The “Oh I know how to ...” Day – Summary of a day of learning, training and sharing at the AgKnowledge Africa

The Training and Learning day was first started in the Share Fair held at Rome in January 2009. The overwhelming response and interest has led to a “Day0” at many of the follow-up Share Fairs.

The aims of the Day 0 at AgKnowledge Africa were:

1. To provide an opportunity for participants of the Share Fair to learn skills, tools and methods that were used in planning and running the Share Fair, and additional tools
2. To discuss overall concepts and learn how to identify, choose and implement tools and methods to match particular needs, activities and goals
3. To provide opportunities for participants to learn and be trained in specific ICT tools and face-to-face methods
4. To expose participants to ways to make their content travel by connecting various tools
5. To explore social, traditional, cultural and creative forms of communication

The Day started with a opening ceremony which introduced the concepts of knowledge sharing, knowledge management, ICTs, facilitation, social media, online collaboration and networking and more. During this session, Nadia Manning-Thomas from CGIAR’s ICT-KM Program gave examples on how to identify, choose and implement right knowledge sharing tools/methods for their particular stage of work and to help achieve a particular purpose or goal they may have. She stressed that although there is a “overwhelmingly long and constantly increasing list of tools and methods” many of these tools and methods can and should be used for different kinds of activities and for achieving certain aims. For more information take a look at the knowledge sharing framework in research.

After the opening ceremony, over 180 participants split into various sessions. Here is a summary of reports from many of the sessions that took place.

Opening session

• Audio by Jan: http://share-fair.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-10-18T01_46_56-07_00

Gladson Makowa, Media and Communications Manager, Story Workshop (trainer for Commonwealth of Learning (COL) - Radio for knowledge sharing

• Audio by Jan: http://share-fair.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-10-18T06_44_39-07_00 (how to make good audio and radio interviews)

Tania Jordan (CGIAR ICT-KM) - Collaborative writing

Google team: France, Evans, Jackie - Google tools

• Blogpost by Andew: Google Geo Tools: What can they do for knowledge sharing?

Antonella Pastore - Collaborative writing

KM4Dev team: Pete Cranstan , Charles Dhewa, Gauri Salokhe, Willem Bettink, Roxanna Samii – Face to Face Knowledge Sharing Methods

• Blogpost by Roxy: Day zero: "I know HOW day" starts at Agknowledge share fair #sfaddis
• Blogpost by Ewen: Share Fair Addis: Fishbowl and fishbowl battle

Pier Andrea Pirani - Videos for Knowledge Sharing

• Blogpost by Pier Andrea: http://euforic.blogspot.com/2010/10/agknowledge-africa-share-fair-training.html
• Videos by Pier Andrea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWIFBn7vRpU

Susanna Thorp, WRENmedia and Pius Sawa - Making the most of the media

• Blogpost by Davide: How to deal with journalists
  

Katarlah Taylor, IFPRI - Mendeley

• Blog post by Grace: New Discoveries at #sfaddis: MENDELEY!!!

Maureen Agena- Blogging

• Blog post by Davide: The big deal about blogs
  

The day ended with Peter Casier ran a session called “Making Content Travel”- introducing practical and low-effort tips, tools and tricks to make your content known to the wider public, to “make your content travel through the social media channels”, magnifying the reach of your content.

The rest of the week, the social media team, which now includes some newly trained participants, will be covering the event and documenting everything through Twitter, Flickr, Audio and Video tools, blogs and much more. For more information, take a look at the list of social media tools used by the Share Fair Team.

The communications team on the other hand was busy publishing the daily newspaper called the "Daily Trail". Here's a link to Sunday's edition.

In a very African way, the day ended with drumming and dancing! Lots of knowledge sharing on music from different countries. Great way to end the day!