- Roger, 4807 approaching runway seven bravo. - The Air Force has announced the creation of a new information operations technical training school. (air whooshing) - The first command, simply must arm our Airmen to outthink, outperform, out-partner, out-innovate any potential adversary. - Air Force basic military training has an updated curriculum with a new focus on readiness and lethality. - The first command, the Air Force Starts Here. (dramatic music) (upbeat music) - Hey, everybody. Welcome in to the Air Force Starts Here, episode 46 of the podcast. Thanks for the subscribe, stream, or download. However you might be listening in. If you get a chance to throw some stars or even a review, we certainly would appreciate that as well. My name is Dan Hawkins from the Air Education and Training Command Public Affairs Team, and your host for this professional development podcast, dedicated to bringing total force, big A Airmen, insight, tips, tricks, and lessons learned from the recruiting, training, and education world. Pretty good podcast today, as we sat down with the team from the A3G, inside our A3/6 here at headquarters, Air Education and Training Command, and we are talking all things myLearning. And this myLearning effort is part of AETC's efforts to both aggressively and cost-effectively modernize education and training. It's a top priority of General Webb to advance force development and refine the systems that support the development of those Airmen that we need in tomorrow's high-end fight. So, it's exciting. myLearning is a new secure learning management system that will enable student learning, automation, and reporting for roughly 800,000 total force users in three phases. So, we sat down with Mr. Floyd McKinney, the Director of the A3G, who is leading this myLearning effort. We also spoke with Adam Rasmussen and Lieutenant Colonel Hien Nguyen from the A3, and all of them have so much great information to talk about this three-phased approach to myLearning. Of course, the first one is always the biggest one, right? And so, the ADLS training that you're used to taking is gonna take on a new home inside of myLearning, beginning on March 18th, with initial operating capability. And it really is just the tip of the iceberg. And Mr. McKinney goes in depth about how the program is laid out, and how it's going to tie to the force development efforts here in AETC. And General Leavitt, when myLearning was first announced, talked about, "Hey, this is gonna help us modernize "how we train the force because if we're gonna out-think "and outperform our adversaries "in complex operational environments, "we need to have a modern information technology system." And so, this whole myLearning process is part of that. And so, Mr. McKinney, Colonel Nguyen, and Mr. Rasmussen, they're gonna talk about some of the things that are being talked about out in the field. So, debunk some of the myths, and tell you what's going on, and what the future plans of myLearning, and how it's gonna roll out. So, pretty exciting stuff. I'm not gonna really get too deep into the details because they do too good of a job. So, without further ado, let's talk myLearning. Episode 45 of the Air Force Starts Here kicks off right now. (air whooshing) - Well, hey, good afternoon, Dan. So, Floyd McKinney, retired Air Force. Retired in 2012 out of the cyberspace business, and I've been here with AETC since last summer. Prior to that, I had a great opportunity to work over at Air Force Personnel Center, and work with a fantastic team that was leading the rollout of myPers, and the changes we're making there. So, when this opportunity presented itself, to be a part of another, what I see as groundbreaking opportunity, with the topic that we'll discuss today, myLearning, it was a great opportunity for me professionally and personally. So, looking forward to having this discussion with you today. - And Adam Rasmussen, we're excited to have you. You're brand new to the AETC team. Tell us where you came from. - Yeah, thanks, Dan. Yeah, I'm excited to be here as well. So, yeah, the new Deputy coming in, as of the last month. Coming over here from the A1 Digital Transformation Activity over on JBSA Randolph as well. Was doing the, I was a Division Chief for Requirements and Test over there, supporting a lot of different IT systems in the A1 realm. And very similar to Mr. McKinney's note. Heard about this, was excited to kind of apply and come over, and really, really excited to help out AETC, and rolling out myLearning. - And Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen, I know you also recently joined the A3G team. Tell us a little bit about yourself. - Hey, Dan, yes. I'm semi-new, not as new as Adam, but I've been with the team since January. I'm a reservist on active status working with A3G. So, background is an acquisition officer research analysis and I'm happy to be here with the team, working with myLearning, and bringing this to the force. - Awesome, and Mr. McKinney, I wanted to start with you because myLearning is one of these programs that touches every single Airman across the total force, including civilians. This is not a small project. So, I kind of wanted to give you that opportunity to kind of talk about