Challenge – At the start of online teaching, one of the challenges was delivering and getting lower level learners who were mostly using mobiles phones to engage in the lesson. Using Whatsapp as a tool for sharing resources has worked especially well with this group. This has not only given learners the chance to take that first step towards digital literacy but more importantly has given them the confidence to engage in the online lesson.
Tools Used – Zoom, WhatsApp
Activity Outline
In this example Whatsapp* (where it’s an issue of safeguarding, Googledocs can be a viable substitute) was used as a backchannel essentially with absolute beginner learners as a way of sharing resources, classwork, homework, correct and collate errors and monitor class activity.
Instructions
Lesson:
1 – Instruct learners to write their answers/ responses in their books.
2 – Ask them to take a photo of their work and share it on Whatsapp.
3 – The teacher can mark the work on and share it back on Whatsapp.
4 – The teacher can also collate the common errors and put them up the Zoom whiteboard for the whole class. It helps reinforce spelling and punctuation rules.
Online Refugee Education Toolkit 