Rural Women's Network

Virtually farming pilot project report

Introduction

In the week 28 July – 1 August 2008, NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) Rural Women’s Network (RWN) ran a pilot project called Virtually farming. The purpose of the project was to explore the use of technology for networking and educational purposes and address some of the time and cost barriers associated with bringing together people located at great distances from each other.

The project provided ‘on-line work experience’ linking Year 10 agricultural students with women working in primary industries. During the week-long project the students accessed the women’s on-line diaries and had the opportunity to interact by asking questions and making comments directly to the women about their work.

Outcomes

All the expected project outcomes were achieved.

A networking and educational model was developed and tested using the internet to connect people in different locations. The selected ‘blog’ technology allowed easy and meaningful communication between the women and students. RWN demonstrated a capacity to set up and manage the model.
A Final Report has been produced documenting the process (including lessons learned, evaluations and an Information Package that can be used by others to adapt the model for their own purposes).
A short summary report/article has been prepared for distribution to key stakeholders.
The participating students have an increased awareness of work options in agriculture.

Participants

The project was conceived and coordinated by Wendy Bortolazzo, Assistant Coordinator, RWN, NSW DPI.

Women in primary industries

Seven women working in primary industries participated in the pilot project and represented a wide range of industries including: a self employed horse breeder/agri-tourism operator, an agribusiness analyst with a major bank, an aquatic conservation manager, a meat science technical officer, a weeds extension officer, a horticulturalist and a stock and station agent.

Teacher and students

Virtually farming student participants

High school participants

The students were from a Year 10 agriculture class at James Sheahan Catholic High School in Orange. Year 10 student were selected because this is the year students consider career options if they plan to leave school or select subjects for the HSC if they plan to continue at school. Their teacher was Sarah Eyb.

Key activities

Blogs were set up for each woman at www.blogger.com along with an introductory web page on the RWN website to provide some background information (www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/rwn/activities/vf/blogs).

‘Quick Start Guides’ were created for the women, students and teachers and telephone support was offered if needed.

During the work experience week the women made diary entries called ‘postings’. Working in groups of three, the students accessed the diaries during class time and asked questions or made comments on the blogs.

The project was evaluated with a pre-project questionnaire for the students and post-project questionnaires for the women, students and teacher. A final questionnaire will be completed by the students at the end of the school year.

Feedback from participants

There was an overwhelmingly positive response from the women who participated in the project. All women said that they would participate again, even though their participation was in addition to their regular workloads. The women found it a convenient way of sharing their jobs with many students with minimal disruption to their work. The ease-of-use of the blogs and the ability to make a post whenever it suited them appears to have reduced the negative impact of the time required to participate in the project.

In many women’s opinions, the limitations for students of doing work experience this way (such as not gaining hands-on experience) were offset somewhat by the students being able to experience more than one job in a week and learning about the full range of activities involved in a job (not just those that occurred during one week).

The women who participated were very generous with their time and had a genuine interest providing a positive experience for the students. This was evident in the effort made in their postings, the women’s own feedback and the feedback from the students.

It doesn't take up that much time and it was interesting to see what kind of questions the kids asked. I found it to be a positive experience for me and the students – Woman participant

I could add a [posting] at any time of the day when it suited me – Woman participant

The questions were a good communication tool - no need to guess the information [the students] may want – Woman participant

It all seemed pretty straightforward even for me – who had never used a blog before – Woman participant

The teacher commented that the students with a genuine interest in careers learned a lot from the project. She attributed the lack of motivation of some students to their level of maturity and perhaps to the choice of technology, which is often used for informal or social purposes by youth. She is interested in participating in the project again and would recommend this project to other teachers but only with dedicated students.

The thing that worked best about the project was very easy format of blogs – Teacher

Eleven of the 17 students who completed the evaluation after the work experience week rewrote their definition of ‘primary industries’ and most students could list additional careers and employers which suggests that participating in the project had increased their understanding of the term and their knowledge of careers options in this sector. Further, the majority of students could think of new advantages and disadvantages of working in primary industries suggesting they had a better understanding of the nature of work in the sector.

The majority of students’ plans for the next three years were not influenced by participating in the project. This result indicates that by Term 3 in Year 10 most students have already decided whether to continue at high school and/or made plans for their activities immediately after high school. It may therefore be more beneficial to run the project in Term 1 of Year 10 or Term 4 of Year 9.

Overall, the technology was well-received by the students who generally found it easy to use and good for communicating. The majority of students didn’t feel that taking part in the project improved their computer skills, suggesting they were competent at the start.

The students most enjoyed finding out about the women’s jobs and interacting with them. The least popular aspects of the project were the limited number of women involved and lack of hands-on activities, however many students saw benefits of doing work experience this way.

Fifteen of the 17 respondents would recommend the project to other students, however only six said they would like to participate again themselves. This suggests the project may only be suitable to run once in a school year, or the project would need to be significantly different if it was run more than once in a year.

It [the blog] was simple to use – Student

It was a pretty good idea and a creative way of communicating with the women and a good way to ask questions and also to see what other people have asked – Student

The thing I liked most about the project was finding out about the women’s careers [and] asking questions – Student

It has broadened the career choices I have and helped with further subject choices – Student

Lessons learned

To run the project again, the following modifications are suggested:

Create individual accounts for the students, rather than group accounts (however this could have the effect of increasing the workload of the women involved).
Ensure the blogs have content the first time the students view them.
Coordinate the time of day the women post with the class times so that each woman has the same number of postings when the students check the blogs.
Consult with the teacher in advance so they can provide more guidance to the students and/or link the project to a topic they are studying at school.
Create on-line evaluation forms so the responses are sent immediately, in electronic format.

Variations on the concept for future projects

Run the project over a longer period with weekly postings, instead of daily postings.
Run the project with an urban school.
Run a similar project with a younger age group to teach a topic such as ‘where food comes from’.
Run a similar project with different participants, for example, link extension officers with primary producers or rural business people with mentors.

Activities to develop the concept

Give a presentation to key stakeholders such as the RWN State Advisory Committee, NSW Careers Advisors Association, NSW Farmers and NSW Department of Education and Training and discuss options for developing the concept further.
Access external funding to broaden the application and develop the model further.

Background

The ‘on-line work experience’ in agriculture theme was chosen in response to two recent reports:

A Communiqu� from the Australian Council of Deans of Agriculture showed the supply of agriculture graduates is falling behind the demand for such graduates.
Virtually farming could help raise students’ awareness of career options in agriculture.
A pre-summit submission to the Future directions for rural industries and communities stream at the 2020 Summit proposed urban-rural exchanges to improve urban understanding of rural life and encourage more students to take up agricultural studies (www.australia2020.gov.au/docs/2020_Summit_initial_report.pdf, page 21).
Virtually farming could potentially provide urban students with a rural work experience without the need to travel.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Virtually farming model was seen as a cost effective way to expose students to potential careers in primary industries using simple free-of-charge technologies.