that strategic worldview of what myLearning is before we got really into the weeds about some of the details. But, what's the takeaway for Airmen? What is myLearning going to do for them? - Sure, thanks, Dan. So, as the name certainly implies, myLearning is going to be the single environment, where we want Airmen to go, and our training managers to go, where content can be consumed, and learning and education can take place. And you're right, this is an enterprise solution that we're rolling out for, it is scaled for 800,000 users, both Airmen, big A, as well as our guardians. Now that we have our U.S. Space Force, we are also supporting that team as well. And so, we want our Airmen, as I said, to be able to have a single spot, and that's the vision. That no longer multiple logins and having to go to different locations to take education and training. But, a single place where they can go. And even if that training is not captured inside of or maintained inside of myLearning, we wanna provide the capability for that training to be consumed from myLearning, and that's the vision that we're working towards. - And it's, this isn't a project that you can just simply make a few coding changes and it's just a new database, right? We're talking about a very holistic system that incorporates, well at some point, will incorporate a whole lot of data, and not just, and we're kind of bearing the lead, right? The ADLS training, that is going to be, in essence, the first set of courseware to go into the system. But, this is just like the tip of the iceberg. - Oh, absolutely. And as you indicated, I can say that in my entire career on active duty, as well as I spent six years in industry before coming back to the federal government, I've never been involved with a project of this size, and trying to deliver at this speed. So, you're right. Huge project with, coming out the gate, we'll have over 1,000 courses that will be available on platform. We'll have not only the capability to deliver training and content, but we have to roll in all of the supporting technology that is needed so that we can really improve how we manage and understand the training that our Airmen have attended and experienced. So, this is a big effort. It requires partnership with a number of organizations. We have 13 interface partners that we have to work with to build this capability out. And probably our most trusted partner in this is, you would be surprised, is AFSOC, because we're able to take capability that is already mature in the Air Force Special Operations Command environment, and we move that to an enterprise solution. So, that gave us an exceptional foundation to start from, and the reason why we've been able to mitigate some risks and move as fast as we've been able to move. - Yeah, and so, Adam, I just wanted to ask you from a directorate perspective, how does this fit into that overall force development, the mission of the A3/6 at AETC? - Yeah, I mean, I think just in a holistic view, I mean, we have the, really, entire A3/6 is supporting this, right? We have obviously the six from our ATO's perspective. The rest of the threes from a force development. So, what we're, what I believe the future of this to be is more of building upon what we're putting out there today and including other new initiatives in the future. So, kind of that holistic view, working across all of the divisions within A3/6 to really understand what those future needs might be. Obviously, we have near term goals. Meeting IOC, rolling out myLearning, our phase one, phase two. But, really, I think from a holistic view, we definitely intend to have this potentially grow in the future and we'll be able to do that across the three and the six. So, yeah. - And Colonel Nguyen, I know when me and you first talked about myLearning on that very first call, you rolled out an acronym at me, that was AIM. And I kind of wanted to talk about what you meant by the acronym AIM and how it applies to myLearning and the benefits to Airmen. - Yeah, so when we were looking at the capability gaps and we looked at the way that our Airmen and guardians are training now, we saw three main areas that needed improvement: accessibility, interoperability, and modernization. As someone who wears a uniform, as someone who was in industry for a couple of years, we had to go where the training was. And when you left, let's say, a MAJCOM and went to another MAJCOM, it was a different set of rules that you had to play when it came to learning and training. And so, if we close those gaps, and we allow the Airmen, or the guardian, or anyone who is involved with the Air Force, or the Space Force, accessibility to the training, right? Where they can go out there and say, "Hey, I'm having a cocktail on the weekend. "I can do some training." I don't have to be stuck at work, right? Or the interoperability piece of it. So, why do I have to log on to separate systems and multiple logins? Why can't I log on to one area, where I can take my training when it's needed? And the last thing is modernization. And that one falls in line with what General Brown is talking about when he outlined accelerate change, right? We need to celebrate change, to accept change, to modernize the system, modernize