Growing our Future Connecting to Life A Project funded by the National VET e-learning Strategy

Growing our Future  The Tasmanian community has a long association with the land both through the Aboriginal cultural heritage and the way of life of the early European settlers.  Today agriculture, horticulture and the broader production of food continue to offer a mainstay to the Tasmanian economy and the potential for growth.

Growing our Skills?  Yet rural skills are in shortage and leadership through engagement in pathways to higher qualifications in critical shortage.  Many rural areas are even deemed at risk of food insecurity because there is inadequate access to diverse fresh food at reasonable cost. Much of the food in rural communities is imported from outside!

Rural Skills Not an industry of choice!

The past … or the future!  Rural skills suffer from negative stereotypes both amongst young people and amongst older generations. A dirty, often under paid industry with long hours …  Neither group is necessarily well informed about the modern state of rural industries and the potential pathways available to those with well developed skills

Challenging the present  The availability of training in rural areas has become an increasing issue as populations have declined and training has become largely urban focused.  Quality training and access to up to date information, role models and experience are also key issues.

Connecting with others Building capacity

Linking Learners  A key objective of our project was to bring learners together  Four schools participated in this project each bring a group of students in to the learning space. They ranged in age and experience of both rural studies and e-learning  By linking learners online economic delivery of skills teaching becomes possible

Linking Teachers – further building capacity Teachers in the four schools have had opportunities to increase their own skills in both horticulture and delivery in a flexible learning environment.

Horticultural Skills shared with iPads Out in the garden the iPad was a means of demonstrating skills and skill acquisition. It was also a means of sharing experiences through short film clips – e.g tools audit done by each school

Social Media plays its Part Our hidden Facebook group was also a means of sharing information gathered across locations and our public page continues to build a picture of the project and of the industry

Blended is Best While we have achieved a great deal onlineMeeting in the real world is also very important

Relationships are as important online as in any classroom and the relationships between the participating teachers are a key to long term success Building relationships Working together online, through demonstration and then in their own gardens and providing feedback to the group. Developing Skills It does not always go perfectly … life doesn’t but we can work at improving the technology, up skilling the staff and where necessary redoing the activity or planting afresh! Overcoming Challenges

As we have gone along we have developed our ideas; worked together to rethink how we do things and gradually refined our ideas – a modular approach to delivery is the point we have reached to date. The gardens have grown and are growing; the people involved have grown and are growing and the ideas that we had have evolved and we hope will continue to evolve creating learning environments that can provide ongoing quality skills education to our students where ever they may be. Growing our Future Creating new models

Connecting to Life  Marcus’ Movie to end on?