(radio static) - Roger, 4807, approaching Runway 7 bravo. - The Air Force has announced the creation of a new information operations technical training school. - The first command simply must arm our airmen to outthink, outperform, out-partner, out-innovate, any potential adversary. - Air Force basing military training has an updated curriculum with a new focus on readiness and lethality. - This is the Developing Mach-21 Airmen Podcast. (techno music) - [Dan Hawkins] Hey, hey everybody, welcome in to the show, Episode number sixteen of the podcast today, and thanks for the subscribe, stream, or download, however you might be listening in as you drive home from work or you're getting in that workout at the gym. We definitely appreciate you taking time out to give us a listen. If you get a chance, we certainly would appreciate a review! Throw us a few stars. Whatever you might have time for. Tell us how you're liking the show. We always appreciate your feedback, and like I said, Episode 16 of the podcast today, and it's a pretty good one. Chief Master Sergeant Steve West from the AETC Studies and Analysis Squadron joins the show. He is the program manager for the Air Force Handbook 1 phone application, and that was just released by AETC, announced on Chief Gudgel's Facebook page, that she shares with General Webb, on Friday, September 6th, it was available for both iOS and Android and he is the program manager, Chief West, and he's gonna talk to us all things about the phone app, and it's really cool because the phone app was developed for both promotion testing, resourcing, and a professional development tool. So, it's not just a one-stop thing. You can use this phone app for a lot of different things. It's really built around three different sets of tools, if you will. There's a resources section, which has all things like the Air Force Handbook, the Little Brown Book, the Little Blue Book, and then you can go into the learning tools, themselves such as a study guide, practice tests, flash cards. There's even a pretty cool game. And it's a game that's designed for not only people who are going to be promotion testing, but also, for people who just want to expand their professional knowledge, and there's also a link to the podcast that have the audio versions of the Air Force Handbook for those who like to listen as they learn. And then there's also a section on the app for saved content where you can bookmark certain sections, maybe that you want to go to. You can highlight certain sections of your study guides. So, if you're kind of in old-school type of learner, you can still do it the old-school way, and learn that way. And there's just a lot of cool features inside of this app that Chief West goes deep into, and I don't really want to go into all of them and steal his thunder. I need to keep you in a little bit of suspense, but there's just a lot of specialization you can do inside the app to really make it what you want it to be. So, it's just a great tool and one of the other things that I really found interesting about the tool was, it's really designed around people at a certain point in their careers or a certain rank. It's not just an over-generalized app, and so you can really specify, really down to some nitty-gritty details on what you wanna learn. And then the other great thing is, and if you're a little older, you might recall, and even now if you go into the app store, you can find a lot of promotion study and resources that are out there, that cost a good deal of money, and this app is completely, 100%, zero cost. Free for everybody to download and use, and another great sign, you know, for our Airmen in terms of them being able to save money. So, it's just a great tool to use, so I hope you find the information interesting. So, buckle up. Chief West takes us along the Air Force Handbook 1 Phone Application ride. Away we go, with Episode 16 Developing Mach-21 Airmen starts right now. (swooshing) - [Hawkins] So Chief, tell us a little bit about yourself. - [Chief West] Well, I'm Chief West, Steve West, and I've been in the military, in the Air Force, for about 27 years. Actually, 1 September marked my 27th year. So, pretty excited about that. Didn't think I would make it this far, but I have. (laughing) I have worked some pretty interesting jobs, Ammo by Trade, Ammo rule. So, Ammo by Trade, and from Ammo, I went to work at the Defense Rate Reduction Agency for a little bit. I worked in the Pentagon. I've done Air Force under guard, drill team. I was the director for the museum program for a little bit. I've worked A4 as a mass comm functional manager, and Chief Gudgel, our Command Chief, needed some work to be done over in the Studies Analysis Squadron. So, she placed me over there as the program manager for Air Force Handbook 1, and that's how I ended up here. - [Hawkins] So, the Air Force Handbook 1 has seen some pretty significant changes, and probably the biggest change, at least in terms of access for Airmen is the new Air Force Handbook 1 app. Now available on the Apple and Google Play platforms for iOS and Android. Pretty exciting times. So, how did this project come about? What was the genesis