the way we learn, so that at the end of the day, it helps our our Airmen go out there and support the mission. So, that's where that came from. And then, we believe that if we develop this myLearning system and bring it out there to the field, it will close those gaps. - And, obviously, one of General Webb's top priorities is developing the Airmen we need and the systems that support them. And, obviously, Mr. McKinney, this is a system that supports them. And even General Leavitt said in the announcement that kicked off this myLearning rollout, that this is a modern IT system that's gonna help us modernize the way we train the force. - Oh, absolutely, Dan. I mean, one of the things that we talk a lot about in A3G is the fact that how and where Airmen learn continues to change, and we have to change the way that we present that learning material to them and where we meet them. I like to call it closing the digital divide. And as Hien, Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen indicated, we need to move away from learn from work, to learn from anywhere. And so, that's our mantra, and it takes a modern platform that's interoperable for us to be able to do that. - So, it's interesting, Colonel Nguyen, I know we're kind of in that phase. So, right now projected IOC for myLearning is the 18th of March. But, can you kind of talk to the timeline here for implementing myLearning, at least phase one, this is a three-phased approach, from a planning perspective? But, I wanted to specifically stick with phase one, which is the transition of the training from the ADLS system into myLearning. So, can you kind of talk about that and maybe talk about some of the the issues or the challenges with making this all happen? - Yeah, so anytime you have a enterprise solution, the stakeholders, it's gonna be everyone, right? From senior leadership all the way to the young Airman who's entering the Air Force for the first time. And we're trusting and empowering our leadership, our MAJCOM leadership, our MAJCOM UTMs, to deliver that message out there to say, "Hey, this is happening. "This is why this is happening," right? And, "These are the steps that you need to do "to make sure that you're ready for this." So, having podcasts like this, having articles out there helps, but at the end of the day, it really is how do we get the message across to the Airmen? And so, I think that is probably our biggest challenge, just because if you're using a system, and you're used to it, and it works, why change, right? Why do we need to change? But, we truly feel that once the Airmen, once the user goes into myLearning and tinkers with it, and they can see, "Wow, I have all these capabilities I didn't have before." I can talk to my mentor. They can give me guidance. Oh, this course now has videos, where in the past, they were just PDF files. In the future, when we have collaboration, right, video options, these are things that don't exist today in ADLS. And so, we do need that buy-in from the user, from those higher up, so that we can make this successful. And so far, for the most part, people are excited about this. They're wanting this, right? And so, we're very, really very wholeheartedly that once this rolls out and goes live, that it's gonna be a good thing for the entire force. - And I was really wanting to know too, what the actual, like the dates. So, when does ADLS stop ceasing to work? And really, I know initially, it's gonna redirect to myLearning. So, can you kind of just lay out the next two to three week timeline, so Airmen know what's actually happening with ADLS? - So, 18 March is our go live date. Once you go onto myLearning, it's gonna redirect you to there, so you can go in there. Now, our current plan right now is the end of March is when ADLS will go dark, okay? And so, we gotta make sure that. Our Airmen, for example, we sent out a message that no later than 10 March, right? Go out, and do all your training, and make sure that that's taken care of. I would say as soon as you can. Download your transcripts, right? We don't anticipate issues transferring things over, but just as a best practice for the Airmen to go out there and download their transcripts. So, we do have some backup plans just in case things don't go as planned. But, working with our developers, working with the vendors, right now, everything looks great. And so, we anticipate a flawless launch, and those things that we can work out, we will work them by a case-by-case basis. - And Adam, I ask you from a technological perspective. When you look at this program and knowing that ADLS is kind of step one of a three-phase approach, what do you see as the next step for myLearning? Because I think some would go, "Okay, cool, you just made a new platform for ADLS." But, it's gonna be a lot more than that. What are the next steps? - Yeah, so to kind of build on what Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen was saying. So, we've got phase one going out this month. We've got multiple technologies coming soon to also allow for more collaborative learning. And then, kind of building up to phase two, which is our FOC go in August timeframe. And then, from there, kind of, actually, what I was alluding to earlier is