In September 2018, I conducted two Training of Trainers (ToT) workshops on mobile application development in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh under the larger project “Upskilling Girls on ICT through Mobile Application Development”. An all girl team of 27 master trainers from the remotest parts of Sri Lanka and 25 master trainers representing several districts of Bangladesh were developed in the process. The larger project hopes to reach 5,000 marginalized and underprivileged girls in each country through a cascading model. Further, the original book I had authored on Educational App Development Toolkit for Teachers and Learners was translated into Sinhala and Bengali and made available as OER to promote wider access through this project.
From 2016 – 2018, I have delivered hands-on OER course development workshops in St. Lucia, Kenya, Nigeria, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Fiji and Tonga building capacity in over 200 teachers from Higher Education, K-12 Education, TVET and Non-Formal Education.
Prior to 2016, I have delivered workshops and guest lectures on OER in Malaysia, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, India and China (see GLOBAL PRESENCE section for details of my capacity building work prior to 2016).
From 2016-2018 I have facilitated and guided the development of 27 OER courses which include Certificate in Fishing Technology (15 course program), Basic Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Technology, Creating and Repurposing OER Using FOSS: A How-To Guide for Teachers and Learners, Instructional Video Production for Teaching and Learning, Commercial Food Preparation: Local Cuisine, Garment Production, Visual Arts: An Introductory Course, Critical Thinking & Social Media Technology, Quantitative Skills for Competitive Exams, Android Programming: First Thrust Towards Android, and Biodiversity Conservation – Conservation Skills.
I was a course team member and co-author of ICT in Education postgraduate ODL course which seeks to enhance and equip students with necessary skills needed to implement ICT in their curriculum, including skills in using computer hardware, software and connectivity for effective instruction.
TCC 242/05 Web Database Application is an undergraduate ODL technology course I have developed using OER and released as an OER. Development of OER-Based Undergraduate Technology Course Material: “TCC242/05 Web Database Application” Delivered Using ODL at Wawasan Open University (in http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/23) details the systematic process of developing this OER based university courses for ODL and eLearning.
Implementation of Facebook study groups as supplements for learning management systems in adult ODL environments resulted in a pilot project which used Facebook groups as study groups for supplementing an institution’s LMS. These study groups were run in parallel to the LMS for seven course modules over two consecutive semesters. Further, these study groups led to the development of “faboodle” to Interact on moodle through facebook. “faboodle” or facebook for moodle is a facebook application which enables educators and learners to keep track of their courses and interact on moodle forums from within facebook. The application, built using FBML, ASP.NET and VB.NET utilising the moodle architecture, serves as a gateway between moodle based LMS and facebook where users can (i) securely login to their LMS from within facebook, (ii) check for updates in their courses and (iii) participate in the moodle forums.
I have experience in setup and management of content repositories such as Dspace and WEKO; content management systems such as Joomla!, Drupal, WordPress and ZenCart; and the moodle learning management system.
Designed and developed Solar PV Technology Mobile Course Android mobile app (2018)
This mobile app delivers the OER course on Basic Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Technology through Android mobile devices. This technician course is designed for practicing electricians who have basic skills in electrical, mechanical or electronics field. The course lays emphasis on developing practical and theoretical knowledge and skills in basic solar PV technology, products and systems.
Designed and developed Print2Screen Android mobile app (2017)
The traditional way of integrating multimedia into a printed material was to provide a URL which the learner could type into a browser. With more complex URLs, this becomes a tedious and inefficient task. The “Print2Screen” app attempts to address this issue by allowing learners to access multimedia components, such as videos, referred to in a printed material through the use of a mobile phone or tablet. The learners will just need to open the app and point it to the relevant section in the printed material to view the multimedia resources on the phone. The app will also keep track of their use of learning resources, store links to the resources on the device, enable them to add study notes and share the resource on social media.
Authored the Educational App Development Toolkit for Teachers and Learners (2015)
This toolkit is designed to introduce the basic and some intermediate concepts of Android app development on the App Inventor (AI2) platform. It provides hands-on activities and tutorials to use the Designer and Blocks Editor components of App Inventor to create apps that can be readily downloaded and used on any Android smartphone or tablet. Furthermore, the hands-on sessions will guide the learner on how to use features such as text-to-speech, accelerometer, speech recognition, drawing, video, games and music playback. The Toolkit also provides guidelines on how to package and distribute your app. For teachers, a training plan is also provided that can be used to provide training to students in an instructor-led environment. I have conducted several workshops on the topic at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, Thailand; The Open University of Hong Kong; the Open University of Sri Lanka; the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), India; and at the 8th Pan-commonwealth Forum (PCF8), Malaysia training over 170 teachers on mobile app development.
Designed and Developed Shout Notes Android mobile app (2014)
Shout Notes is an educational application which allows learners to make audio study notes. The ability to record notes and play them back while learners are studying or revising for exams makes Shout Notes a valuable tool for learning. Also, hearing thoughts and explanations in your own voice triggers quick recollection of important topics which you would need to understand to achieve better grades. Learners can use Shout Notes on the bus, on the train, while working out or anytime you want to revise what you have learned.
Ishan Abeywardena 