JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas – The ‘Big Blue Button,’ a new synchronous learning capability intended to increase course development and execution options, went live in the myLearning platform Jan. 26.
Air Education and Training Command officials announced the update here as part of the third phase of the myLearning platform rollout. The ‘Big Blue Button’ (BBB) provides a collaborative, virtual classroom for course instructors and students to be able interact in a “live” learning environment.
“We are continuing to add capability to myLearning as part of the service’s focus on deliberate development of the Total Force,” said Brig. Gen. Brenda Cartier, AETC director of operations and communications. “The continual push to add functionality to the platform is another way AETC is advancing force development in line with Chief of Staff Gen. Brown’s Action Order-Airmen, delivering innovative learning capabilities that will help enable the identification of the right Airmen, for the right job, at the right time.”
The addition of the Zoom and Microsoft Teams-like capability provides more agility in how the command develops Airmen throughout their career.
“With the addition of the Big Blue Button, instructors are provided modern capabilities to allow for real-time polling of students and adds ability to share screens and videos content,” said Floyd McKinney, AETC Learning Services Operations division chief. “Instructors can send students to breakout rooms for peer-to-peer collaboration and upload or download course documents to exchange information.”
An additional benefit is the ability for instructors to record class presentations to allow students to either re-watch lessons or catch-up on demand if they missed a class for an official reason, such as quarantine, sick call or other, McKinney said.
myLearning debuted as a modern and interactive solution in March and replaced training modules previously found on the Advanced Distributed Learning Service (ADLS). Since its launch, over 970,000 Airmen and Guardians have accessed the site and completed around three million courses.
Other myLearning efforts planned or in-work to be delivered the first half of 2022 include the completion of standard reports to aid course owners and unit training and deployment managers, as well as add the capability to provide course recurrence and bulk completion. Additionally, work continues to integrate multi-functional training and education applications, such as the Member Operations Training Analytics and Reports (MOTAR) program, and the Total Force Training Record 2.0, into the myLearning operational environment.
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