that a new requirements phase, which again, for me, coming over from the requirements side, and DTA having this kind of holistic picture of HR systems, that's gonna be that area we're really starting to flow, right? We've kind of reached where we're humming along, and we're able to start looking forward to new requirements, new customers coming on board, and kind of saying, "Hey, wow, this platform can really provide a lot to us." And then, and they're enabling us to go ahead and say, "Hey, this can be your future as well. "We can bring you on." And that will allow for maybe eventually a single stop shop for all education and training, as we start to allow for others to come on board and potentially decommission some of those other systems. - So, Mr. McKinney, I was curious, when we talk about a holistic one-stop shop and to bring up the ghost of the past of the AFLC and the enterprise system that didn't work, can you talk maybe a little bit about, and maybe this is an opportunity for any of you. I kind of wanted to take a moment and debunk any myths or mistruths from the field. Are there things that maybe are floating around about this whole project that simply either aren't true, or that you've learned from the past and you guys have corrected? So, that way we can move out with this awesome new force development learning management system. - You bet. I think one of the challenge with the previous effort that we had was, I don't know if we truly had the technical underpinning that we needed to create the environment. So, the requirement was valid, and I believe that requirement for that single operating environment remains valid today. But, we didn't have the technology that we needed to have in place to realize that the dream that we had. So, that's what I think the first big things that Airmen will see is that we are beyond PowerPoint slides, right? As Colonel Nguyen indicated, and Adam, we are rolling to IOC on the 18th of March. And so, we have moved beyond that. So, I think that's the first thing that I think folks will see that is different, and I think what we learned about the last effort. I think the other piece that we're hearing is certainly the concern that folks have as we move from one system to a new environment, and will my record and my data flow? And that is a big, big task for us. Just looking at ADLS alone, we have 53 million rows of data that the team is working with to, one, make sure that it's nice, and clean, and ready to go into the new environment. And that's a big task for us, but, and, we've tried to to break that into chunks. And so, data will be available at rollout. We'll be able to, not all data, not 25 years of data, but we're gonna go back and have that three years of currency data so that the Airmen will not have to go and retake training because it's just simply not in their record yet or the data didn't flow. So, we're addressing that head-on with let's make sure that we minimize any impact to our Airmen. And I think the final thing that we've heard is does this take over everything? The previous effort was, well, it becomes this is it, the one-stop shop. And while you've heard us say that, and we believe that that is our vision, I guess I kind of go back to the "Field of Dreams" and say that if we build it, they will come. And so, when folks start to see the value of this platform and the capabilities that we're presenting, which are way more than just a learning management system. Again, improved analytics, just so much more collaboration. We believe that our mission partners will want to bring their capability, or their content, to our platform, and that will then reduce costs to the Air Force at large and get us to that single sign on place, where they can take training, Airmen can take training. So, we believe we're hitting a lot of mission needs. And I would even say there's some things out there that we know that our Airman want. The ability to do AR/VR. Well, we're gonna have that capability. The platform will be ready for that capability. The capability to use gamification in training. Things that we're not doing today, we will have the capability to deliver training in that way. So, we're gonna completely change the, I believe, the learning experience. It is gonna take time, and this will not happen overnight. And we were talking here recently, and I shared that, well, the way the platform looks today, it will look completely different a year from now. And then, completely different five years from now. Because when innovators get out there, when the early adopters get out there, when our Airmen get out there and really start to work the platform, they will be the ones that will truly bring life to this environment and start to use it in ways that we can't even, we don't even envision today. And that's what we're looking for, and I think that's the promise of the future. - Yeah, that's really exciting. I did want to ask kind of a technical question, but, and it's for the group, but security is always a factor when you talk about online environments, especially in this day and age. And so, what is the timeline or the rollout for Airmen to be able to have the capability to do training, whether it be from a different mobile device and not