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The digital learning environment ForestBioFacts offers up-to-date information, source material, and learning resources for students and teachers in universities and universities of applied sciences.
In the Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg in Karlsruhe, Germany, which corresponds to Finnish universities of applied sciences, the ForestBioFacts learning environment is available to students for the second year.
“Students have free access to ForestBioFacts, and they have utilised it in their project work and bachelor theses. Similarly, many of our lecturers use ForestBioFacts when planning their lecture materials. Otherwise, the integration of ForestBioFacts into studies is still in its early stages, but gradually it will be used more and more,” says Professor Jukka-Pekka Valkama. He leads the Department of Sustainable Development Science and Technology, where sustainable development is the foundation of education, with specializations in paper technology and packaging technology.
Professor Valkama considers the strengths of the digital ForestBioFacts learning environment to be up-to-date information and the quick availability of information. He hopes for more content on recycling.
“In Germany, the paper industry is about 80% based on recycled paper, so information on that side would benefit us. And it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to include practical aspects in addition to in-depth scientific knowledge.”
Digital Learning in the Present Day
“ForestBioFacts serves us in many ways,” says Päivi Viitaharju, the Degree Program Manager for Bioproduct Technology at Tampere University of Applied Sciences, TAMK in Finland.
“The themes of ForestBioFacts provide a lot of source material and supplementary reading for various courses, there are good expert reviews, podcasts, and webinars. In theses and laboratory reports, ForestBioFacts is an essential and reliable source of theoretical material, and for exchange students and Finnish students who have chosen the English study path, the dictionary has proven to be a good help,” she lists.
Viitaharju considers the Finnish-language learning paths of the learning environment to be good, especially for first-year students. – “They have, for example, a safety theme, and ForestBioFacts has a good safety section with a nice task at the end of it.”
Viitaharju praises the webinars and podcasts of ForestBioFacts. – “They are one way for teachers to stay up-to-date with the latest topics in the field. It’s great that the broadcasts are also available as recordings for students to listen to and as background material for assignments.”
“Digital learning material is the present day. The way young people learn is to listen and watch, not just read. ForestBioFacts responds well to this.”
Text: Minna Saano
The article was originally published in Puunvuoro magazine 3/2024
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