Capacity Building Programme for Teacher Educators of NIE-Maldives, to Develop Mobile Applications Relevant to the National Curriculum at Maldives
Capacity Building Programme for Teacher Educators of NIE-Maldives, to Develop Mobile Applications Relevant to the National Curriculum
New Delhi, February 08, 2016: Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), New Delhi organised a Capacity Building Programme for Teacher Educators of NIE Maldives to Develop Mobile Applications Relevant to the National Curriculum from 31 Jan 2016 to 4 Feb 2016 in collaboration with National Institute of Education (NIE), Republic of Maldives. Twenty five teacher educators from different parts of Maldives attended the workshop. Ms. Rashmi Kathuria, National ICT Awardee, PGT(Mathematics), Kulachi Hansraj Model School, Delhi, India facilitated this five days workshop along with Dr. Manas Ranjan Panigrahi, Programme Officer (Education), CEMCA, New Delhi. The main objective of the capacity building programme was to equip them with skills fordeveloping their own android apps as per the National curriculum. The workshop was designed to embed two elements viz. using App Inventor, a cloud based platform, for creating android mobile apps and open educational resources.
Immediately after the welcome address by the Deputy Minister Ms. Na Heed, Republic of Maldives, Dr. Manas Ranjan Panigrahi, Program Officer, CEMCA briefed the participants about the programme and its objectives. He conducted three sessions viz. Understanding of OER, Open Licensing and Creative Common Licensing, Searching of OER and Development of OER using OER-Common Platform.
Ms. Rashmi Kathuria, workshop facilitator, initiated the workshop with an ice breaking activity for motivating the participants and making them realise the need of the hour for teacher educators as change agents. All participants were connected on a G+ community and shared with resources on cloud. All participants created an account on MIT App Inventor and set up their Android devices for development and debugging. Participants were familiarised with the designer and block components through activities. They learnt about various new terms like QR Code, Emulator, Cloud Computing etc. They were given a copy of toolkit and by the end of day participants were able to do hands on with three activities viz. Text to Speech App: Loud Mouth, AccelorometerSensor App and SpeechRecognizer App: Speak to Me. Day 2 began with the recap session followed by demonstration of Activities viz. Canvas App: Scribble and Ball App: Ball Bounces. The participants were given a project work on “Orientation Sensor and Clock App: Move the Ball”. Throughout the day creative discussions happened on the use of various blocks and components for designing the apps. The concepts of image sprites, creation and calling procedures, setting up of global variables, arithmetic operators, logical and control components and tiny database were covered through activities designed. Day 3: Ms. Rashmi demonstrated and hands on sessions on Activity “Camera App: Say Cheese!” and “Camcoder and VideoPlayer App: Action Capture”. Participants were encouraged to use the tutorials from the tool kit to try making the apps on their own. By the end of day 3 they were able to finish three tutorials viz. Pet the Kitty, Crystal Ball and Swat the mosquito. Day 4: All the participants created quizzes and jigsaw puzzles. During the post lunch session participants were given information about how to package and distribute the apps. They learnt to export/import .aia and .apk files. Day 5: Participants were excited as some of them could finish making their first android mobile app and some participants wanted to spend more time. Their problems were troubleshooted and by the end of pre-lunch all groups were ready for the show case.
During Valedictory session, Mr. Ahmed Shafeeu, Education Minister of State was the Chief Guest for the occasion. A brief report was read by the one of the participants. Deputy Minister Education Ms. Na Heed shared her experiences about the programme and its need in the current scenario of changing educational trends in Republic of Maldives. Some of the participants displayed their self-created android mobile apps which may be used for enhancing learning and creating interest of students. Dr. Panigrahi and Ms. Rashmi shared their experiences of facilitating the workshop. In the valedictory address Mr. Ahmed appreciated the efforts of CEMCA and facilitators for achieving the desired goals. During his address he said children are digital natives and we as educators are immigrants. Our children can do multi-tasking using mobile technology. We need to know about the needs of 21st century learners and be prepared for educating them. He also said, we need to make the best use of tools and resources which are available. He appreciated the participants for their wonderful work done during the 5 days and congratulated the entire team of NIE for their efforts. Certificates were distributed by honourable minister to all participants. The day ended on a positive note of exploring, learning and sharing and continuing the journey for the betterment of emerging societies.