necessarily connected to the old Nipper system of old? - Right, so a couple of things on security, because this is really one of the demand signals that we've heard from the field. And that is the ability to take training beyond unclassified training inside of our environments that we don't have today, right? Not secret level, but certainly getting above just unclass training. So, we are building out this capability in a secure distant environment that will allow us now to get up just below secret. And the expectation moving forward is that we will get to a higher level within the environment that will actually allow us to have classified training on the platform. So, from a security standpoint, we're putting all those safeguards in place to do that. The mobile, the two-factor authentication, the ability to log on without a CAC card, we will have that at FOC or shortly thereafter. That is on our glide path to success, as well as mobile access that we don't have today. So, again, we can detach folks from their government computer and allow them to log on from their phone, or from their iPad, with their user password. And that will be rolled out this summer or shortly thereafter. - And now I know why you need a requirements guy, like Mr. Rasmussen. I imagine his task list is about a mile long. Is that true? Is that true, Adam? - It is, but when you've got a good guy, like Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen there, you just kind of slide it off to him, and then. (laughing) - Well, it definitely sounds exciting, and I know it's a lot of work. And I guess managing expectations is kind of a part of your job, Mr. McKinney, right? But, at the same time, a lot of utility in this new platform and I think Airmen have a lot to look forward to. - Absolutely, and we have a real charge here to meet those expectations that you talked about. And we have to own up to the mistakes that we've made in the past. And understand that when I talk with the team, I like to say that, we don't have a lot of trust equity built up because of the challenges we've had in the past. But, the team that we have now that's in place is a completely new team that was put in place starting this past summer. And AETC has made a significant commitment with standing up a new division and bringing the right resources in place to make this pivot that we need to make. And so, I'm excited. I'm excited about where we're going. I'm cautiously optimistic about what the future holds because we don't wanna get out there and start beating the drum too much. But, I am really optimistic. I believe that what we are delivering will change the experience for our Airmen. - So, again, Airmen, if you're out there listening right now, there's a lot to look forward to. Right now, though, you should be cleaning up your last ADLS courses and getting ready to transition to the new course. I know there's a lot of traffic out there too, about printing out your transcripts just to be safe. But, I think, from what you said, it's fair to say that be patient, the data is going to migrate. It may just take a little bit of time. On day one, you may not see exactly what you thought you might. - Exactly, and that's a great point, Dan. Again, day one, it may not be there. But, hey, day five, day six, it's all flowing. And one of the other things I'd just like to add because we know there's some concern about cyber awareness training and folks being able to maintain access. We're working real hard with the folks at the Air Staff to work a moratorium so that no one gets kicked off the net in the event that they come due for cyber awareness training and it's not in their records, or it's not pushing to the right system. So, we're working that on the back end, and we fully expect that that will be in place before the 18th of March. So, that again, our Airmen will not have to worry about not being able to get on the net and being quarantined because course was not, data was not passing. - Well, exciting times. It's always exciting at headquarters AETC, living the force development dream. Advancing force development, developing the Airmen we need. It really is exciting stuff. Gents, I really just wanna say thanks for your time today. I had a great time. - You bet, thanks. - Thank you, Dan. Appreciate it. (air whoosing) - Tons of great information there to unpack. And myLearning is gonna be on the streets live starting 18 March. So, be on the lookout for it. ADLS training is the first to migrate. So, more to come. You'll get a lot of information through your career field managers, through your unit training managers, and more. Big thanks to Mr. McKinney, Mr. Rasmussen, and Colonel Nguyen for their time talking all things myLearning and how it ties to our force development mission here in AETC, developing the Airmen we need. As a reminder, you can follow Air Education and Training Command and the AETC Command Team on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We're also on LinkedIn. If you haven't found Air Education and Training Command there. And you can also catch up on all the latest news on our website, www.aetc.af.mil. For our entire AETC Public Affairs Team, I'm Dan Hawkins, so long. We'll talk to you next time on the Air Force Starts Here.