We argue that the virtual crop labs (VCLs) help students and other stakeholders in imparting knowledge about practical learning process. In the ongoing learn- ing framework, the student enters the educational program captures theoretical knowledge during lecture hours and captures practical knowledge by conducting field practicals/experiments on college farms, during RAWEP, experiential learn- ing and internships. So, there is a mutual re-enforcement between theory and practice. In the proposed learning framework, in addition to class room lectures and college farms/RAWEP, the students are exposed to VCLs of crops. Note that VCLs are available to students 24/7 (assuming a laptop/smartphone and internet connectivity is available). Also, for each crop, the VCLs contain several farm situations and activities of several agro-climatic zones. Normally, VCLs also contain farm situations of several years. So, through VCLs, the students and other stakeholders are exposed to crop cultivation and growth in different agro-climatic zones and farming situations. The VCLs provide the opportunity
to students and other stakeholders for learning several practical concepts. The teachers can also give several assignments based on the summaries and q/a that were developed as a part of VCLs. The students can gain more practical exposure by completing the assignments through VCLs.
Fig. 3. Depiction of proposed learning process. The mutual re-enforcements A to B and
B to A are similar to the existing learning framework. With virtual crop labs, enhanced learning is possible due to the following two kinds of additional mutual re-enforcements: (i) A to C and C to A (ii) B to C and C to B.
Overall, with the addition of virtual crop labs as a part of learning process, the students will gain practical agricultural knowledge through three processes. (A) Classes and labs (B) College farms and RAWEP and (C) Virtual Crop Labs (Figure 3).
(i) Mutual reinforcement between A and B and vice versa: This pro- cess is already happening in the ongoing learning process (refer section 3.1 and Fig. 1).
(ii) Mutual reinforcement between A and C and vice versa: This pro- cess is an addition to the existing learning system due to virtual crop labs. The knowledge gained during classes/labs can be used to get additional in- sights by studying the farm situations in virtual crop. Also, the practical exposure gained by observing several virtual farm situations can be used to get more theocratical insights.
(iii) Mutual reinforcement between B to C and vice versa: This pro- cess is also an addition to the existing learning system due to the proposed virtual crop labs. The farm situations observed in VCLs can be understood by extending the knowledge gained by observing college farms and RAWEP. Also, the knowledge gained during visit to college farms/labs will be enhanced by observing the farm situations in VCLs.
Table 1. Nature of summary and q/a at different levels
Level Content Type Nature of Summary Nature of Questions and
Answers (q/a)
Level 0 Virtual Farm
Item (VFI) is
collection of pho-
tographs, videos
and text describ- ing farm situation or activity
Description of farm situation or activity such that it is possible to visualize and understand the farm situation/activitivity by going through digital data (text, photos, video).
The q/a are aimed to un- derstand what, how and why aspects of situation/activity such as importance of such
activity, reasons for the
given farm situation at that stage.
Level 1 Virtual Farm
Saga (VFS) con- stitute collection of VFIs from captured from sowing to har- vesting at regular intervals for a given farm.
Description of overall farm situ- ation by considering correspond- ing VFIs from pre-sowing to post- harvesting. Reasons for the prob- lems should be mentioned. Missed opportunities for a better farm growth, if any, should be given. Also, good farming practices, if any, should be highlighted.
The q/a can be about
the factors about the crop growth, linking the problems occurred to the crop to the activities carried out at dif- ferent stages, weather situa- tion, soil, farm practices.
Level 2 Virtual Crop Lab of a Zone (VCLZ) constitute VFS of sample number of farms for a given zone.
Description of overall situation of farms of corresponding VFS. Rea- sons for the success of some farms, and failure of some farms should me mentioned linking to the good/bad
farm practices, crop protection
measures, untimely application, soil type and so on.
The q/a can be about the reasons for success of some farms and the failure of some other farms linking to seed variety, soil, date of sowing, weather factors and farming practices.
Level 3 Virtual Crop Lab (VCL) constitute VCLZs of several zones for a given crop.
The summary is written by
comparing and contrasting crop growth/farm practices based on the VCLZ of several zones. Reasons for the difference in crop practices by linking to weather and soil should be highlighted.
The q/a can be about the reasons for the difference in farming practices, crop
problems, and protection
measures in differet agro- climatic zones.
6
Virtual Crop Labs as a Cloud Computing Application
The virtual crop labs contain the content of hundreds of crops cultivated in the country. For each crop, we capture the crop husbandry dynamics by considering the cultivation/growth under different agro-climatic zones, farming situations, soil types with varying fertility, various levels of water availability, weather types and so on.
The information is useful to all stakeholders such as agriculture students, agri- culture extension workers, teachers, farmers, policy planners/makers, researchers and industrialists. The information must be made available in different languages in the country by considering the profiles of different stakeholders in the country. Developing virtual crop labs and providing access of such information to stake- holders is a major data collection, data storage and data dissemination task. Virtual crop labs contain voluminous data which requires huge disk space for
data storage. It also requires a huge bandwidth for streaming the data to large number stakeholders in an online manner in parallel. Such a huge data storage and streaming requirement necessitates the need of porting such application on cloud computing platform.
7
Conclusions and Future Work
In agriculture, it is difficult for agri-professionals to make apt decisions at field level as the practical field problems vary with agro-climatic variability (loca- tion), resource variability (crop variety, soil, water, nutrients, energy, manage- ment and so on) and temporal variability (season to season and/or year to year due to weather aberrations). With the latest developments in ICTs, it is possible to capture the crop activities and problems both spatially and temporally using the digital technologies and label them. Thus, there is an opportunity to enhance practical learning by exposing such content to agri-professionals in a systematic manner. In this paper we have proposed a framework of virtual crop labs to en- hance practical skills. Through virtual crop labs, we capture the crop husbandry dynamics of several crops in a digital form (text, photographs and video). The agriculture students, teachers, agriculture extension workers and other stake- holders can access the information to enhance the practical knowledge. Such a huge data storage and streaming task requires a cloud computing platform.
The proposed model of virtual crop labs is general enough to be extended for any other country. For a country like India, it is a huge task which requires the participation of agriculture/horticulture universities, and ICAR institutes which have been spread over different agro-climatic zones of India. It is a poten- tial application of a cloud computing system. As a part of future work, we are planning to refine the proposed framework and make an effort to build the pro- totype system to investigate the developmental issues, dissection issues and the corresponding impact on the practical learning aspects of agricultural education.
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