Co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

contents  overview  content  technology  scenarios  project partners  connect to

overview

Organic.Edunet  builds a multilingual federation of learning repositories  content about Organic Agriculture and Agroecology  for the awareness & education of European Youth

about  Targeted Project  funded by the eContentplus Programme  started on October 2007  duration 36 months  co-funded by EC  Overall budget: euros

rationale (1/2)  irreversible damage done to the environment by current agricultural practices  soil and water pollution  depletion of natural resources  destruction of delicate ecosystems

rationale (2/2)  Organic Agriculture (OA) & Agroecology (AE) as alternative approaches  safer agricultural & food products  environmentally sound production “…need for actions supporting the training and education of all stakeholders related to OA…” EU Action Plan for Organic Food & Farming, 2004

need  systematic collection and categorisation of learning resources related to OA and AE  integrating online environment  increase use and reuse  study & assessment of usage scenarios  in the context of formal educational programs in Europe

objectives (1/5)  support stakeholders producing content about OA & AE  describe according to multilingual, standard-complying metadata  publish in online federation of learning repositories

objectives (2/5)  deploy a multilingual online environment on top of the online federation of repositories  to facilitate end-users’ search, retrieval, access and use of learning resources the Organic.Edunet Web portal

objectives (3/5)  study educational scenarios to support the teaching of OA & AE relevant topics  use Organic.Edunet Web portal to find learning resources in the repositories  targeted user organisations  high-schools  agricultural universities

objectives (4/5)  involve various European schools & universities to evaluate project results  focused pilot trials within Organic.Edunet partner institutions  open validation events within Organic.Edunet affiliated institutions

objectives (5/5)  create organisational structures to support the sustainability of project results  reinforce the cooperation of stakeholders in the OA & AE content area

targeted users  tomorrow’s consumers: highschool children  to be familiarized with concepts & benefits of OA & AE  tomorrow’s professionals: students of agricultural universities  to be educated about methods and practices of OA & AE

content

content stakeholders  EU-funded initiatives  public or private not-for-profit organisations  agricultural publishing houses  agricultural universities & institutes  rural schools & teachers

teaching & learning resources  consortium-provided content resources  ECOLOGICA, COMPASS projects  selection from Intute repository resources  teaching resources from agricultural universities  other tutor-provided resources  publicly-available resources  selection from resources available online by not-for-profit organisations (e.g. FAO)

resources  type  lectures, best practice guides, games, etc.  topic area  OA methods & practices  partner  USAMVB, AUA  quantity  400

Intute resources  type  documents, lectures, etc.  topic area  agriculture, forestry  partner  Intute  quantity  4,450

ECOLOGICA & COMPASS resources  type  lectures, notes, etc.  topic area  OA  partner  BCE, MOGERT  quantity  1,300

university tutors’ resources  type  lectures, notes, exercises, etc.  topic area  OA & AE  partner  UMB, EULS  quantity  130

school teachers’ resources  type  worksheets, lesson plans, etc.  topic area  life sciences  partner  Miksike, EA  quantity  300

public resources  type  lectures, papers, exercises, etc.  topic area  OA & AE  partner  AUA, UAH  quantity  1,800

technology

metadata & ontologies  adoption of metadata standards & specifications  IEEE LOM application profile  use of ontologies to facilitate search & retrieval  reasoning about queries  enriching search results

architecture  overall architecture  repository management module  learning content exchange module  semantic services module  web portal module

overall architecture

repository management module

learning resources exchange module

semantic services module

web portal module

Confolio Repository Suite of Tools

Learning resources are annotated and uploaded into the Confolio Repository Suite of Tools Then, they are harvested by the Organic.Edunet Web Federation Portal and are made available in

Annotation in Confolio… Metadata for the resourceMetadata for the resource –Title –Keywords –Description –etc How to make a successful workshop

Web Federation Portal

37/43

scenarios

university scenario (1/2)  a professor of animal production in an urban agricultural university of Norway prepares a lecture on organic poultry farming  wants to show a real example of an operating farm  wants to talk about benefits & shortcomings  a number of students’ diploma theses in a Romanian rural university has produced a variety of digital material  interviews of farmers, videos of a real organic farm  how to link those two ?

university scenario (2/2)  students in the rural university  upload their videos in Organic.Edunet  the professor in the rural university  uploads article on long-term economic benefits from organic poultry farming  the professor in the urban university  searches Organic.Edunet  finds the descriptions of the above resources  downloads, uses in his lecture

school scenario (1/2)  a highschool teacher in a Greek island is teaching environmental education  wants to raise awareness of his students about the damage being done to the environment  wants to use a variety of examples from their region  wants to share these examples with teachers in other schools of Greek islands  how to prepare, store and share digital teaching resources?

school scenario (2/2)  a collaborative outdoor activity is organised  students split in groups, study various effects  e.g. visit to nearby river polluted by an olive processing - oil production facility  students take pictures, write a small report on their findings, make a class presentation  results are uploaded to Organic.Edunet  their classmates and teachers/students from other schools may access them online

project partners

overall coverage  16 partners from 10 EU countries

roles: content  providers of teaching & learning resources  Agricultural University of Athens (AUA), Greece  Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB)  OÜ Miksike, Estonia  University of Nottingham (Intute), UK  Corvinus University of Budapest (BCE), Hungary  Hungarian Association of Ecological Farming (MOGERT)  Estonian University of Life Sciences (EULS)  University of Agronomical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest (USAMVB), Romania  Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Umwelt und Wasserwirtschaft - BMLFUW (Austria)

roles: technology  state-of-art tools & technologies that are being adapted & specialized  University of Alcala (UAH), Spain  Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden  Agricultural University of Athens (AUA), Greece

roles: educational  educational methods, scenarios design, user trials  Ellinogermaniki Agogi (EA), Greece  Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB)  OÜ Miksike, Estonia  Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (BMUKK), Austria  Corvinus University Budapest (BCE), Hungary  Estonian University of Life Sciences (EULS)  Bundesgymnasium Schwechat (BGS), Austria  University of Agronomic Sciences and Vet.Med. Bucharest (USAMVB-FA), Romania

roles: quality  evaluation, validation, quality assurance  University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), Germany  Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (BMUKK), Austria

connect to  need more information?  want to get affiliated with Organic.Edunet?  visit    