Food and Fibre website offers resources for educators and providers

Food and Fibre website offers resources for educators and providers

Last updated 11 October 2022
Last updated 11 October 2022

Building a community of interest around a new educational website for the food and fibre sector is important to engage with educators and providers in farming, forestry, horticulture and fishing, say the project’s researchers.

The website, techenabledlearning.nz, is funded by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) and supported by the Food and Fibre Centre for Vocational Excellence (FFCoVE).  Research analytics specialist, Scarlatti, was commissioned to run the project, in conjunction with Dairy Training Ltd, Wintec and the Primary ITO. 

The research identified three broad areas that had the most learnings - the platforms and delivery modes used by different organisations to deliver training; the key aspects of tech-enabled learning that learners and tutors struggled with most; and the things that worked well for tutors and learners.

The website offers trending "tips and tricks" including creating culturally inclusive online classrooms, setting up online classrooms for success, personalising teaching for Māori learners, and providing pastoral care in tech-enabled learning. Although aimed at the food and fibre sector, it is a valuable tool to those of other disciplines as well.

Tutors have the ability to create their own toolkit of resources that they feel are suitable to them. An interactive dashboard is available to find out what the research says about technology-enabled learning in the Food and Fibre Sector. Education providers are also given information on how to implement effective learning solutions. There is also a calculator for return on investments, a connectivity map highlighting areas of poor reception, and practical tips for infrastructure.

Scarlatti Senior Research Manager, Dana Carver, says the resource is designed to be updated through continual research.  "We want it to be a space where people are sharing ideas and are able to see what others are doing. It is about researching what's out there every six months and having a community of interest that funnels ideas into the website."