This presentation was designed for workshops in Daloa and Abengourou, 2 regions of Cote d’Ivoire. The aim of the workshops was to train teachers and set a social media supported communities of practice for English teachers in these rural regions. The objective of the training was to develop professional development in remote communities of English Teachers via WhatsApp. The training focused on changing mindset on professional development, reinforcing capacities to use the social media platform WhatsApp, and introducing a professional development model based on technology assisted communities of Practice.

1. Digital Skills for
Educators: Using
WhatsApp for Teacher
Professional Development
CoP Abengourou
Aubain Adi & Adjoumani Kouassi

2. 2
Presentation Overview
● Introductions
● Game: Where Do You Stand?
● Questionnaire
● What Professional Development Is
● Current Status of CPD
● Effective CPD
● Case Study ELTRA Project
02_STAFF & LEADERS

3. 3
Icebreaker:
Where Do You Stand?

4. 4
Questionnaire
● Getting Connected
● Answer the questions on the link below
https://forms.gle/SYLBTEtTNZSMTwJdA
02_STAFF & LEADERS

5. 5
What Professional Development is
● Continued training and
education regarding an
individual’s career
● Keep teachers up-to-date
on current trends and
practices
● Help teachers develop
new skills
02_STAFF & LEADERS

6. 6
Existing CPD
● Not regular, occasional vs. routines
● Face-to-face
● Not focus on personal development
● Does not build teacher autonomy
● Local, top down
● Teacher isolation (not connected)
● Abidjan vs. rural area teachers

7. 7
New Trends in CPD
● On-going, non-stop
● Face-to-face and virtual
● Teacher collaboration
● Based on teachers’ need
● National & international experts
● Engagement in a community

8. 8
Example: The ELTRA Project
● A collaborative CDP between the South and the North
● Include Countries in Africa (CI, Rwanda, Cameroon,
Burkina Faso, Mali. Senegal, UK)
02_STAFF & LEADERS

9. 9
Implementing a
Community-Based CPD

10. 10
The Digital Learning
Community Project
O U R S T U D I O I N
N E W Y O R K
C I T Y .
Obtained a grant to train
teachers Building their social
media and Digital Skills
01_INTRODUCTION
Build a digital community that
allows teachers to collaborate
online, via social media
Setting Up CoPs

11. The Digital Learning Community on Facebook
11

12. 12
What is Communities
of Practice?
01_INTRODUCTION
Let’s watch this video and take notes on what a CoP is.
https://youtu.be/PYp-ZJyinmg

13. 13
What is Communities
of Practice?
01_INTRODUCTION
CoPs are groups of people who share a common
concern, a set of problems or interest in a topic,
who come together (face to face or in a virtual
environment) to fulfill both individual and group
goals – (Wenger, 2002)

14. 14
What is Communities
of Practice?
01_INTRODUCTION
• A technique for connecting people with same interest
• Learning
• Collaborating
• Create know knowledge to enhance existing one

15. 15
What a Community of
Practice Is For - Video
01_INTRODUCTION
Let’s watch this video and find answers to this question:
What you can get in a Cop What you cannot get in a Cop
Video link: https://youtu.be/mNCb7QsAb3I

16. 16
What a Community of
Practice Is For.
01_INTRODUCTION
What you can get in a Cop What you cannot get in a
Cop
• Collaborating with new people
• Meet new people
• Discussions
• Knowledge management
• Answers to questions in a short
time
• varieties of responses
• Facilitate sharing
• Keeping information
to yourself
• Getting some reward
Can you add anything else to this list?

17. 17
THANK_YOU
From the discussion
above, how can CoP
benefit us?

18. 18
Possible Answer Themes

19. Break

20. 20
Developing Communities
of Practice (CoP) Through
WhatsApp

21. 21
The Choice of WhatsApp?
● Many people are already using it in their social lives; so it is
familiar
● It is accessible to most people; it is not high tech
● It is free (currently), but requires the internet
● It is encrypted, secure
● It has lots of features (multimodal): text, pictures, sound (so
suitable for language teaching)
● It can be backed up easily
● We have shown via our different projects that it has value

22. 22
… And WhatsApp can be used
for many different purposes

23. 23
What WhatsApp Can Be Used For
● Exchanging ideas on a variety of topics
● Asking for help in e.g. designing a lesson plan,
preparing a test, getting a listening text, etc.
● Sharing information and resources
● Designing materials collaboratively
● Practicing language
● Running training sessions
● Sharing training materials
● Forum for debate
● Gathering feedback on new initiatives

24. 24
How to set up and use
WhatsApp for teacher
development

25. 25
WhatsApp Tuto
01_INTRODUCTION
 Downloading the app
 Creating an account
 Setting up a group
 Editing a group: names, pictures
 Adding group members : from phone, inviting via a link
 Group settings
 removing members, making admins
 moderating; establishing and enforcing rules for behavior
 Texting features (copy, paste, quote, forward, tracking,
starred messages, mute)
 Deciding what activities to do and how often
 Example activities

26. 26
Demo Activities

27. 27
Exploring WhatsApp
01_INTRODUCTION
 Participants try posting in WhatsApp
 Answer to a discussion
 Copy and paste a text
 Copy and paste a link
 Share a file from phone (photo, video, document)
 Use audio recording feature

28. 28
Understanding Virtual
Social Environments

29. 29
What to Expect?
01_INTRODUCTION
 Synchronous vs. asynchronous
 Audio, video, pictures, or text?
 Regularly connected
 Your connections want responses NOW
 Need data to connect
 Temptation to socialization

30. 30
THANK_YOU
Q & A

31. 31
THANK_YOU
Jeopardy Game and
Evaluation

32. 32
THANK_YOU
Thank You