Distance Learning System Benefits India, Florida, & the World

Water is a critical concern for agriculture, not just in Florida, but worldwide.  Water quality and water management can be life-and-death factors that spell the difference between successful harvests and healthy families or lost crops and starvation in many areas of the world.

India’s vast diversity of ecosystems and its monsoon pattern of rainfall create great challenges related to water management.  Those challenges impact India’s vast population, a significant portion of which lives in poverty.

That’s why a group of seven scientists from three Indian universities and two agricultural research organizations (ICRISAT and Indian Council of Research) came to UF/IFAS in February 2008.  A grant awarded through the India-U.S. Agricultural Knowledge Initiative, spearheaded by K. Ramesh Reddy, allowed these scientists to partner with UF/IFAS faculty for two weeks.

By the end of their visit, the partners had completed 17 new distance-learning components called “Reusable Learning Objects,” or RLOs, that were unveiled during an
intensive workshop at the J. Wayne Reitz Union on UF’s campus. The RLOs are now part of an online learning system called EcoLearnIT, developed by Dr. Sabine Grunwald, in the UF/IFAS Soil and Water Science Department.  EcoLearnIT is an “electronic library” with many individual RLOs within it.

What are these 17 new RLOs?  They are  web-based PowerPoint presentations, text, narrated audio files, and video clips with music and provide a rich resource to learn. 

Each RLO is “self-standing” to make it reusable and is focused on specific learning objectives.  Each RLO has a knowledge component and an assessment component.  The RLOs range in length, so learners can complete them in 5 to 15 minutes.  The RLOs are not courses, but rather are tightly focused learning units.  All 17 involve water:  irrigation, water conservation, and water management.

During their development, the Indian partners learned a great deal about distance education and e-learning, as they began with less knowledge about these learning platforms than their UF/IFAS counterparts.  Two of the Indian partner institutions have active plans to use the new technology and develop courses using it.  The other Indian partner institutions are interested in doing so, as well, but are still in the planning stage.

While the materials are free to use, they could be combined into courses that generate revenue.  In a time of shrinking revenues, generating income from these RLOs is a great benefit.  UF/IFAS and all five Indian partner institutions will be able to benefit from the creation of short courses, certificate courses for graduate students and professionals, graduate and undergraduate courses, and extension training that use the “library” of RLOs.

While useful in teaching, EcoLearnIT is also beneficial in extension and outreach programs. The EcoLearnIT system is growing and attracting users from UF, U.S., India, and elsewhere. This shows how the benefits gained from the fusion of ideas between UF/IFAS faculty and Indian scientists will have far-reaching impact.

Contact: Sabine Grunwald, sabgru@ufl.edu
Contact: K. Ramesh Reddy, krr@ufl.edu
Eco-LearnIT: http://ecolearnit.ifas.ufl.edu
AKI project and workshop material: http://akicb.ifas.ufl.edu

• Back to September 2008 International Focus Newsletter