Digi Grant Presentation

Digital Media & Learning Competition

2008

Innovation inParticipatory Learning

The Livestock and Poultry Environmental Learning Center

•Why was the LPELC created?

•What have we already accomplished?

•Where can we go from here?

•What is innovative about this?

•What are the potential impacts?

Why Was the LPELC Created?

• Connect experts to the target audience

• Get research-based information to those that use it

• Implement a customer-driven approach in creating digital, on-demand learning experiences

Funded by a National Facilitation Project grant from USDA CSREES(Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service)

Our Target Audience:People that make or influence

on-farm environmental decisions

Livestock and Poultry Producers

Technical Service Providers

Consulting Engineers

Nutrient Management Planners

Extension Agents

Regulatory Agency Staff

State & Local Policy Makers

Agricultural Organizations

Environmental Organizations

Our Target Audience:

•Often are rural residents with limited access to national educational learning opportunities

•Possess a great deal of “on the ground” knowledge about animal systems and technologies (what works and what doesn’t)

•Includes groups with a history of being “at odds” with each other

When these groups connect and collaborate, some really amazing things have happened

Our Team

• Over 120 subject matter experts from across the country

Land Grant Universities

Federal Agencies:

USGS, ARS, EPA, NRCS, CSREESState

Agencies

Environmental Organizations

Private Consultants

Advisory Team-representing target audience

Our Team

Is comfortable collaborating with each other in a technology-based environment, but…

Students aren’t the only ones that benefit from participatory learning.

…they miss the interaction with the audience and feedback from face-to-face learning experiences.

What Have We Accomplished?

Built a comprehensive web resource

http://www.extension.org/animal+manure+management

http://www.extension.org/animal+manure+management


In our first six months as part of the National eXtension (pronounced e-extension) Initiative, our website received just under 110,000 page views.

80% of that traffic was from search engines

What Have We Accomplished?Over 20 live webcasts on topics like…

What Have We Accomplished?Over 20 live webcasts hosted on topics like…

RegulationsPathogens

Market-Based Conservation Antibiotics and

HormonesGenerating Energy from ManureAir Emissions


• Over 100 sites (140+ viewers) connect to the live monthly webcasts.

• Approximate 1200 connect to one or more of the archived webcasts each month.


• Offered continuing education opportunities for environmental professionals– Certified Crop Advisers– Registered Professional Animal Scientists– Technical Service Providers– Professional Engineers

• 1200+ subscribers to monthly newsletter


Based on evaluation surveys…

• Users regard the learning resources highly compared to other resources they use

• The information has improved their work performance in several areas

• They want more!

Where Can We Go From Here?

First, let’s review the current situation….

The Situation

Cooperative Extension faculty (a large segment of our team) have extensive experience with participatory learning in face-to-face settings and value the experiential knowledge of their clientele.

They are also comfortable in technology-based environments for collaboration with each other.

The Situation, continued

As the size of farms grows and the number of farms shrinks, there are fewer members of the target audience and they are becoming more distant (spatially) from each other.

They are looking for ways to stay connected with colleagues, peers, and experts.

The Situation, continued

There is a growing knowledge base on effective digital-based education and an explosion of free (or low-cost) tools that put these practices into the realm of reality for educators willing to adopt them.

Team members have especially taken notice during the three-year arc of the Learning Center project.


We would like to take the Learning Center to the next level…a “Learning Community”

…a multi-faceted learning resource that allows for and encourages differing levels of participation and allows the user to customize their learning experience


• Help the target audience connect with each other (as well as us)

How? Develop a social network site that is highly integrated with our existing website and encourages participation through discussion forums, photo and video sharing, collaborative wikis, social bookmarking, surveys (and more!)


Harness the knowledge and experience of the target audience through their contributions and enrich the learning resources over time.

How? Regular reviews of the social network activity will be used to set priorities for developing new resources, enrich existing resources , and explore new topics.

Where Can We Go From Here?In-depth learning courses, eligible for continuing

education units, that include appropriate participatory elements & assignments

How? Convert existing curricula into digital products (organized in Moodle) and incorporate discussions, summaries and evaluations of resources, social bookmarking, photo sharing (and more!)


Develop at least one interactive tool that allows the user to develop a visual, individualized environmental plan

How? Adapt an existing Flash application (decision support tool) to reflect the selected planning process and expand it to interface with a mapping application (Google maps?)

If we build it, will they come?

Statistics show that even in a participatory environment, many prefer to assume the role of “spectator” while others will participate in “flows” and “ebbs”.


We believe that the proposed learning community will be useful and relevant at all levels of participation. We also believe that the varied opportunities for participation (from individualized plan development all the way to social networking) will provide a comfortable platform for many different types of learners to engage.


Peer leaders will be critical….

The peer leaders (described further in the proposal) will be important to “break the ice” and encourage others to participate in the learning community


Bottom line…

With the large community of interest the LPELC has already engaged, the varying opportunities for participation, and encouragement of peer leaders, we believe that we can achieve the very ambitious objectives within a one-year time frame.

What Is Innovative About This?

• Encouraging the learner to put on the “teacher” hat and add their knowledge to the collective

• Offering multiple paths to participation in the learning community

• Centered around credible, research-based information (important with a controversial topic like livestock impact on the environment)


• We also believe that this effort is unique in working with such a large, multi-disciplinary, multi-organizational team of experts and giving them the skills to continue to participate and facilitate the learning community in the long-term (past the life of the grant)


Impact Evaluation—The participatory nature of the community

should also help us evaluate the impacts of the LPELC against our ultimate metric…

Are more actions being taken to protect the environment as a result of this learning community?

The Livestock and Poultry Environmental Learning

Center Community

Thank you! We appreciate your consideration for this award.