Development of an interactive on-line training course for testers of plant protection equipment

The testing of plant protection application equipment in Finland is carried out by private testers. The system is very distributed and relies on the availability of testers around the country. In the recent years a risk of poor availability of testers around the country has been identified. To mitigate the risks more testers are needed, which means attracting new people to the business. One obstacle in attracting and recruiting new testers is the availability and accessibility to the training. Trainings are arranged at fixed times at fixed locations and can be difficult to access. There are also other challenges to training of testers. The increasing level of automation and complexity of user interfaces in sprayers requires revisiting and supplementing the training material constantly. New digital technologies for training and education offer new possibilities to arrange trainings and present possible solutions to the challenges facing the training of testers. New e-learning technologies like Massive Open On-line Courses (MOOCS) and virtual reality environments have progressed considerably and have been employed especially during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Finnish Chemicals and Safety Authority (TUKES), Häme University of Applied Sciences (HAMK), and Natural Resources institute Finland (Luke) explored possibilities of new e-learning technologies in arranging training for testers of plant protection application equipment. The study was carried out by identifying challenges facing the training today, deconstructing the current training course and constructing a pedagogical script for a new online training course. Available e-learning platforms and virtual reality environments was studied. From these studies a new concept for arranging training of testers was created. The objective is not to completely replace the current system but to supplement it and make the training more accessible, extendable, re-usable and more interactive. This paper presents the proposed e-learning platform, first experiences and discussion on using such an environment.