Trends and Issues in Extension

I’m a little late with this posting due to a 1.5 day vacation trip across Florida. Here are my notes from Day 4 at NETC.

The final day of NETC was as productive as the first three. I attended two morning sessions (see abstracts here and here) taught by Peggy Shuffstall from Penn State. Both discussed Penn State’s move away from face-face training to more online types training. Because of budget and staffing reductions, they have had no choice. What was really neat is that they used the new training as an action type research process. Feedback from participants, information on time and money saved, and future directions were shared. Some examples (comparing 2004 to 2005):

•  Face-face trainings were reduced from 121 to 26
• Remote training increased from 25 to 86
• About two-third of the participants agreed that the length of time was correct (changed from 5 hours face-face to 2 hours), and that the training fit their learning style. For participants in video conferencing, two-thirds of the participant thought that video was as effective or more effective as having the instructor in the same room.

I also slipped into a presentation on wiki’s by John Dorner of North Carolina State just long enough to grab a handout. Most of the systems specialists from OSU attended a session by Jeffrey SoRelle from Texas A&M on using blogs to communicate information. They came away impressed enough to call back to Columbus and had their own blog set up before noon.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 13th, 2006 at 9:06 pm and is filed under General Extension, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.