Online and Mobile Learning in Poultry Farming in Tanzania

Abstract

Poultry farming in Tanzania has become a major source of income in families in the rural areas. In earlier days, farmers used only a traditional way of farming by letting free poultry in the morning to fetch for food and later in the evening let them in the chicken barn  for shelter. In some cases the farmers were not using vaccination or methods of treatment against diseases, instead they slaughter and eat a fowl  if it shows signs of being sick. Currently, this situation is changing due to concerted effort to improve poultry  farming in rural Tanzania.  One of the many efforts is the deployment of agricultural extension officers they operate as facilitators and communicators, helping farmers in their decision-making and ensuring that appropriate knowledge is implemented in order to obtain the best results.    Nowadays, several training are offered but have not reached the rural areas where the extension officers are operating and the residence for the bigger percent of traditional farmers. Introduction of m-learning is believed to be effective in delivering learning materials to agricultural extension officers in the rural areas.     This paper explores the impact which can be realized by using m-learning to deliver learning materials to agricultural extension officers who in-turn will guide traditional poultry farmers in  rural Tanzania to use professional methods of poultry farming. The learning materials are developed in the Learning Management System (LMS), which is also available via the web, and delivered to the mobile phones.