Share, Learn and Innovate

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OHCHR initiated in collaboration with ITC-ILO a coordinated knowledge management approach with the goal of making OHCHR work more effective in the fulfillment of its mandate. Based on a KM needs assessment and a review of KM approaches and practices of UN agencies ITC-ILO developed a knowledge sharing toolkit which includes methods and techniques to enhance knowledge sharing within OHCHR and through OHCHR activities. The entire project was called Share, Learn and Innovate and focused on the following objectives:

  • Improve understanding of knowledge management and knowledge sharing concepts and their relevance to OHCHR work;
  • Enhance participants’ expertise and capacity to use knowledge sharing tools and approaches in their work;
  • Strengthen a knowledge sharing culture within OHCHR; and
  • Validate the OHCHR Knowledge Sharing Toolkit and promote the use of the toolkit within their sections/field presences.

Feel free to have a look at the final version of the on-line toolkit ! Click HERE



Social media revolution

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The importance of social media is a returning element in a lot of interesting video’s that appear on the internet. It all started with the first version of ‘Did you Know‘ and every now and than we see new inspiring video’s (like the one below) to highlight that social media is becoming very important in our daily life and work. To explore the potential of social media in a learning and training the ITC-ILO organises a knowledge lab where different learning professionals will exchange their international experiences. A very rich domain containing a lot of challenging questions: “How are wiki’s changing the way we work and write together? What’s the pedagogical added value of using blogs in learning? How we can manage better our information through using web2.0 tools? How can we support communities of practices with networked technologies? How do we use these tools in low-resource settings?”  For more information surf to the promotion blog: http://webfordev.wordpress.com/

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SuNx0UrnEo]

 

Mobile learning toolkit launched

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A while ago we have mentioned our mobile learning plans at ITC-ILO. We are now happy to share some of the results of the ongoing mobile learning pilots. First of all Jennifer Parker finished her internship at ITC-ILO successfully and published her master thesis on ‘mobile learning for Africa‘. Part of this project included also the development of a mobile learning toolkit which we will use in the framework of the MyCOOP training package (“How to set up and run agricultural cooperatives“). With adding a mobile component to this training package, MyCOOP trainers will be able to choose out of 15 different methodologies where a mobile device can add value to the learning and training process. Feel free to contact us in case you are interested to pilot some of these mobile learning methods.

Mobile Learning Toolkit A5 by jenniparker

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Is your thinking pragmatic and systematic?

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Nowadays, development organizations are increasingly compelled to show that their programmes produce meaningful and lasting changes for their beneficiaries.

However, such “impacts” depend on many factors, such as behavioural change by those concerned or the relationships among them. This makes assessing development impacts problematic; yet many organizations strive to measure results that go far beyond the objectives of their programmes.

Outcome Mapping[1] offers not only a methodology[2] for monitoring and evaluation but also planning systems that enable organizations to document, learn from, and report on their achievements. It is designed to help with understanding an organization’s results, while recognizing that contributions by other players are essential to achieving the sustainable, large-scale improvements in human and ecological well-being toward which the organization is working. These contributions are planned and assessed in terms of their influence on the partners with whom the organization is working to effect change. In essence, development is accomplished by, and for, people. This is the central concept of Outcome Mapping.

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Gamestorming. Do you want to be more innovative?

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Practical and inspiring guides with innovative and participatory learning and knowledge sharing methods are always interesting to read. “Gamestorming, a playbook for innovators, rulebreakers, and change“, written by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo is a good illustrative example. The entire instructional cycle of a meaningful learning or working event is documented in a very visual and pragmatical way. It moves beyond the usual participatory methodologies such as ‘fishbowl‘, ‘world cafe‘ and ‘open space‘ and introduces you to a variety of new techniques from ‘bodystorming’ until ‘spectrum mapping’. The book is also structured along the cyclical nature of an event from opening until closing and shows you the different creative processes that occur during an event (diverging, emerging and converging). For facilitators and trainers it is handy because the methods are written in a way that you can apply them immediately on-the-job. The book has a virtual extension on http://www.gogamestorm.com/. Any other must reads in this area of participatory learning and knowledge sharing?

Mobile learning (2)

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After introducing the mobile learning theme in this blog, DELTA started to explore how mobile learning could create an added value for learning at the Centre. Therefore we will update you in the upcoming months of the MyCOOP mobile project. The MyCOOP training package is about the management of agricultural cooperatives for cooperative managers and trainers. DELTA is exploring where mobile technologies could enrich the current existing training material. Mobile phones are widely used withing this target group and learning and training could be made more accessible by exploring this mobile track.

The exploration will tackle different important dimensions. What about the technology and infrastructure we can use for this? In this context it is interesting to refer to  new mobile for development report of UNICEF. Not only technological insights will be needed, more and more the pedagogical and didactical strategies that are needed to launch successful mobile learning are important. A good opportunity to explore these dimensions together with a range of mobile learning experts is to participate in the Massive Online Course on Mobile Learning. Click here if you want to learn more about this initiative.

Towards a new organization ?

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3xHFfLTgjJI]

augmented reality and data visualization

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo&feature=player_embedded]

Where good ideas come from.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU]

Building toolkits about learning, training and knowledge sharing.

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DELTA is currently in the final phase of the orientation toolkit, called Compass dealing with innovative learning methodologies and technologies embedded in the entire learning management cycle. One of the outputs of this toolkit is a set of instructional sheets on how to use participatory learning methods and techniques in your own context as a trainer.

The need of knowing how to use participatory learning, training and knowledge sharing methods and tools is currently present in a lot of organisations and institutions. It is one of the practical questions that we are currently capturing during the inter-agency UN knowledge fair, held now in Turin.

The experience and expertise we have used for the COMPASS we want to re-use to develop tailormade toolkits adapted to the context of other organisations/institutions. Feel free to contact us if you have knowledge sharing toolkit plans in your future agenda.