Green Learning Network
Newsletter #1
WELCOME!
What is the Green Learning Network?
The Green Learning Network's objective is to address the current gap between educational approaches in the Agriculture, Biodiversity and Rural (ABR) affairs fields and the everyday practices of farmers and agricultural professionals.
Our idea is to create a free, pragmatic and easy-to-use Learning and Collaboration network of educators, institutions, learners, agriculture specialists and agricultural professional enabling:
- Rural professionals to find new solutions to their problems, skill up and boost their innovation and productivity potential;
- Educators and learners to access tools and resources (a rich knowledge repository and exchange platform) to improve Agriculture, Biodiversity and Rural Education.
In this newsletter, you will find...
- 2nd Transnational Project Meeting in Valencia
- A peek into the Project meeting...
- 4th Biennial RUFORUM Conference
- GLN Green Ideas Fest @ EA Summer Academy 2014
- GLN takes part in the conference on 'Agroecology: Knowledge, practices and transmission'
- GLN is your one-stop shop!
- Improving Mobility and Cooperation between European Agricultural Professionals
2nd Transnational Project Meeting in Valencia
The team had a fruitful talk about the concept of ‘Green’ Learning and discussed the importance of a thoughtful definition of project target groups in order to refine objectives and achieve a successful project brand, coherent with the Consortium’s values.
Wednesday morning was the opportunity for project partners to take part into a workshop simulation, led by Greek partner AE, to become familiar with format and objectives and learn from the experience to be able to conduct similar workshops within their own networks. Ultimately, workshops will be essential in understanding and harvesting user requirements, and primordial in building a solution answering stakeholders’ needs.
Lots of interesting prospects for GLN in the months to come!
A peak into the Project meeting...
4th Biennial RUFORUM Conference
The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) is a consortium of 32 universities in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa established in 2004.
RUFORUM is organising its 4th Biennial RUFORUM Conference to be held on 21-25 July 2014 in Maputo, Mozambique.
Keynote speakers at the conference include :
- Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma (Chairperson of the African Union)
- Her Excellency Tumusiime Rhoda Peace (Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture at the African Union)
- Graça Simbine Machel (Mozambican political and social activist for human rights)
The main objective of the conference is to provide a platform for agricultural research to development stakeholders in Africa and elsewhere. It aims to allow participants to exchange findings, experience, and lessons learned in order to improve the performance of the continent’s agriculture sector and impact on people’s livelihoods.
To mark the 10th anniversaries of the RUFORUM and of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), the African Union Commission has decided to celebrate 2014 as a year of agriculture and food security in Africa.
The 2014 conference will provide an opportunity for African universities, researchers, development practitioners, and others to reflect on progress over the last decade and device strategies or options for accelerating agricultural progress on the continent.
RUFORUM anticipates over 500 participants from within and outside Africa. The conference will link stakeholders in agriculture to new products and trends, with a particular focus on strengthening partnerships for higher education in agriculture. Participants will have an opportunity to showcase their contributions to agricultural development in Africa.
Dr Ephraim Mhlanga and Dr Alice Barlow-Zambodla will be representing Saide at the conference and will be promoting the Green Learning Network (GLN).
Interested parties can follow the conference on Twitter using #ruforum.
Monday, Jul 21, 2014, 10:30 AM
Maputo, Maputo City, Mozambique
GLN Green Ideas Fest @ EA Summer Academy 2014
Its main scope will be to connect two completely different worlds: education and the real world of work! More specifically, it aims at connecting environmental education with the development of entrepreneurship skills and creativity! To this end, it addresses environmental educators, practitioners, primary and secondary school teachers, school leaders, and policy makers from European Countries!
Don't miss it! Looking forward to seeing all of you there!
Monday, Jul 14, 2014, 09:30 AM
Attica, Greece
GLN takes part in the conference on 'Agroecology: Knowledge, practices and transmission'
GLN will be present in Florac, France from the 9th to 11th July at the colloquium on 'Agroecology: Knowledge, practices and transmission' organised by the Supagro Florac - an institute on agro-environment education (www.supagro.fr).
The institute that leads pedagogical experiments and promotes innovative training methods, set up this conference to bring together teachers, trainers, researchers, stakeholders to think and discuss "agroecological knowledges", their specificities and their transmission. Even though Agroecological transition has been the objective of farmers, associations and researchers for many years now it gained its momentum and it is a priority for public policies.
To find out more about the conference and its objective follow the link:
http://www.colloque-supagroflorac.fr/savoirs-agro-ecologiques/wakka.php?wiki=Accueil
GLN is your one-stop shop!
There are two re-occurring problems that probably haunt almost every practitioner and researcher from arts to sciences. Green Learning is not any different and suffers from:
1) an overwhelming amount of information scattered around different sources
2) lack of data
That is why GLN is such a great and timely solution. By creating a strong and vast network of actors it also creates a solid repository of resources.
So instead of looking around you can just go to GLN portal and find what you require! To make life easier while we all waiting for the GLN solution we have compiled a short list of great educational resources for you to access:
· Agriculture OER - www.oerafrica.org
· Discovery Educator Network - www.discoveryeducation.com
· Organic Edunet - www.portal.organic-edunet.eu
· Merlot - www.agriculture.merlot.org
· OpenEduEU - www.openeducationeuropa.eu
· AgriMoodle - http://agrimoodle.org/
Enjoy and get ready for GLN!
Improving Mobility and Cooperation between European Agricultural Professionals
The University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) team, responsible for quality management in the GLN Project Consortium, is dedicated to developing Vocational Education and Training (VET) in the agricultural sector. To further this development, UDE is also involved with the Agricultural Alliance for Competence and Skills based Training (ACT) Project.
ACT’s ultimate goal is to improve matching between new job requirements and existing skills in the agricultural sector. The project plans to do this through new VET services with innovative instruments and modularized training based on the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET). ACT thereby aims at improving curriculum design and delivery, reinforcing the unification of the labour market of the European Union and European mobility. The end result of the project will be the functional framework “Pathways for Agricultural Competence and skills based Training” (PACT).
PACT will enable and improve collaboration between agricultural VET providers, representatives of the labour market, and VET policy makers. For ease of use and accessibility, PACT will be available through an online service acting as a common entry point for all stakeholders. On one hand, VET providers will be able to use it to describe their training solutions targeting skills gaps and find educational inspiration through adapting and reusing solutions from similar VET providers. On the other hand, agricultural business and membership organisations will be able to use PACT to gain insight into existing training opportunities and indicate further emerging training needs. In this manner, PACT seeks to streamline and promote communication between various core actors in the European agricultural labour market.
Such great experience will be very beneficial to the development of the GLN solution, and UDE team's expertise will be put to excellent use!
For more information on ACT and to get involved in innovation for VET in European agriculture, please visit the official project website at www.act-now.eu.