for making the Air Force Handbook 1 phone app happen? - [Chief West] So, in the past, before-- before PDG Gold, me, I can talk about me, me as a young Airman, I couldn't afford to go and pay 80 bucks for a study tool to help me advance in rank. So, I used flash cards, or note cards, and I made my own questions. I separated them by chapter with rubber bands and threw them in a shoebox. And, that was my study guide for preparing for rank. Today we have the Air Force Handbook, we have a website, and they're able to go out, and listen to MP3's on the website, or view their study guides on the website. So, we wanted to take it a little bit further with an app. We know that Airmen, they work hard for their money. We put a lot on them each and every day to accomplish the mission. We know that every Airman doesn't have a computer that they can access every day. So, we basically decided to build something that they could use, and something that they already use every day, and that's their mobile phones. And with this app, they're able to, at any place, any time, download audio files, and do different things with this particular app to prepare for promotion testing. - [Hawkins] And it's really cool when you really get into the weeds on the app, because it's not just an app for people who are promotion testing. I think that's what's great about it. It's not like a one-time thing. Like, "Hey, I'm studying for technical sergeant, and then after I take my test I don't need this." You can actually use this app for professional development any time. - [Chief West] That's correct. So, right now we have an all-in-one type of app to where everything's in one area. So, if you're preparing for the next rank, there are tools and features in this app that will allow you to do so. If you are going into this app for resources and to develop as an Airman in your day-to-day job, or just in your professional development, there's resources for that as well. - [Hawkins] So, it's really interesting to me when you download the app and you first open it and it loads, the very first question that you, as the user, get asked is, "What's your rank?". And so whether you're a Staff Sergeant, or whether you're a Chief Mass Sergeant, there's a spot for you in this app. Can you kinda talk to the thought process behind that as the open, and what the thought process is by having different areas in the app for you based on where you're at in your career or your rank? - [Chief West] All right, great question. So, as you know, testing for Chief would be different for testing for Staff Sergeant. So, what we wanted to do was, soon as you open that app, we wanted you to know that, hey, here's-- here's your area. Find your area, and select your areas, because testing is different for each rank. We ask for different things. We have different requirements for each of our ranks. So, when they go in, for example, they will see all of the different ranks. If they're testing for Staff Sergeant, they can select the Staff Sergeant chevron, and go right into something that's geared specifically for that rank. So, instead of them just going in and having this big broad idea of what to study for, and just needle-in-a-haystack type of studying, we've focused it down to a specific rank. So, that they don't waste their time, because we know that time is valuable for our Airmen. We don't waste their time studying things that aren't relevant to what they're preparing for. - [Hawkins] So, there's a lot of resources. So, I clicked on Technical Sergeant, just as, to give me a starting point when I went into the app, and I see so many places to go here on the landing page itself. The Air Force Handbook, Little Blue Book, Little Brown Book, there's a study guide, flash cards. Can you just talk through some of the big things that you guys were trying to accomplish, both from having all of these different resources in there, besides just what an Airman would need to study for promotion? - [Chief West] Okay, the big three areas that I want you to remember is, there's learning tools, there's save content, and there's resources. So, the resources are for anyone. You know, if you're trying to develop-- Say you're trying to write a-- a feedback. You can go in and grab the Little Blue Book or the Little Brown Book and that'll allow you to have black and white references for your feedback. Say you wanted to study for a specific rank. You have study guides. You have audiobooks. So, if you're riding down the road in your car, and you wanted to listen to Chapter 25, you could basically link that to your car, and just listen to that as you ride down the road. We have flash cards. So, a big change from my days of building flash cards on note cards and throwing them in a shoebox. To, you have flash cards in this app that you can basically access any time any where. So, those are some of the big things that we have in there. And, yeah, pretty exciting times. - [Hawkins] It really is, and one of the things I found really interesting was the game, and so, I thought maybe it was just a pretty simple game, but there was actually a lot of thought that went into this game and it's designed to help, not only