E-learning in the DIGIAGRI Project: free e-tools for tomato, pepper and wine cultivation.
The DIGIAGRI project represents a significant step towards modernising education in response to the demands of digitalisation, with a focus on sustainability and inclusivity, and with a specific focus on agricultural e-materials. Expected outcomes include improved digital and pedagogical skills for educators and increased professional confidence. The project also promotes peer learning and constructivist approaches where students can interact, share and critique each other’s work online, further enriched by theories such as connectivism and communities of inquiry.
Lifelong learning is necessary to adapt to the workplace changes brought about by digitalisation. The DIGIAGRI project will also digitise practice to a certain extent. Lecturers and practical training mentors will upgrade their pedagogical and digital skills, while students will acquire additional digital competences and carry out part of their practical training remotely.
The materials submitted in the online training can also be viewed by other students, who can comment on or critically evaluate them. In this way, the project promotes a higher level or constructivist acquisition of knowledge, where students also learn from each other. Two more recent theories are also relevant for the integration of peer collaboration in online training: the connectivist theory and the theory of communities of inquiry.
This article presents the activities offered by the DIGIAGRI project to develop and improve lifelong learning and competences. The project’s objectives include upgrading the pedagogic and digital knowledge, skills, and competencies of the practical lessons lecturers and qualifying them for an adequate implementation of teaching situations of the practical contents at distance learning in order to be comparable to non-virtual teaching (efficiency, quality). It aims to boost informal professional distance education of lecturers, which will be accessible anywhere and anytime.
Additionally, it aims to enable distance learning for all students, including those with learning difficulties or the socially deprived ones. The project seeks to boost the adaptability of the practical classes and their successful inclusion in distance teaching, in so-called hybrid classes or using the model of distance teaching in cases where a teacher’s replacement is needed. It also aims to ensure sustainability and share the results of the project with other interested publics (e.g., adults included in lifelong learning programmes, vulnerable groups, etc.).
Higher education institutions are also strengthening their development and innovation orientation through digitisation. Four partners from three different states (Spain, Croatia, Slovenia) are participating in the project. The project besides the Slovenian Biotechnical Centre Naklo involves the Croatian Institute of Agriculture and Tourism, the Spanish Association of Agricultural Family Schools Federacion EFA Galicia, and the Slovenian company Mediainteractive, Franc Dolenc, s.p.
The objectives of the project include enabling distance learning for all students, increasing the flexibility of practical training, and improving the pedagogical and digital competencies of tutors and students. The project is structured on two levels: intellectual results (IR) and transversal activities: project management and implementation, project monitoring and evaluation, and dissemination of the project’s results.
The project will deliver the following five results:
- IR1: The analysis of the existing tools, environments, and applications for distance practical classes and study cases.
- IR2: The curriculum of the website training “e-practical classes” and preparation of professional instructions.
- IR3: Application development.
- IR4: E-application development and the preparation of the web-handbook (it will be a free-access handbook, easy to read for vulnerable groups, except for the part on the academic level).
- IR5: Sample e-curricula, their implementation (on terrain) and evaluation in practice.
Distance education is a form of learning and teaching where the lecturer and students are not physically together but use technology to communicate. Students mostly study the material on their own, group meetings are rare, and the lecturer uses electronic learning aids to transfer knowledge. Communication between lecturer and students can be synchronous (simultaneous) or asynchronous (untimed).
The expected and most relevant effects and long-term benefits of the project Didactic-digital tools for the practical contents training will include (among others) the improvement of the pedagogic and digital competencies of mentors, their improved professional confidence, openness to international cooperation, and project work, etc.
Students will acquire equal vocational competencies and skills regardless of the form and implementation of practical classes. Besides vocational competencies, the improvement of the students’ digital competencies is also expected. The project presents great potential for the adaptation of the classes to different situations and emergencies. The materials in the project will be developed in English, Spanish, Croatian, and Slovenian languages.
They will be free of charge, accessible on the web of the project, and function also as an educational platform. There will be varied levels, from academic to easy-to-read level. Easy-to-read publications are necessary for people with various levels of reading disabilities (such as persons with dyslexia and other reading difficulties, intellectual disabilities, neuropsychiatric disabilities, with limited reading skills caused by other factors: recent immigrants and other non-native language speakers, poor readers). The easy-to-read concept pertains not only to language and content but also includes illustrations, design, and layout.
All easy-to-read products will not suit all readers in all target audiences. The project focuses on the production of quality materials for tomato, pepper, and vine cultivation. https://digiagri.miteam.si/ How we learn is important, so a variety of didactic methods should be used to promote the development of cognitive abilities, skills, and competences. The tasks are mainly designed on three levels to achieve also different taxonomic levels and social learning: -Reproduction of theory in the form of quizzes, -Calculation tasks, -Practical work (experiments carried out at home, uploading photos and videos, critical evaluation, comments).
Distance learning promotes interaction between students, which means a higher level or constructivist acquisition of knowledge. Learning is a social process involving communication between participants and mentoring by the teacher. In e-learning, group discussion and peer participation are key elements. The materials in the project will be accessible both at a scholarly level and as ‘light reading’. They will be developed in English, Spanish, Croatian, and Slovenian and will be freely available on the educational platform.
The DIGIAGRI e-application consists of two workspaces: an internal one (DIGIAGRI Students and DIGIAGRI Community) and a public one (DIGIAGRI Public). The internal workspace contains collaborative and educational working groups and other tools such as a content library, members list, publications, and other collaborative tools, but is only accessible to registered users. The public workspace is also accessible to anonymous non-registered users.