DILIMAN, Quezon City—As the enabler and catalyst of the country's extension system, the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) is gearing up for more training and educational programs that will keep the cycle of learning in the agri-fishery sector going even in today's new normal landscape.
To ensure that these capacity-building efforts are still appropriate and effective despite limitations in face-to-face interactions, a Training Series on Virtual Interactive Learning was set for units within the ATI network that handle training programs and learning activities for farmer-leaders, extension workers, and other extension partners.
The first of this training series was held in different dates in March 2022, joined by 26 staff from all the divisions and units of the ATI Central Office.
Experts from YGOAL, Inc. served as resource persons and talked about designing virtual learning experience, the communication for development approach in virtual learning, the role of a facilitator in impactful learning, and opportunities and challenges in facilitating virtual learning.
Likewise, the participants also discovered some web-based applications that can support virtual learning activities such as Miro, Mentimeter, StreamYard, Canva, and Kahoot. Meanwhile, the use of social media through podcasts and video-sharing networks such as TikTok and Kumu was also explored as learning platforms.
“We definitely gained insights on how to prepare ourselves for online teaching. We find this training very useful and timely, and we were able to discover and learn about different interactive apps that we can use to make our future training activities more lively and effective,” Jennifer Taruc of the ATI-Human Resource Management Office said.
“As we keep on expanding the number of online programs that we have, it is really essential and timely for us, as implementers, to be capacitated in these kinds of training... Through this training, I realized that showing empathy and being unique and true to oneself are key to be able to build good and interactive connections with our participants,” Mark Nello Alvarez of the ATI-Policy and Planning Division shared.