people studying for promotion, but you also have an avenue for people who aren't studying for promotion to use the game. So, can you tell us a little bit about that? - [Chief West] So, the game was basically built off of a battleship-type of style game. I know that we're Air Force, but this was a really cool concept that we wanted to bring into the app and we think that Airman will enjoy. So, being Ammo, I didn't put the munitions in there, because I was Ammo but that did have a little bit of play in it. So, you're able to go into this game, and do different things, and you have different objectives based off of what rank you are. For example, if you're testing to Technical Sergeant, your theme would be the Persian Gulf War, or if you're testing to Staff Sergeant, your theme would be Cyber Security, and you have these different assets that you have to go in and reveal, and you reveal those assets by answering the questions correctly. And when you're all done, there's some pretty cool things, that I don't wanna reveal here, but you're gonna see some pretty cool things happen on the screen once you've completed the game. We also have a opportunity for each Airman to go out there, and this is volunteer only, to put your name in there and it'll show you what your rank is across the Air Force as far as playing this game. So, it's a little bit of friendly competition going on in there. So, you can see an Airman over at Scott Air Force Base and how they did compared to how you did. So, again, I don't wanna reveal too much about the game, but I guarantee that you're gonna enjoy it. - [Hawkins] So, to unveil all the suspense you gotta download the app, which again, it's available on iOS and Android devices, so really cool. Another really cool thing that I saw when I was in here a little bit earlier, was the fact that when you develop the flash cards it gives you an option on the bottom of the screen, like, if I want 25 cards or I want 50 cards. So you have, again, more measure of control over the learning that's happening. Really cool. - [Chief West] Yes, yes. So not only do we have those options in there with our flash cards, but we also have the Save Content area. So, say you go into the study guide of the audiobook, you're able to highlight different areas in there, and then you go back and make bookmarks, and notes, and things of that nature. So, when you go back to your Save Content, you can pull up those different things that you've highlighted and those different notes that you've made. You can flag different flash cards that you may be having an issue on, and in your Save content area, you're able to go back and find all those things that you highlighted, or bookmarked, or made notes on, and even your practice test questions that you get incorrect. You can all save that in the Content area and go back and review, and make sure that you're squared away, so when you step into that testing room you're ready to go. - [Hawkins] So, it's been awhile for me, but one of the big things, I was that old-school, I like the hard copy, right? 'Cause I like to mark it up with my notepad and pen, and get it just written all over the place. But another cool aspect of this is you can actually do that digitally, but you can mark it up, you can highlight stuff with a highlighter. So, it has everything even for little bit of, maybe the older crowd too, right? - [Chief West] Correct. So, we're keeping everybody in mind here. Again, this app is not only for folks that are testing for rank. It's for all those Airmen out there that are civilians, are officers, are enlisted folks that aren't testing. No longer testing, and they're just trying to make themselves better Airmen. So, this tool is for everyone. - [Hawkins] And I didn't really note it, but even in the practice test, similar to the flash cards, you can even craft up your own 20, maybe you're in line, and you're waiting for an appointment for example, but you've only got five minutes, you could still take a 25 question practice test. Or if you have a lot longer, you could make yourself a hundred question test that generates. So, you guys really kinda thought about the time factor too. Whether somebody has five minutes, or whether somebody has an hour, or two hours, this app can be useful. - [Chief West] We're thinking about every Airman. We're thinking about those Airmen that are in jobs that they may only have a few minutes to take a look at the Airmen down range, they may only have a few minutes to look at their phone, or look at a device to prepare for promotion testing. So, our focus is, first, the mission first, and then them being able to have a tool that allows them to prepare for promotion testing and do their job at the same time without any delays in the ops tempo. - [Hawkins] And so, realizing that this is a brand new product and you guys are still developing it, the 2017 version of the Handbook is actually loaded right now. Can you talk about that? Where it's at right now, and then where the app is gonna go with the updates that's gonna happen in a few weeks? - [Chief West] So, right now, as I mentioned earlier, we have the 2017 out on iOS and Android, so in the Apple store