Mobile Learning App In The Covid-19 Crisis Among High School Students In Zimbabwe: Construction Of New Learning Conditions

This paper discusses the challenges faced by learners of rural areas in Zimbabwe in the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic and suggests the adoption of a mobile app to mitigate the lack of resources for online learning. The paper is framed in bricolage, a theory that calls for creativeness and making use of the available materials to address vulnerabilities. Participatory action research was used to generate data from learners and teachers and the thematic approach was used to analyze data. Strategic sampling was used to identify participants for the study. The study sought to respond to two questions: What are the challenges faced by learners from rural areas with online learning? and How can the developed app assist to bridge the gap of lack of resources? We found that COVID-19 has worsened the plights of the learners from rural areas in Zimbabwe and increased the poor and rich divide. The paper argues that the mobile app developed has the impetus to address learning challenges faced by learners from rural areas and mitigate challenges of exclusion in teaching and learning.