Workshop on Agricultural Education, Methods, Practices and Technologies Outcomes of the V-3DAS pilot training in Greece

1. Workshop on Agricultural Education,
Methods, Practices and Technologies
Outcomes of the V-
3DAS pilot training in Greece
Charalampos s Thanopoulos
Valia Triperina
Agro-Know Technologies
cthanopoulos@agroknow.gr
valia@agroknow.gr
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-
Pollenzo, Bra, Italy
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
Unported License. October 25, 2012

2. Introduction (1/3)
 V- 3DAS
 Supports the generational turnover of the agricultural
entrepreneurship class.
 Develops and formalises the approaches of Lifelong Learning
suitable to promote the acquisition and improvement of
technical-professional competences and of transversal skills
characterising the entrepreneurial profile.
 Explores and exploits the potentialities offered by the
interactive virtual worlds for the construction of pathways of
guided apprenticeships in entrepreneurial roles, within a
training pathway organically structured and oriented towards
the acquisition of managerial competences and
entrepreneurial skills.

3. Introduction (2/3)
 Mission: To support the process of sectoral innovation in
Agriculture
 Vision: Training and New technologies together for a new
entrepreneurial class open to the internationalisation and
globalisation sectoral processes
 Priority: To support LLL approaches to promote
creativity/innovation in young learners and in agri-sector which is
facing a strong delay in activating entrepreneurship

4. Introduction (3/3)
 Objectives
 Designing of a new curriculum of agri-entrepreneur
integrating:
-technical/professional competences on the farm
management;
-transversal competences and skills to acquire/improve
entrepreneurial attitudes and mindset.
 Development of 3D Virtual environments for the simulation of
farm management to support the acquisition of competences of
pro-activity/creativity/innovation/critical and lateral thinking.
 Designing of multimedia learning materials for the acquisition
of Agri-EN Competences (CLIL Methodology).

5. V-3DAS pilot training in Greece (1/4)
 Aims
 To give at the trainees’ the required competences and skills for
the development of their own agricultural enterprise
 To learn the necessary knowledge for the development and
implementation of a computerized traceability system in the
agricultural context
 To learn about integrated enterprise management and
development
 To enhance the knowledge on the processes of diversification of
the farms activities
 Main objectives : the enhancement of the knowledge in the
agricultural sector and the acquisition of advanced knowledge in
the field of agricultural enterprise development.

6. V-3DAS pilot training in Greece (2/4)
 17 selected participants
 Agronomists (from several agricultural research fields)
 Agronomists who worked in other sectors and are interested in
being occupied once again with the agricultural sector
 Entrepreneurs of the agricultural sector who wanted to
ameliorate their businesses
 Farmers
 Curriculum
 60- hour training in a classroom environment Learning platform
 20-hour project assignments
 Visits in farms and agricultural enterprises (wineries, ecological
farms and production of organic products)

7. V-3DAS pilot training in Greece (3/4)
 Learning methods
 lectures
 interactive sessions and
 evaluation sheets (for trainers, trainees and apprenticeship)

8. V-3DAS pilot training in Greece (4/4)
 Also included
 V-3DAS instance of Moodle e-learning platform (for the
distribution of the developed learning material) and
 ICT tools (a wiki page for the presentation of the trainees’
assignments)
 Apprenticeship (farms visits to various enterprises in which
each trainee will do an internship, as part of the V-3DAS pilot
training)

9. Outcomes of the training (1/4)
 The outcomes of the training are examined and
evaluated in terms of
 the trainees and trainers feedback
 the resulted presentation of the business ideas in the wiki pages
 the organization body and
 trainers and trainees contribution.

10. Outcomes of the training (2/4)
 Organization body
 Trainers and trainees were pleased by Agro-Know Technologies,
the organization, the selected topics, the selected participants
and trainees and the learning material of the training.
 They believe that this training should be repeated so as other
trainers could acquired this knowledge and skills.
 Trainers
 The trainers were skilled and experienced professionals of the
agricultural sector, presented the topics of the training
vigorously and focused their presentations on the topics of
interests of the trainees.
 The trainers lectures were to the point and relevant with the
Greek reality in the sector of agricultural businesses.

11. Outcomes of the training (3/4)
 Trainees
 The trainees have shown interest and have enthusiastically
participated in the lectures and the interactive sessions. They
also have occupied with the assignments given by the trainers,
with which have illustrated that they have understood the
topics presented during the training and that they also have the
ability to put the acquired knowledge from the training into
practice.
 After the training the trainees were able to present their
business idea effectively. They also learn how to combine the
already acquired knowledge and the skills developed in the
training to structure, alter and present their business ideas on
the agricultural sector.

12. Outcomes of the training (4/4)
 Description of trainees’ business ideas
 Each participant developed his own business idea concerning the
agricultural sector in a wiki page of the V-3DAS training in Greece.
 Information included a general description of the business idea,
location, short characterization of the products, the whole
production chain, the networking of the future business and the
collaborations which are required for the business development.
 Successful interpretation of the ideas into viable plans and emphasis
on the important points so as to lure possible collaborators, retailers
and clients.
 Examples in wiki page:
 agro-tourist business units
 organic farm with production and selling of products

13. Conclusions (1/2)
 Learning materials were created by the trainers in order to achieve
the projects aims and objectives and these were then used in a
single seminar in which participants were trained in order to launch
an agricultural business or ameliorate their already existing
agricultural business. The trainees of this seminar have also
participated in farm visits in which they will work as interns.
 ICT tools were introduced and used in order to facilitate the
learning process. The agricultural entrepreneurs are not conversant
with the sophisticated ICT tools and e-learning methods, however
the participants managed to use and interact with the ICT tools
used in this training more than adequately. They have found the
use of learning content management platforms and wiki pages
useful and interesting.

14. Conclusions (2/2)
 The trainees were highly enthusiasts about the overall training,
including the learning outcomes of the presentations conducted in
classroom environment, the farm visits, the interactive sessions and
the development of a wiki page containing their business idea.
 The reception from the applicants and the selected participants had
also underlined the need of vocational training on agricultural
sector so as to help entrepreneurs to occupy with agricultural
businesses.

15. thank you!
cthanopoulos@agroknow.gr
valia@agroknow.gr