Quran lessons for children · pilot
Alif is a video classroom for a child and their own Quran teacher. Both phones show the same page. The teacher points and turns the page; the child's phone follows.
Alif is in a pilot with a few families. Ask for an invite if you teach a child or have one who is learning.
Teacher's phone, child's phone. Same page, same pointers, live.
Why we built it
Our children learn Qaida over video from a teacher we trust. The lessons are good. The app around them was made for adults: small controls, a screen share standing in for the book, and a parent sitting beside the child to drive the phone. The marketplace also takes a cut of every lesson the teacher gives.
Alif does one thing. It puts the book inside the video call, so the teacher and the child look at the same page, and it strips the child's screen down to the lesson and a hand-up button. You bring the teacher you already have.
Haseeb Jamil · Lito Design, UK
How it works
The teacher invites the family, or the parent invites the teacher. Pick the book and a weekly slot. Alif remembers both.
At lesson time the lesson is one tap from the home screen. Kid mode locks the phone to the lesson; a parent PIN unlocks it.
She turns the pages, zooms in and points. The child's phone follows. The child can point too, with a different marker, and raise a hand.
When the lesson ends, the teacher saves the page reached and a line for the parent. That is the progress record.
Ustadha Amina will see it on her schedule. We'll remind you before it starts.
The classroom
No whiteboard, no chat window, no screen share. A book, two pointers, two faces.
Noorani Qaida, and Juz 30 in the Madani and Indo-Pak scripts. The teacher's page is the child's page. When she zooms to a line, the child's phone zooms with her; the child can pinch to look closer, and the next teacher zoom brings it back.
The teacher's pointer is a circle. The child's is a diamond. Both show on both phones, so "this letter" means the same letter.
Big controls and nothing to wander into. The phone stays in the lesson until a parent enters the PIN.
One large button for the child. The teacher sees a hand on the child's video tile until she clears it.
The teacher saves the page reached and a line for the parent. Progress is the list of pages, not a streak.
One thread between parent and teacher for "running five minutes late". The parent can switch it off.
For teachers
Alif does not find you students. It gives the ones you already teach a better room.
Yusuf's parent can see the page reached and your note.
Children first
The ICO Children's Code is our design brief: high privacy by default, no profiling, no streaks or nudges. The short version is below; the privacy notice has the rest.
Video and audio pass through the call and are not stored, by us or anyone else.
The video room carries the participant's name. No profile, no email, no location.
A teacher's photo is visible to the families she teaches. A family's photos are visible only to their teacher. Nothing is on a public link.
The child sees the lesson. Leaving it, changing settings or opening the account needs the PIN.
The app talks to the lesson server and the video relay. That is the list.
Try Alif
iPhone builds come through TestFlight. Android builds install from a link. Both talk to the same lesson server, so a teacher on Android and a child on an iPhone share a room.
Free during the pilot. You pay your teacher directly, as you do now. Android installs ask you to allow an app from outside the Play Store; that is expected for a pilot build.
Questions
Yes. Alif is for a child and the teacher they already have, or one you find yourself. We do not match teachers to families.
Noorani Qaida, lessons 1 to 4, typeset by Alif and marked as a draft. Juz 30 of the Quran in the Madani script, from the King Fahd Complex print files via Mushaf Database, and in the Indo-Pak script, set in the DigitalKhatt font. Credits are inside the app under Books and credits.
Nothing during the pilot. You pay your teacher directly, as you do now. Alif takes no cut of a lesson.
No. Video and audio are live and nothing is stored. If recording ever becomes a feature it will be opt-in for both sides, with its own notice.
Yes. During the pilot Android builds install from a link we send you. A Play Store listing comes later.
Any age. The lesson screen was drawn for a five-year-old's fingers, and nothing is taken away for older children or adults.
The page the lesson reached and the teacher's note, on the home screen and in the progress tab. That is the whole record. No streaks, no scores.
Yes. Lesson times are stored against each person's own time zone, and a clock change on one side does not move the lesson for the other.
Alif