re delivering training for, is a very visual environment,” noted Tweedy. “While the studio space is absolutely tiny, they’re on a bluescreen and can create any illusion they’d like.”
“We’re gearing up for new broadcasts, but the Air Force Reserve has Unit Training Assemblies one weekend each month, and Dobbins also provides training to the traditional reservist during these weekends,” added Kanak.
Where Dobbins focuses on the muscle, Robins mission is to train reservist officers in professional development — the “soft skills” of business administration, team management, leadership, and media communication. Housed in the Air Force Reserve Command Headquarters Professional Development Center, the ADEPT studio will train approximately 600 reservists in the coming year.
Course Development
“At headquarters, we’ve gone in depth to develop a professional course before we actually broadcast,” said Kanak. “We’ve done some little things here and there, some quick issues to get some training out to field personnel from the headquarters. However, some key courses that we’re working on are still in the development stage.
“A lot of our stuff is typically one camera using the virtual set backgrounds. We try to make it interesting for the student to watch by using the virtual sets, but we’re not using a whole lot of different camera angles,” he continued. “In the past, when the Air Force had two-way audio and video teleconferencing in place, it was just a camera in a conference room. Maybe we hung a neat picture on the wall in the background. It wasn’t very engaging. The people being trained would get lost and distracted. By switching over to this network not only is there a significant cost saving by using satellite instead of T1, but the ADEPT gave us the capability to add virtual set backgrounds, which has made the presentations more realistic, interactive, and engaging.”
When asked how many staff members shoot a production, Kanak laughed. “It’s a one-man shop. We’re shooting television, so there is storyboarding involved, but we’re also a training delivery facility,” he noted. “It’s a blend of instructional systems design and television production. By virtue of what the equipment does, it’s easily learned.”
While Kanak has enjoyed learning how to use the ADEPT and sees the efficacy of using satellite training, he was quick to point to the key advantage. “We have one specific audience that requires training within six months after their appointment,” he said. “In the past, we’ve had to bring them from their reserve unit to this base for about three days of training. The travel cost plus lodging and food for hundreds of people per year can be significant. We’re saving the cost as far as that, but there is another value.
“Our folks travel a lot. The last thing we want to do is make them travel for training. With this, they are able to stay home and get the training they need. They can go home at night to their families. We don’t have to send them on yet another temporary duty assignment.”
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