Libraries supporting social inclusion for refugees and immigrants
UNESCO emphasizes the importance of social inclusion for international
migrants and encourages cities and local governments to “ensure social rights
for migrants to adequate housing, education, health and social care, welfare
and decent standard of living according to basic needs such as food, energy
and water.” Libraries can play an important role in helping new arrivals
acclimate and thrive in a new community.
Do you have a story to share about how your library, on its own or in
collaboration with community organizations, is providing social services and
support for refugees and immigrants? Do you have advice on creating successful
programming to support refugees and immigrants?
Proposal to the SCSU library administration:
Good afternoon,
I will be submitting a proposal about my individual work in that area:
In the fall of 2015, I organized a campus-wide meeting, including St. Cloud community members, on refugees and migrants, by inviting one Syrian and one Somali refugees:
I also reached out across campus (e.g. Dan Wildeson with the Holocaust Center, Geoffrey Tabakin, Stephen Philion).
I organized also the online presence by delivering the personal stories of three refugees:
I also maintain a FB group for the class and in conjunction with the blog (you need to request permission to enter the FB group): https://www.facebook.com/groups/hons221
I am formally proposing / requesting to transition my individual efforts and offering the library to support me in expanding my acitivies on this topic
Here is my rational:
If not on campus, at least in the library, I am the only refugee and for that matter an immigrant. I have the understanding and the compassion of someone, who personally have experienced the hardship of being and immigrant and refugee.
I have amounted information and experience presenting the information and engaging the audience in a discussion regarding a rather controversial (for St. Cloud) issue
I have the experience and skills to conduct such discussions both F2F and online
Based on my rational, here are activities I am proposing:
The library supports a monthly F2F meetings, where I am taking the responsibility to host students with refugee and/or migrant status and facilitate a conversation among those students and other students, faculty, staff, who would like to learn more about the topic and discuss related issues.
Library support constitutes of: e.g. necessary information willingly and actively shared at Reference and Circulation desk. Library faculty and staff willingly and actively promoting the information regarding this opportunity when occasions arise.
The library supports my campus-wide efforts to engage faculty, staff and students. Engagement includes: e.g., proposals to faculty to present in their classes on including refugees and immigrants but related to their classes; assisting students with research and bibliography on their papers related to refugees and immigrants; assisting faculty and students with presentations including refugees and immigrants etc.
Library support constitutes of: e.g. necessary information willingly and actively shared at Reference and Circulation desk. Library faculty and staff willingly and actively promoting the information regarding this opportunity when occasions arise.
that kind of tech — expensive, bleeding-edge tools — makes headlines but doesn’t make it into many classrooms, especially the most needy ones. What does, however, is video.
68 percent of teachers are using video in their classrooms, and 74 percent of middle schoolers are watching videos for learning.
Video is a key aspect of our always-online attention economy that’s impacting votingbehavior, and fueling hate speech and trolling. Put simply: Video is a contested civic space.
We need to move from a conflation of digital citizenship with internet safety and protectionism to a view of digital citizenship that’s pro-active and prioritizes media literacy and savvy.
Active viewing — engaging more thoughtfully and deeply with what you watch — is a tried-and-true teaching strategy for making sure you don’t just watch media but retain information.
Antitrust laws only go so far when addressing companies that don’t produce any physical goods. It is time to negotiate a new set of rules. Otherwise, our future economy will be dominated by just a few companies.
There are still people out there who think that Amazon is nothing more than an online version of a department store. But it’s much more than that: It is a rapidly growing, global internet giant that is changing the way we shop, conquering more and more markets, using Alexa to suck up our personal data straight out of our living rooms and currently seeking access to our front door keys so it can deliver packages even when nobody’s home.
It wasn’t that long ago that EU efforts to limit the power of Google and Amazon on the European market were decried in the U.S. as protectionism, as an attempt by the Europeans to protect their own inferior digital economy. Now, though, politicians and economists in the U.S. have even begun discussing the prospect of breaking up the internet giants. The mood has shifted.
The digital economy, by contrast, is based on algorithms and its most powerful companies don’t produce any physical products. Customers receive their services free of charge, paying only with their data. The more customers a service provider attracts, the more attractive it becomes to new customers, who then deliver even more data – which is why Google and Facebook need not fear new competition.
first of all, the power of a company, and the abuse of that power, must be redefined. We cannot allow a situation in which these extremely large companies can swallow up potential rivals before they can even begin to develop. As such, company acquisitions must be monitored much more strictly than they currently are and, if need be, blocked.
Second, it must be determined who owns the data collected – whether, for example, it should also be made available to competitors or whether consumers should receive more in exchange than simply free internet search results.
Third, those disseminating content cannot be allowed to reject responsibility for that content. Demonstrably false claims and expressions of hate should not be tolerated.
And finally, those who earn lots of money must also pay lots of taxes – and not just back home but in all the countries where they do business.
All wifi networks’ are vulnerable to hacking, security expert discovers
WPA2 protocol used by vast majority of wifi connections has been broken by Belgian researchers, highlighting potential for internet traffic to be exposed
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (Cert) issued a warning on Sunday in response to the vulnerability.
“The impact of exploiting these vulnerabilities includes decryption, packet replay, TCP connection hijacking, HTTP content injection and others,” the alert says, detailing a number of potential attacks. It adds that, since the vulnerability is in the protocol itself, rather than any specific device or software, “most or all correct implementations of the standard will be affected”.
Setting cell phone expectations early is key to accessing the learning potential of these devices and minimizing the distraction factor.Liz Kolb September 11, 2017
Ten is now the average age when children receive their first cell phones
develop a positive mobile mental health in the first weeks of school by discussing their ideas on cell phone use, setting up a stoplight management system, and establishing a class contract
What do you like to do on your cell phone and why? (If they don’t have one, what would they like to do?)
What are the most popular apps and websites you use?
What do you think are inappropriate ways that cell phones have been used?
What is poor cell phone etiquette? Why?
How can cell phones help you learn?
How can cell phones distract from your learning?
How do you feel about your cell phone and the activities you do on your phone?
What should teachers know about your cell phone use that you worry we do not understand?
Do you know how to use your cell phone to gather information, to collaborate on academic projects, to evaluate websites?
How can we work together to create a positive mobile mental health?
Using a Stoplight Management Approach
Post a red button on the classroom door:the cell phone parking lot. Post a yellow button on the classroom door
Post a green button on the classroom door
Establishing a Class Contract: Ask them to brainstorm consequences and write them into a class contract.
Setting cell phone expectations early is key to accessing the learning potential of these devices and minimizing the distraction factor. Liz Kolb September 11, 2017
Post a yellow button on the classroom door: Students know their cell phones should be on silent (vibrate) and placed face down in the upper right-hand corner of their desk. They will be using them in class, but not the whole time.
Post a green button on the classroom door: Students know they should have their phones turned on (either silenced or set on vibrate) and placed face up in ready position to use throughout the class.
Establishing a Class Contract
Ask your students to help you develop social norms for what is and is not appropriate cell phone use during green and yellow button times. Should they be allowed to go on their social media networks during class? Why or why not?
Ask them to brainstorm consequences and write them into a class contract.
K–12 teachers who use Minecraft: Education Edition during class say their students are experiencing a number of social-emotional learning (SEL) benefits.
Based on my experience in Tallinn, we will see companies become more transparent in how they deal with cyber attacks. After a massive cyber attack in 2007, for example, the Estonian government reacted in the right way.
