World over the COVID-19 pandemic, has almost brought education systems to a standstill, forcing educationists and policy makers to rethink ways of teaching, learning and use of technology in order to save the 2020 academic year. 

In May 2020, the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) requested Saide to support Emlalatini, a public institution in Eswatini to start developing online courses for the entire secondary school curriculum for the country. 

In response, Saide put together a six-day virtual workshop facilitated by a team of experts in developing teaching and learning materials for independent learning, learning design, appropriate use of technology in teaching, and quality assurance. 

Saide support was provided virtually through Zoom sessions for two days a week, spread over a three-week period and targeting 32 participants. The sessions comprised of four hours of facilitator input, breakaway activities and plenary discussions. 

The content covered included familiarisation with Open Education Resources (OER) and their value in education, induction on how to find and integrating OER in course materials, how to develop self-instructional materials, how to design authentic assessment activities, and how to work with technologies like Moodle, Zoom and Google Documents. 

The workshops built the capacity of teachers to support learners remotely through the production of educational materials on Moodle. The materials will support the continuation of learning while students are at home when schools are closed.