What is VISIT and the VISITview teletraining program? The teletraining approach used by the National Weather Service (NWS) and developed by the Virtual Institute for Satellite Integration Training (VISIT) program is presented. Teletraining is one component of the blended distance learning program utilized by the NWS to provide cost-effective training to the operational weather forecasters located in offices across all of the U.S. The NWS and NESDIS collaborated to establish and fund the VISIT program. VISIT is comprised of staff from the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA), and the NWS training centers. The VISIT and the Integrated Sensor Training programs bring together diverse training activities that have traditionally focused on individual sensors such as radar, satellite, and other observing systems. Since the start of the VISIT and IST teletraining program in April 1999, over 5400 training certificates have been issued to NWS and other operational forecasters. Information on the VISIT program is available at www.cira.colostate.edu/ramm/visit/visithome.asp.

To support the evolving training needs of the operational weather forecaster, the VISIT program is developing a series of instructional components that utilize various training approaches. Training sessions and modules are developed using both remote Web-based and remote-or-local teletraining approaches. To get instructors connected directly with the forecasters in the field, an interactive teletraining tool called VISITview was developed by the VISIT team. VISITview (www.ssec.wisc.edu/visitview/) is a platform-independent distance learning and collaboration software program. It allows multiple users located in different offices to view the same series of images, and provides a large number of features, including annotation, color enhancements, zooming, animations, multi-panel displays, etc. The presentation will provide an update on the latest developments of the VISITview program, a review of the number offices and students participating in teletraining, and include some examples from teletraining sessions that use VISITview.