and the Google Play stores. And that is the 2017 version. So, that version is basically the preview for what we're gonna launch on 1 October, and that's gonna be the 2019 version. This version will have, when you log in, it'll have a developmental area, for all those Airmen that aren't testing for promotion, and then it'll have a testing area, for those Airmen that are testing for promotion. And then there's a few other features that we've added to the app to make it a lot better based off of what we learned from the 2017 development. - [Hawkins] And so, at the end of the day, this app, which again, you can find for Apple and Android devices, it's really a lot of things, it's professional development, it's providing Airmen a free resource, or zero-cost resource, to them to help them prepare for promotion testing. It's giving control of learning to Airmen so they can access this kind of material anywhere, any time, on any device really. And so, this really speaks to what our leadership here in AETC, including Chief Gudgel, what we're really trying to do for our Airmen. - [Chief West] Right. So, this again, like you'd mentioned earlier, it's a free app. So that's one of our big things is we didn't want Airmen going out spending their money on a product that, when we, as the Air Force, can provide our Airmen with the products they need for promotion testing. We owe that to our Airmen. We're listening to you. So, keep talking to us. Just because we don't answer you today, doesn't mean we're not listening. So keep talking to us, and we'll keep producing, we'll keep providing the things that you need, because that's our job. You don't work for us, we work for you. So, that is our job as leaders. To get you what you need to take care of the mission. - [Hawkins] And if Airmen do have feedback, on the app, how can they submit that? Or how can they get that in front of you? - [Chief West] So we have a number that's listed on our website. And we also have a org box that you can send that to. And that's also listed on our website. Our Airmen Advancement website, and you're able to actually call in and speak with someone about any issues that you may have, or you can send an email and that email will be answered, and you will receive an answer on whatever issues you may have out there. - [Hawkins] Well, this was really, really enlightening today, Chief, and, appreciate it. Anything else you wanna add before we close this up? - [Chief West] Yeah, first I wanna thank Chief Gudgel for giving me the opportunity to come down. I didn't know what I was going to come into contact with, but it's been an opportunity that, just been, it's been fantastic. Some days are longer than others, but that's what we do as Chiefs. But I would be wrong if I didn't mention the 35+ SMEE's ranging in the ranks of Airmen A1C, to Chief Mass Sergeant, GS7 to GS12, Lieutenant to Lieutenant Colonel that actually helped in the development of this particular app that we're speaking of. And we also have our program manager Denny Hendrick, we have Dr. Sue-- or, not Dr. Sue, Mr. Sue, and we have Jesus Caro, and the folks over at CSS, that have just been instrumental in getting this app where it needs to be. Making sure that it is QC'd for the different technology and things of that nature. So, I thank my SMEE's, and, I look forward to them, in helping us get this 2019 version out to the Airmen on 1 October. So, thank you. - [Hawkins] All right, well, thanks for your time today, and we'll be looking for it. (whooshing) Wow, just a ton of great stuff to unpack from the podcast today, truly an awesome resource for both professional development and promotion testing, for Airmen of all ranks, so, hope you got something worthwhile out of it, and Chief West was talking a little bit about feedback there at the end of the pod, and one of the ways you can provide feedback or, actually two ways, is you can give him a call, (210) 652-4075 is the number that you can reach Chief West, or you can send him an email, and it's at A-F-H, that's alpha, foxtrot, hotel, at us.af.mil, afh@us.af.mil if you wanna give Chief West some feedback on the app, or something that you might wanna see again, and an update is gonna come out soon, on 1 October, so the 2019 version will update on the application. So, a big thank you to Chief West for stopping by, we had a great time talking all things about this phone application. As a reminder, you can follow Air Education and Training Command on our social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as on the web at www.aetc.af.mil. I also want to give a quick plug, Lieutenant General Webb and Chief Gudgel are on social media, they have an AETC Command Team Facebook page, and you can also find them on Instagram, they haven't done a lot of posting yet on Instagram, they're already active on Facebook, but you can go out and touch base with them on both Facebook and Instagram. So, please, please, please, give them a follow, check them out, they really wanna connect with you where you're at. So, we'll close out the show, for our entire AETC Public Affairs team, I'm Dan Hawkins. So long! We'll talk to you next time, on Developing Mach-21 Airmen.