131-6 New Horizons: Innovations In Web-Based Agricultural and Soil Science Education.



Monday, October 17, 2011: 9:50 AM
Henry Gonzalez Convention Center, Room 206B, Concourse Level

ABSTRACT WITHDRAWN

Web-based or online learning technologies are able to support teaching and learning from various educational perspectives. When combined with appropriate instructional design, web-based learning technologies can meet almost all the instructors’ and learners’ needs, while supporting a variety of learning styles that engage and motivate learners. The Faculty of Land and Food Systems (LFS) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) was one of the university’s earliest users of web-based learning technologies in distance education. In 2000, the development of two online courses, “Introduction to Soil Science” and “Integrated Pest Management” was initiated and to this day LFS has continued to be a leader in the use of web-based technologies. In the Faculty of LFS, the combination of good instructional design and online technologies promotes and supports learning in many ways that include interactivity, flexibility, accessibility, critical understanding, problem-based learning, learner-generated content, open educational resources, learner participation and engagement, blended learning, authentic learning, outreach, and community building. As examples, a number of online courses in LFS use a problem-based learning and a basic tool in the Learning Management System (LMS) called “Discussion” which can create forums to support group work assignments that generate interactivity, learner engagement, and user-generated content. In other online courses, technologies include video streaming to illustrate authentic learning situations (e.g., soil field trips, food preservation techniques), online assessment tools for quizzes, and blogs to help build learning communities. At UBC, the trends in online agricultural education include the creation of open learning resources and establishing distributed communities of practice where learners, instructors, professionals, and the interested public can build a community in the real and virtual worlds. Agricultural education is beginning to explore the role in online learning of social media (e.g., blogs, Facebook, Twitter) and m-learning on mobile devices such as smart phones and notebooks.
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