Global Agricultural Knowledge Initiative: Strengthening the Global Competence of Students, Faculty and Extension Agents

Abstract

Education and Training traditionally involve learning from teachers and other pedagogical standards. The role of the teacher is to impart knowledge to those who do not possess them. Teachers talk in front of the class, and the pupils have to listen and write down what the “knowing” teacher says. This top-down method is not only used in the formal education system, also training staff uses this method to train the people. Even though this way of teaching and learning is part of our culture, the changing scenarios and expectation of today’s learners demand that teachers adapt new ways to update their skills and knowledge for making information and knowledge available to farmers. // Advent of Internet and advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and specifically in Multimedia, Networking, and Software Engineering have promoted the enormous amount of learning resources and Learning Management Systems (LMSs). During the last years, thousands of electronic texts, images, movies, or Java applet based learning resources have been developed for learning purposes in Internet environments. To take advantage of this situation, new services were developed for creating synchronous (Chat, Flash meetings, Breeze meeting, Teleconferencing and Video Conferencing to name a few) and asynchronous (Internet education portals, web based learning management systems, Forums, and wiki’s to name a few) learning environments. With the help of these contemporary Information and Communication Technology based services, the search, classification, organization, and peer-to-peer exchange of learning resources by learners, instructors, and course developers are becoming commonplace. However most of these technologies and virtual knowledge networks are part of corporate knowledge management. Academia has yet to recognize and fully explore the significance of systematic network development tools for agricultural education purposes. A dynamic computer-based model of knowledge management can now be applied to agricultural research done at any university anywhere on the globe and this research can be exchanged in a matter of seconds among faculty scientists, private industry, and students.