Babis Thanopoulos, Nikos ManouselisAgro-Know Technologies

cthanopoulos@agroknow,gr, nikosm@ieee.org

Spread the agricultural Spread the agricultural knowledgeknowledge

Pilot project Pilot project ““OER growersOER growers””

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

… The SparkThe Spark

Agro-Know Technologies team

Agro-Know Technologies is a research SME in developing new technologies for the organisation

of agricultural knowledge …

Is located in Athens, Greece

IT Experts

Experts in Agricultural Sciences

Due to the crisis• Many friends, collaborators and relatives start asking for

information on how to grow vegetables, herbs and fruit trees at their place: balconies, roof gardens, backyards, etc

How can I grow tomato plants in my

balcony?

Where can I find seeds of vegetables

for my terrace garden?

I would like to replace the flowers in my backyard to

vegetables. Which varieties do you suggest for my

region?

How often do I have to water my herbs?

Grow your vegetables in your balcony …

• At the same time a lot of articles in newspapers, web sites, blogs etc urge citizens to grow their own home garden

Take care the vegetables in your balcony Vegetables garden in your balcony

• Citizens’ communities have already established vegetable, flower and herb gardens in public places (e.g. schools)

Municipal vegetable garden in Drama (North Greece)

Vegetable garden in the municipality of Alexandroupoli

School vegetable garden in Peloponnese (South Greece)

Emerging need• Connection of the existing agricultural knowledge of

young agronomists and scientists from related research fields with citizens’ interest to apply the theory into practice.

OER growers idea• A training project for young agronomists and scientists

from related research fields on how to use new technologies

• Enables new agronomists to work on their free time combing their agricultural knowledge with the use of

o Online tools: e-learning platforms (e.g. moodle)o Web 2.0 tools: blogs, wiki, Flickr, YouTube

• Agronomists’ experiments are available to the end-users (citizens)

Benefit of participation• ICT training• Run an experiment at participants’ own time and place• Opportunity to present the practical use of the

experiment achievements• Linkage with other agronomists and researchers from

different domains with common interests• Support Greek Community of Green OER

(Open Educational Resources)

OER growers in seasons• Depending on the weather conditions and the availability

of participants, an OER grower can join the pilot project and implement a small scale experiment in …

June - July - August November - December - January

March - April - May

Become an OER grower !1. Choose the experiment, depending on participant’s

research interest and his/her scientific background2. Use his own material and place for the completion of

the experiment3. Participation in the training on specific online & web2.0

tools4. Frequent record of the experiment progress 5. Presentation & Evaluation of the experiment6. Certification

1. Choose the topic of the experiment

Compost Propagate your vegetables

Take care your tomato plants

Growing your tulips

2. Use your own material and place

Grow the plants in pots in your place

Grow the plants in protected place in you gardenGrow the plants in your garden

3. OER growers training

• 4 online trainings• 1 physical training (optional)

Online training Physical training

4. Progress of the experimentUpload photos & videos on

Flickr and YouTubeOnline calendar - 3 posts / week

(http://blog.oergrowers.gr/)Related material (external sources

e.g. YouTube videos)Report - OER growers’ wiki page

(http://blog.oergrowers.gr/)

5. Presentation & 6. CertificateFinal presentation of the

experiment (using the wiki page)

Certificate of participation in OER growers

one of our bright stars

introducing Konstantina

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project cucumbers• Wiki page on rationale/approach – an urban

balcony case study• frequent blogging on how her plants grew• proposed interesting techniques for

watering during intensive heat by using crystals

• had enough time to demonstrate also collection/harvesting

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rich material produced/re-used

Konstantina’s reflection• “Στόχος είναι η δημιουργία ενός αστικού

λαχανόκηπου στο μπαλκόνι μας. • Η ιδέα περιλαμβάνει την αντικατάσταση

καλλωπιστικών φυτών με καλλιέργειες που θα χρησιμοποιούνται από το νοικοκυριό με σκοπό την κατανάλωση σπιτικών προϊόντων.• Ως μία πρώτη επαφή με το αντικείμενο

επιλέχθηκε η καλλιέργεια του αγγουριού.

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MISSIO

N

ACCOMPLISHED

thank you!http://www.oergrowers.gr

http://agrimoodle.agroknow.gr