Knowledge, Education, and Learning Workshop, Maputo, December 08: Social Report Outline

"Social reporting is where a group of participants at an event interactively and jointly contribute to some form of reporting, in text, photos, images or video. The resulting "social report" is made accessible, usually online, as soon as possible, sometimes as a half-product. This allows others to join in, to extend, to adjust or remix." – Josien Kapma, Social Reporter

The ICT-KM Program, along with the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), the Young Professionals’ Platform for Agricultural Research for Development (YPARD) and other partners, successfully conducted a workshop during the CGIAR AGM08 in Maputo, Mozambique. Held on 4 and 5 December, the Knowledge Management, Education and Learning Workshop saw about 40 participants coming together to discuss priorities and develop an agenda for action through global collaboration to improve agricultural knowledge management, education and learning.

The meeting was documented using an approach called social reporting with the help of consultant Josien Kapma.

Day One began with two key note speakers.

"The increasing density of connections in the world changes the way we work, the way we think in a fundamental and qualitative way. I will talk about why that is true and what impact that may have on people and organizations." – Steve Song, Shuttleworth Foundation

Steve talked about change and how the most important and biggest change is found in our connectedness to each other. Increasing connectedness is changing everything, and it will have an unprecedented impact, he told participants. For networks, more is NOT just more: there are network effects. More participants exponentially increase the number of interconnections.

Professor Ekwamu Adipala, Coordinator of the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda and Zimbabwe, was the second guest speaker. He talked about the need for major reforms in African Higher Education:

"The main thrust is that for Africa to participate in a global knowledge economy it must have a critical mass of well trained human capital and that is grossly lacking. The need remains on good professional discipline and depth, but more critically, on cross-cutting professional skills that allow the professionals to adapt to opportunities."

After the two presentations, participants broke into conversation groups (facilitated by Consultant Peter Ballantyne and Simone Staiger-Rivas, ICT-KM Program) to discuss what they had heard and to prepare questions to be addressed in plenary.

The morning session ended with a "Chat Show", which allowed partners in the areas of knowledge management (KM), education and learning to share their experiences. Chat Show host Peter Ballantyne used the connectedness concept that Steve Song had proposed earlier to gather participants’ experiences.

In the afternoon, participants broke into three groups to discuss in depth the issues they care about. One group worked on formal education, while another addressed the issue of rural learning communities, and the third explored possible entry points for the CGIAR to work on KM strategies.

Josien Kapma gathered feedback from participants at the end of Day1: http://ictkm.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/impressions-of-the-first-day-km-education-and-learning-workshop-maputo/

Day Two saw participants using a Fishbowl dynamic to share interactively the discussions from the different working groups, which was, for many attending, the highlight of the workshop.

Links to text, images and videos for both days can be found here, while the workshop’s photo gallery can be found here.

The above article has been adapted from an entry in the ICT-KM Program’s KS blog. Thanks to Simone Staiger Rivas for the original text.

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