My "working out loud" experiment - here we go!

Virtually all website with tips for bloggers will tell you that consistency is the name of the game.  My last post was over 5 months ago, which kind off defeats the purpose right?   I've been meaning to write more often, and will try to blog about why blogging professionally is more difficult when it is not part of your established work priorities  - all the more so when you're on the road or in meetings upwards of 70% of the time. 

But enough of that.  Today, I'm starting another experiment, namely "working out loud".  I'm really not sure I'm cut out for it (I'm the kind of person that thought laptop privacy screens were an overdue invention!)  - but the cool kids in my CGIAR network are doing it, and I thought I'd give it a try.   Last week was my first official #fridayupdate and one of the comments I received is that it was too long for a Yammer post - and that I should blog about it and link back from Yammer.  So here we are.  I wasn't sure that a public post would be the way to go about work stuff, but then I remembered that we're publicly funded, so I really should put my work out there in case it would be useful for someone.    With that, here we go - WOL update for the week ending 6 June 2014:

On Monday we hosted a team from INSEAD / Toto Agriculture, led by Phil Parker and Ioana Popescu.   They are in advanced stages of preparing a 2.0 version of their system, which aims to have all the relevant information possible about agriculture available to various groups (extension officers, radio stations, etc.) in a customizable.  The Facebook of global Ag if you will.   Some seriously cool stuff.  They'd like to get ILRI content on livestock into the system, and it would be nice if we manage to find a way to make it work.  I am a bit skeptical, because we are anything but agile, and they plan to move very quick.   Ioana's work dovetails Toto, but is focusing on establishing individual credit scoring systems for smallholder farmers.  Could be a real game-changer in financial services at the BOP if it takes off. 

On Tuesday morning, we sent out the draft CGIAR Capacity Development Guidelines for the 2nd round of CRPs. The document offers recommendations on how CGIAR and boundary partners can successfully implement strategies for CapDev and highlights the key advantages offered by CapDev to CRPs, centers and partners. It was initially drafted by members of the CGIAR CapDev CoP, at a Writeshop held 7-9 April 2014 in Montpellier, France. The current version is a result of peer-reviewed by the CapDev CoP members during April-May 2014. I am really delighted to be part of the core team that is taking this forward.   We plan to actively seek feedback from Center DGs, CRP Directors and other internal and external stakeholders for feedback ahead of the next CapDev CoP Annual Meeting in early September.

I had a number of meeting with my colleague Ben Lukuyu around the work we're undertaking to revamp the Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) and make it more accessible and less dependent on 1-2 high level experts within ILRI.  I'm having so much fun in this process - pure instructional design bliss - and so happy to be able to introduce such CapDev / learning aspects into our work.  This week we shortlisted proposal from consultants based on a mock assignment, and we were very impressed with the quality of proposals.  We then had phone interviews later in the week and are hoping to finalize with a consultant next week  - so I can start working with them to deliver a re-designed blended learning course before a FEAST summit in Vietnam in September.  

I also had a meeting with the IBLI team this week, and we've decided to go ahead with the preparation of a Harvard-Style case study on the program.  We have a consultant lined up, and I'm gearing up to write my notes of the proposed approach and management dilemmas later today.   The aim is to have the case study ready before September, so I can test it in my course on "financial services at the BOP at the IOMBA / University of Geneva.  Very ambitious schedule, but hey - nothing ventured nothing gained, right?!

The new mNutrition project is finally signed - and we got a job ad posted for a  Quality Assurance Officer to who will work under me (and closely with my colleague Delia Grace) to manage a range of quality assurance procedures, and provide advice and guidance concerning mNutrition quality assurance systems and their implementation.  Some press releases on mNutrition are being planned, so more on this in a future update. 

Apart from that, lots of work around performance approvals, preparation for a revision of ILRI's Fellowship Guidelines, follow up on Livestock and Fish work in Uganda, and more - but will stop here for today.

Emerging Educational Technologies - very far from being applied in development

My (soon to be) colleague Diana Brandes just shared an article about 10 Specific Examples Of Emerging Educational Technologies by  Teach Thought.

The list provides some (heavily US-centric) examples about how some educational institutes are applying technology.

Cloud Computing, Mobile Learning, Tablet Computing and MOOCs are all listed in the "12 months or less" category, implying they are pretty much here already.  From where I'm sitting (well, standing most of the time, but that's the topic for another post one day), which is thinking how technology can revolutionize learning in a developing context (think large scale application of agricultural research in developing countries)  - this is still much more of a distant dream than reality.

Of all of these, the one I hold most hope for is mobile learning - but let's unpack it for a minute.  The article gives examples of a school in Australia using tablets for math applications, another use of tablets, this time in Switzerland, to create music on ipads, and finally a US school creating an iOS app for digital storytelling.  All very neat.  And very far removed from the reality of the vast majority of mobile users at the BoP.

Despite a lot of promise for (entry level android) smartphones about to boom in many Asian and African countries - the reality in my host country of Kenya - considered a hub, perhaps even the epicenter - of mobile innovation is that most users are still not on smartphones, and if you want scale in rural areas, you better think of the old school (Nokia) entry level phones.  None of the innovative applications mentioned in the article are mobile-compatible in this context. As far as timelines are concerned, I think we're certainly more than 12 months' away from any of these making a dent in mainstream applications of education, let alone in a development context.

The article's most exciting prospect for me personally is "Games and Gamification", slated at 2-3 Years away.  I think there's so much potential for engaging adult learners with games that we're not tapping into - it would hopefully take "only" one or two killer applications to come out to turn the tide and focus the world's attention to gaming for development.  Who knows, by then it might be a mobile app that does the trick?