WhatsApp Messenger as a Collaborative Learning Tool during COVID-19 in Iraq
Afraa Husam Sami
College of Education for Women- Tikrit University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25130/jls.4.2.3
Keywords: Coronavirus ( Covid-19), WhatsApp Messenger, Collaborative learning tool
Abstract
In Iraq like in the rest of the world, Coronavirus has produced a downward slope within the economy of the world and produced an enormous effect on the upper education system. The unexpected closing of universities as a social distancing procedure has transferred traditional learning to e-learning. This has thrown the concentration on utilizing online learning tools which may have boundaries of attainability and affordability for many learners. Thus makes teaching faculty should be creative enough to find an appropriate tool to rescue the situation. One of these tools is WhatsApp due to its advantages, especially the advantage of the collaborative feature (which is achieved within a group). This study aims at 1) reviewing the literature and research that talks about the advantages of WhatsApp as a learning tool, especially the advantage of creating a group and its collaborative feature. 2) Focusing on the importance of the WhatsApp group chat as a collaborative learning tool among Iraqi universities students during the pandemic. The study found that Iraqi university students, during the pandemic, preferred WhatsApp group chat because of its advantages, especially collaborative feature. The WhatsApp group helped them in overcoming difficulties of e-
