The Digital Inclusion Learning Circle convenes monthly, with digital skills instructors coming together to learn about their programming around the metro and how to collaborate more effectively. In July, Pam Rooks with Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas presented about her experience working with immigrants and refugees and the challenges with teaching digital skills to different cultures.
As most digital skills trainers would tell you, their job is not easy. Teaching digital skills can be very rewarding, very draining, and you can learn tons about other people and yourself. But imagine teaching “internet language” to learners who have been systematically excluded from the formal, K-12, education?
Pam Rooks with Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas has worked tirelessly with new community members just arriving to get them up to speed on all things “digital,” but these efforts can be much harder than she anticipated.
Through her time as a Refugee Digital Access Coordinator, she has developed plenty of tools in her toolbelt for her and her colleagues to use to assist in digital navigation training for Catholic Charities clients. In the Learning Circle, she shared how to create digital skills curriculum for people who don’t speak English and/or who didn’t grow up in the United States, and how to be more culturally universal. Because the majority of curriculum as of now is centered heavily on Western culture, it often has to go through several “translations” to be understood by immigrants and refugees.
Here are some of the best practices Pam offered for “gap-informed curriculum:”
- Language and culture can be very different and take some time to adapt to. A language barrier is the most common challenge clients face.
- Pre-literate clients may not know how to read their own language much less English, so Excel columns can be confusing with the alphabet layout.
- Google Chrome’s web translation tool (for those who can read) can be found within the Chrome tools. Image below with directions.
- Pam created a Kahoot game to help practice identifying uppercase and lowercase letters and builds clicking dexterity.
- In classes, they promote Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools like Chat GPT that clients can use as an informational tool (e.g., Take a picture of your fire alarm, send it to the tool and ask why it keeps beeping.)
Common terms/ideas that can be difficult to translate in other cultures:
- People who come from places with very little exposure to technology may be overwhelmed with new technologies to the point of struggling to draw lines between what is real and what isn’t. Because of this, they can seem to take things literally, which leaves itself open to misunderstanding as people may be inclined (for example) to conflate ideas of thunderstorms, weather radar apps, and the internet “cloud” – and conclude that the internet is in the sky. They’ve learned that it’s important to be aware of the ways in which concepts may be taken literally. For people who have had no exposure to technology, it is a lot of new, and sometimes seemingly magical stuff, and they, unfortunately, find themselves having to navigate concepts that seem unbelievable at times, and aren’t sure where to land.
- The concept of a “bookmark” for people who may not have exposure to an array of books, may be able to understand the concept in comparison to “putting a ribbon in your Bible.”
- Some people come from places with very low numeric literacy rates and may not understand basic mathematical operations, or how to read charts and graphs, and may struggle with numbers over 100.
Here are some of the most common challenges of navigating technology:
- Password hygiene
- Teaching “how-to” instructions
- How to use a mouse
- Closing pop-ups
While helping anyone who has been left out of the digital economy to learn the skills they need to be digitally included can be challenging, if someone is not literate in their home language, does not understand English, and/or does not understand Western culture, it is even more difficult and requires customized, culturally respectful and innovative approaches.
How to join the Learning Circle
If you are a digital skills trainer or digital navigator and you’re interested in joining this monthly meetup, please email Leah Henriksen at lhenriksen @ kcdigitaldrive dot org and she will put you on the list. The meeting is typically hybrid, so in-person or virtual participation is available. We hope to see you there!