Digital Literacy
Co-Creating Virtual Reality Videos To Support Newcomer Youth: This blog post describes a training and technical assistance (TTA) experience with the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) Sacramento office, in which the Emerging Technology team at Switchboard collaborated with service providers, a local high school, and Afghan newcomer youth. Using design thinking and the co-creative process, they filmed a 360 immersive video to support the orientation process for newly arrived youth.
Overcoming Challenges in Digital Inclusion: Switchboard has created a Digital Inclusion team to support the development of new digital inclusion resources, including webinars, podcasts, downloadable resources, in-person events, and blog posts. In this blog post, they discuss the importance of digital inclusion, the challenges that often arise when trying to implement it, and the best strategies to help mitigate those challenges.
Digital Literacy for Life and Work: HIAS and HIAS Pennsylvania have created a series of digital literacy videos for newcomer families. Each video series includes 16 short videos, covering topics such as digital safety and scams, online learning opportunities, online translation and interpretation, identifying misinformation, monitoring children’s online activity, and more.
Advocating for Immigrant Digital Equity: Speakers in this webinar explored advocacy resources from World Education’s Transforming Immigrant Digital Equity project created to help ensure immigrants and refugees won’t be left behind. Watch the webinar recording.
Building Digital Literacy: A Trainers Guide to Online Resources and Lessons for Learning. The Missouri Broadband Resource Rail has created a new toolkit to identify online resources designed to build digital literacy through a variety of education websites offering free course content and teaching tools. The toolkit is divided into three parts
Part I – Lesson Links for Building Digital Literacy: Teaching Tools and Online Resources (online lessons with learning and teaching materials organized by content area)
Part II – Summary: Online Digital Resources (a description of key websites offering free, hybrid, and/or fee-based course content)
Party III – Digital Skill-Building for Everyday Life: A Guide to Online Resources (a table showing specific content areas of study offered through several free educational websites)
Digital Technology and Literacy Activities: Explore and incorporate CORE’s new activities on digital technology and literacy in your next Cultural Orientation session. Available through CORE’s Activity Bank, these activities promote engagement and student-centered learning and support key messages around interacting with technology and developing digital skills during early resettlement.
Three Steps to Help Empower Refugee and Immigrant Clients through Digital Literacy: Through their work with refugee and newcomer clients, service providers can help minimize negative effects of disparities. This blog post offers three basic steps for getting started in supporting clients with digital literacy.
Digital Learn has classes to help clients learn computer basics and internet skills. They can learn about the different parts of a computer and operating systems, how to use email, how to keep your information private and avoid scams. Other classes will even teach how to connect with people and shop online.
You can find even more resources for basic computer skills and internet safety on USAHello’s website.
From CORE’s Effective Practice Series: How to Integrate Digital Technology in Cultural Orientation
Digital Literacy for Life and Work: HIAS and HIAS Pennsylvania have created a series of digital literacy videos for newcomer families. Each video series includes 16 short videos, covering topics such as digital safety and scams, preventing viruses and malware, work readiness and job applications, and financial capabilities and online banking. Translations are forthcoming in Arabic, Dari, Pashto, Spanish, Swahili and Ukrainian.
Chromebook Orientation Video Series, from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) and HIAS Pennsylvania, includes 11 short videos covering the following topics: navigating Chromebook settings, using the keyboard and trackpad, conducting Google searches, using Gmail, finding apps, and changing the computer language. The video series is currently available in English, Arabic, Burmese, Dari, Kinyarwanda, Nepali, Swahili, and Tigrinya.
Advancing Digital Equity among Immigrant-Origin Youth, a report from Migration Policy Institute (MPI), highlights insights from educators, staff of refugee resettlement agencies, community leaders, and library and IT professionals working to support immigrant-origin youth during a challenging period. It also recommends steps that federal, state, and local actors can take to advance digital equity.
A new report from the Migration Policy Institute’s Human Services Initiative traces the negative impacts of the digital divide and other barriers to learning for immigrant-origin students from low-income households, including higher rates of absenteeism and dis-enrollment.
What works to improve digital inclusion among resettled refugees? Switchboard’s new evidence summary assesses the evidence surrounding the effectiveness of several program models and interventions designed to increase digital inclusion of refugees. It includes characteristics of successful programs, common barriers to inclusion, and the implications of this research for designing programs.
Digital Citizenship Education Guide for Refugee and Immigrant Youth: Switchboard has a guide to help refugee service providers integrate digital citizenship education into existing programs, with a focus on digital safety, security, and rights and responsibilities. The resource has suggestions for identifying risk and protective factors among refugee youth participants, determining core messages, designing activities, and preparing staff. Download the guide here.