Whatsapp as a digital resource for formative assessment in learning

WhatsApp has been considered a powerful application for both work and leisure, as well as for stimulating social relationships. This application, like digital communication and information technologies, enables students to learn and makes it possible for them to communicate and collaborate with each other. So, as a teacher-researcher and faced with this reality associated with the lack of interest on the part of many of the students, I sought to improve teaching practice in order to encourage student learning. In this research, the focus was on analyzing and understanding the use of WhatsApp during the development of formative assessment activities, according to Perrenoud (2000). For the application and analysis of technologies in teaching, we considered the theory of Multiliteracies, according to Cope and Kalantizis (2005, 2015), the aspects of multimodality, according to Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), associated with Vygotsky’s (1998) socio-interactionism. With regard to the scientific method, action research and the deductive approach were used, based on the theories of a social phenomenon, as this was a research project about an educational environment.