COVID-19 lockdown and remote attendance teaching in developing countries: A review of some online pedagogical resources

Abstract

The Corona Virus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has negatively impacted teaching and learning globally, imposing widespread closure of schools from the elementary to tertiary levels. As of 14 April 2020, teaching activities of over 1.75 billion students globally were disrupted in about 200 countries that have implemented full or partial lockdown across the world. At the time of writing, the duration of the current pandemic cannot be ascertained. Therefore, the teaching and learning process should also adapt to the new normal, which includes suitable social distancing, self-isolation and other disruptive guidelines outlined by the World Health Organization. Thus, more than ever, COVID-19 has now emphasized the necessity to embrace different and flexible methods of teaching and, by extension, learning. Therefore, e-teaching and e-learning have emerged as complementary solutions that reduce disruption to educational activities. Despite having a solution in online teaching to reduce the effect of COVID-19 on education, it’s noteworthy that the solution is not available to every educator, learner and school, especially in developing countries. In developing countries, especially across Africa, lack of awareness of the existing online teaching resources and their suitability for remote attendance teaching and lack of skill sets required for using the resources are the issues impeding online teaching. This paper reviews and evaluates twenty-two (22) remote attendance teaching resources, their special features and system requirements. The technical requirements, suitability, and limitations of each application are considered. The implementation challenges of using the resources are discussed, and some solutions are recommended.