Mobile based collaborative learning tool to facilitate instructor-mediated informal learning in agriculture

This paper presents the development and testing of an android application (Agri-Lessons) to facilitate instructor-mediated informal learning in an agricultural community. In a previous experiment, this evaluation was carried out using a mobile SMS based Twitter application and basic phones to find out the effectiveness of mobile learning in agriculture. In this experiment, we are presenting a mobile application that is developed for Android based smartphones, to promote instructor-mediated informal learning. The paper also presents the evaluation of the app to justify effectiveness. The evaluation was carried out considering a pre-test and post-test to find out knowledge gain. A questionnaire was used to collect the user feedback in an anonymous way. The statistics of evaluation shows that the Agri-Lessons app as highly effective as a learning tool. The App can be further improved to modify the user interface, include a few more functionalities and Sinhalese language. In the future research this app can be improved to include multiple user groups among the farming community.