World Congress on Computers in Agriculture 2009 Workshop

'''"Open Educational Resources and Learning Repositories for Agriculture, Food and Environment"'''

http://www.wcca2009.org/

Tuesday, June 23, 2009, Reno, Nevada (09:40-17:00)


This one-day workshop is aimed at bringing together educational, technology, and content stakeholders that are producing, developing and/or publishing online learning resources on agriculture, food and environment, framing a discussion on the rich potential, challenges and opportunities of online learning repositories and Open Educational Resources in these areas, and engaging participants in OER processes.


'''Facilitators''':

Nikos Manouselis

Greek Research & Technology Network (GRNET), Greece


Jan Beniest

World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Kenya


Amee Godwin

Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) and OER Commons, USA


Thomas Zschocke

United Nations University (UNU-EHS), Germany



'''Workshop Format:'''

- Session 1, 9:40-10:40 (1h)
- Session 2, 11:00-12:00 (1h)
- Session 3, 14:40-15:40 (1h)
- Session 4, 16:00-17:00 (1h)


'''Workshop Description'''

Recent advances in the e-learning field have witnessed the emergence of the learning object concept. A learning object is considered to be any type of digital resource that can be reused to support learning, and may include online courses, best practices, simulations, online experiments, presentations, reports, textbooks, as well as other types of digital resources that can be used for teaching and learning purposes. Their potential to facilitate learning and training in various levels and contexts is rapidly increasing. Learning objects and/or their associated metadata are typically organised, classified and stored in online databases, which are termed as online learning repositories. In this way, their offering to learners, teachers and tutors is facilitated through a rich variety of different repositories that is currently operating online.

While the present and future of rural and agricultural education is asking for synergies across education and production sectors and across age groups, interventions for learning in rural areas still tend to be dispersed and unconnected, and their outcomes scattered and uncoordinated. For example, while several initiatives are producing a growing mass of digital learning objects on topics related to agriculture, food and environment, this content is not characterized by homogeneity, interoperability or wider accessibility on the basis of commonly used specifications and standards. They are usually kept individually listed in separate Web sites, with no clear plan for their aggregation and educational exploitation beyond the narrow scope of the initiatives that are producing them.

Actually, some recent surveys indicate that few learning repositories do include content of rural & agricultural interest. And even in the cases where specialized learning repositories with content around topics of relevance for rural & agricultural stakeholders are developed, these are efforts that aim to serve the needs of specific communities and are not cooperating in order to exchange experiences and content. Only recently some initial steps have taken place, in order to facilitate their joint exploitation. A characteristic initiative is the Agricultural Learning Repositories Task Force (AgLR-TF, http://aglr.aua.gr), which has initiated the dialogue on the potential, technologies, uses and exploitation of rural & agricultural learning repositories (http://aglr.aua.gr/econf.php). The first results have indicated that although a large number of learning resources already exist in digital format, the adoption and use of online learning repositories for agriculture, food and environment is still limited. 

One important emerging trend in the landscape of digital learning objects and repositories is also the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER). Inspired by the open-source software movement, the intentions behind OER are to increase access, use, creation, and knowledge sharing around online, publicly available, and modifiable learning objects, data, media, research, and other materials. With OER, educators are free to use, adapt, remix, and share resources, legally, to fit their needs. Recasting teachers as curriculum creators has the intention to grow their active participation in educational resource reform. There are several relevant OER initiatives related to agriculture, food, environment and other bio sciences, such as the NSF-supported BioQUEST project, Science Collaboratory: Open Participatory Learning Infrastructure for Education (SCOPE) 
http://www.bioquest.org/scope.



'''Workshop Program''' ''(in-progress)'':

<br>
<i>Session 1: Setting the Stage (9:40-10:40)</i>
<br>

Invited short presentations/position statements from selected experts coordinating educational & awareness initiatives for agriculture, food & environment. Aims to give an idea about what is happening now, so that the workshop participants can connect to how current educational initiatives relate to OER. Confirmed position statements by: F. Zazueta (USA), M. Herdon (Hungary), A. Kawtrakul (Thailand), and the Workshop facilitators.

<br>
<br>
<i> Coffee Break, 10:40-11:00</i>
<br>

<br>
<i>Session 2: Introduction to Open (11:00-12:00)</i>
<br>

- What does open mean to you?: Responding to prompts and clustering activities, we will draw out perceptions, challenges, and benefits around using and sharing online resources.
<br><br>
An Introduction to OER
<br>
- What are OER?, What are the benefits of using and sharing OER?, Who provides OER?, How do we use and share OER?
<br>
- OER Commons Tutorial- Using the live site (http://www.oercommons.org) participants will be introduced to finding and identifying resources: metadata, social tagging, and licensing materials for sharing
<br>
- Resource Identification: Participants will have the chance to find and evaluate OER materials, and answer the following questions: Why did you choose this OER? Would you use this OER, if so, how would you adapt it to fit your needs? What modifications would you need to make? What attributes of a resource might enable it to be useful in new contexts or across borders?
<br>
- Participants discuss their experiences identifying, using, and modifying content they have found online; and their experiences using digital and social learning practices and tools and how these relate to agricultural-infused learning.
<br>

<br>
<i>Lunch Break, 12:00-14:40</i>
<br>

<br>
<i>Session 3: OER and Collaboration in Agriculture and Science Education: Hands-on Creating (14:40-15:40)</i>
<br><br>
An Introduction to the Collaboratory Model: Hands-On and Group Discussion
<br>
- Where do innovative and investigative approaches to learning and OER meet?
<br>
- Participants will work in small groups to explore and model the collaboratory process of designing a problem space for inquiry-based learning. Using a variety of collaborative tools, we will begin to build shared reusable resources in participants' topics of interest. 
<br>

Discussion: What OER has to offer: motivations, opportunities, and challenges?<br>
- OER and Agricultural resources curriculum: What opportunities for “open” are especially relevant for science education and the agricultural context? We will refer to examples of resources, web sites, and projects that are illustrative of opportunities and challenges for teaching and learning in this discipline.
<br>
<br>

<i> Coffee Break, 15:40-16:00</i><br>
<br>
<i>Session 4: Collaborative Work and Wrap-Up (16:00-17:00)</i>
<br>
The Workshop will close with an Open Collaborative Activity, during which participants will have an opportunity to brainstorm group collaborative project ideas: 
<br>
- Groups will be formed based on theme interests, work with OER-C, post, tag, review, modify resources, create activities and OER.
<br>
- Collaborative Project Presentations: What is your theme and what are the next steps?
<br>
- Summary: collecting and evaluating our learnings and potential impacts for education
<br>
- Reflection: Share one thing learned and/or a highlight of the workshop.



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