One of the things that makes distance learning difficult for so many refugee and immigrant students and families is the number of learning platforms and communication tools that school districts tend to use. From Google classroom to Canvas, ClassDojo, Seesaw, and of course, Zoom, it’s no wonder that many students and families are overwhelmed. It’s also important to keep in mind that some refugees and immigrants, even highly educated ones, may come from regions of the world where the internet isn’t utilized on a daily basis. Furthermore, many refugees and immigrants are English Learners and are attempting to navigate these platforms in a new language! Some school districts and organizations have put together tutorials on how to use Google Classroom and various other platforms and communication tools. It is easy to find tutorials in Spanish and other common languages, but much more difficult to find help in other languages. We did a little digging and found the following videos that may be helpful. In many of the videos, the information is generic enough to make it useful to students and families anywhere in the United States, while some of the videos are pretty specific to a particular district. We look forward to your feedback on these videos and if you know if any that should be added, please email us at laura@immigrantsrefugeesandschools.org.
Google Classroom
Arabic, Burmese, Karen, Somali, Spanish (Kennewick School District, WA)
Arabic, Karen, Vietnamese, Burmese, Farsi (Koondoola Primary School in Australia)
Arabic, Bengala, Burmese, Indonesian, Khmer, Mandarin, Nepali, Portuguese, Spanish, and Wordless (The School District of Philadelphia)
Nepali (Indrawoti Creations / Akron Public Schools, OH)
Swahili (Swahili Computer Learning Center)
Somali (Said Aw-Musse Sharmarke)
Somali (Talosame Technology)
Zoom
Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Korean (full playlists for each language on Zoom’s Youtube channel)
Arabic, Spanish, French, Swahili, Karen (audio only), and Karenni (audio only) (Metropolitan School District of Washington Township, IN)
Arabic, Kurdish, Farsi, Spanish, Swahili (Grossmont College, California)
Haitian Creole (Eunice Dominique at Rise To English)
Schoology
Burmese, Nepali, Somali, Spanish, Swahili (subtitles) (Metro Nashville Public Schools)
Arabic, Nepali, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Vietnamese (Springfield Public Schools)
Burmese, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish, Urdu, Vietnamese (Baltimore County Public Schools)
Seesaw
Spanish and French (Seesaw's own Youtube channel)
Arabic, Karen, Vietnamese, Burmese, Farsi (Koondoola Primary School in Australia)
Canvas
Vietnamese, Arabic, Burmese, Dari, Pashto, Kinyarwanda, Swahili (Austin Independent School District, TX)
Arabic, Spanish, French, Swahili, Karen (audio only), and Karenni (audio only) (Metropolitan School District of Washington Township, IN)
ClassDojo
Bengali and Arabic (Punchbowl Public School in Australia)