Eric Akattia is working with Romain Tohouri, Akvo’s local FLOW trainer in Ivory Coast. Here, Kathelyne van den Berg asks them about their work.
Summary of training. Picture by Mark Charmer
KvdB: What’s the latest training you delivered?
EA: We’ve just completed Akvo FLOW training with the administrators of ANADER – it ran on Monday July 15th and Tuesday 16th July 2013.
….. no mention of ICRAF? Add sentence here about why they did the training with ICRAF and ANADER, since this is of our MARS project.
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KvdB: What’s a typical training agenda for you?
On the first day of a two-day Akvo FLOW workshop, we concentrate on the online dashboard element of FLOW. On the second day we look more at the FLOW app on the participants’ devices.
The first day allows people to become more familiar with the FLOW tool overall and how it’s used to collect data. The participants get to design for themselves different survey forms online, edit them and publish them on the FLOW dashboard. Unfortunately in the ANADER training session we were not able to download the survey forms to devices because of the poor quality of the internet connection.
The second day is a mix between technical information and practical exercises which enable people to practice the advice given by the trainer and see how to complete the different forms and how to send the data collected to the FLOW platform. We begin with the installation of the Field survey app on the tablets by participants themselves, followed by surveys assigned to devices and a survey download to the devices in use.
The latest training was conducted using the following agenda:
Day 1
• Introduction to Akvo
• Introduction to Flow
• Survey design (designing online forms)
Day 2
• Device basics
• Field survey application installation
• Field survey tool usage
• Assigning surveys to devices
• GPS calibration
• Saving and submitting surveys
• Data cleaning
• Data analysis
• Hints and tips
KvdB: What devices were the trainees using?
On this occasion the group used Samsung […. specific device name….] tablets.
KvdB: Were they using 3G data? Did you encounter any problems?
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KvdB: Which supplier was used and what kind of tariff? What are the main considerations when selecting a service provider and tariff?
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KvdB: Why was the decision made to use tablets instead of smartphones?
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Albert Keint and Fabrice Gbana of ANADER using FLOW on their tablet. Photo by Isidore Adje
KvdB: How familiar were your trainees with using tablets? Were they comfortable with them straight away?
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KvdB: How much technical know-how about their device do people need to use FLOW?
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EA: We also teach people how to calibrate and use GPS. We interpret the data displayed by the GPS application and then divide the participants into working groups to use the tablet to complete the survey form already designed and published on the FLOW dashboard. This field survey allows each participant to practice the advice given by the trainer and see how to complete the different forms and how to send the data collected to the FLOW platform.
KvdB: How do participants respond to the training generally?
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KvdB: What aspect, if any, do people find most difficult?
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KvdB: Which part do they most enjoy?
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KvdB: What are biggest challenges you face when running these courses?
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KvdB: How have the participants been getting on with Akvo FLOW since this workshop took place?
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Posted by Kathelyne van den Berg is Manager, partner operations, based in Amsterdam