“I am so super excited to be a part of your Teacher Support Program. The lessons are so simple to understand and follow. In addition the chatbot application is AMAZING. It navigated me through everything I wanted to know with ease.
Us as an organisation we have been waiting for something like this for years and it is finally here and without all the intimidation that robotics and coding usually comes with!!”
Alley McPherson, Founder of E.C.D's United for Greatness
[See at bottom for Getting Started]
As part of the Tangible Africa Teacher Support program, a WhatsApp Chatbot was launched this week. It will play a pivotal role in providing weekly lessons to teachers from Grade R to 7, preparing them for the future implementation of the new Coding and Robotics curricula.
“The Chatbot will provide an easy way for interaction between Tangible Africa and the 1000’s of teachers that have already registered. Using the platform teachers will receive lessons, be able to find archived lessons, give weekly feedback as well as ask any other questions.”, says Kelly Bush from Tangible Africa, who did the ChatBot navigation design.
The lessons are developed by a team of qualified teachers with many years’ of experience. The following are main aspects of the program:
- Completely free! No cost to teachers at all.
- Aligned with the CAPS Coding and Robotics curriculum.
- Opportunities to earn valuable CPD points.
- Receive easy-to-follow weekly lessons with guidance and support.
- No prior coding experience needed
- The chance to receive physical teaching materials by actively participating.
“We have committed to provide weekly lessons during the first term of 2025. The continuation and expansion of the project will literally depend on how many teachers register and implement the lessons in their classes”, said Jackson Tshabalala, Engagement Manager for Tangible Africa.
All the initial lessons will be offline and interactive, focusing on the introduction of coding principles as well as problem solving.
Ryan le Roux, CEO of Leva Foundation (the implementation partner for Tangible Africa), stated that they have further plans to support teachers within the offline or unplugged teaching philosophy: “We believe that this way of teaching has been proven to be the most effective within the country’s environment where many schools do not have computers, internet connectivity as well as electricity. The Chatbot will play a pivotal part in all of this, since we have found that emails are not the best way to communicate with our teachers.”
Statistics show that with email the “read rate” was below 50%, while with the Chatbot it was nearly 90% within 24 hours.
Prof Greyling from Nelson Mandela University Computing Sciences is encouraged by the response they have already received from teachers. Conraad Basson from Shalom Akademie in Ladismith is grateful for the innovative way quality teaching and learning material delivered: “I am inspired by the passionate Tangible Africa team to continue raising a generation of problem solvers!”
Megan Gratz from Stirling Primary School in East London says the Chatbot is great: “Using the WhatsApp platform is wonderful since everyone has WhatsApp. I downloaded all the lessons I needed and think this will specifically be helpful for teachers and schools who do not have resources.”
Recording of Information Session (40 minutes)
Follow this link
Getting the Chatbot on your phone
If you are on your phone, click on this link
If you are on a PC or Laptop, scan the QR code with your phone:
Video to guide new users
Follow this link.
For further assistance, email jean.greyling@mandela.ac.za