‘My digital dreamkeeper’: Using technology-enhanced learning and human-centred design to support refugee learners’ wellbeing

 
 

By Nomisha Kurian

27 February 2023

Technology-enhanced learning is becoming ever-more popular: the global education technology sector’s worth is predicted to reach $7 trillion by 2027, with an 18.1% year-over-year compounded annual growth rate. Many edtech tools have made invaluable strides towards greater efficiency and productivity. However, what remains under-researched is how learning technology might promote psychosocial wellbeing. Substantial evidence shows that learners who feel safe and supported tend to be more motivated, engaged, and likely to enjoy long-term success, and that refugee learners in particular benefit from welcoming environments. So how can technology-enhanced learning holistically nurture refugee learners?

Human-centred design (HCD) might help. My research has explored how trauma-informed care can ‘make school a sanctuary’. For the past three years, I have focused on the wellbeing of structurally disadvantaged young people, from Widening Participation interventions for 9-18 year olds in the UK to research with 11-14 year olds experiencing chronic and intergenerational poverty in India. This cross-cultural research and praxis has given me rich opportunities to listen to young people’s narratives of home, belonging, and community. In particular, working with Indian children internally displaced by slum demolitions suggests how easily learners undergoing the trauma of forced displacement might come to feel unseen and unheard in seemingly indifferent environments.

When reflecting on how technology might promote wellbeing and inclusion in such challenging circumstances, I draw inspiration from HCD, an empathy-driven, creative design discipline centered around understanding people’s needs, priorities, fears, hopes, and concerns. HCD produces human-centred technology. From a wellbeing lens, HCD can mean designing educational technology not only for standard learning outcomes (e.g. productivity and performance) but also for helping refugee learners to feel seen and heard, as they grapple with complex fractures of identity and the loss of their homes and communities.

Digital diaries

Digital diaries provide an example of human-centred design for wellbeing. Similar to a traditional diary, a digital diary is a space where students can share their thoughts and feelings. However, the space is virtual and created via a software program or app rather than a paper notebook. One limitation to note is that refugee learners may not always be able to access computers, tablets and phones or advanced technology more generally. However, if digital diaries are possible to facilitate, even in a simple form, then they can offer a range of benefits over traditional diaries. They can offer more long-lasting security by being portable and accessible from anywhere; an important consideration for learners facing the trauma of lost possessions and instability. Digital diaries can also integrate multiple types of media and be shared with others anywhere in the world, which could help learners who are physically separated from loved ones. If students choose to use their diary to reflect on their experiences on learning, then they can choose whether to keep them private or share certain entries with their teacher.

Working with digital diaries

My use of digital diaries is guided by learning across fields of research with refugee learners. One of my participants in Mumbai, India is a young girl whose home was bulldozed overnight in a slum demolition. Two years after losing her home and community, she has taken to using a diary to share memories, in her words, of ‘all the lost people.’

This pushed me to reflect on how digital diaries might give refugee learners a safe and stabilizing space in circumstances that may make them feel isolated and disoriented. It has been well-documented that trauma-affected students often thrive when given more time to think and process. Hence, if refugee learners want to share doubts, fears, or ideas with their teacher, then a slow-paced asynchronous discussion through digital diary entries can feel more comfortable than traditional fast-paced, high-pressure, live classroom interactions. Having a more mindful and relaxed digital space may also build learners’ confidence, especially when intersectional marginalization makes some learners doubly hesitant to speak up in person in large groups. In my own research, for example, I have found that children who have experienced forced displacement may become additionally quiet and withdrawn when they are already dealing with social pressures to restrain their self-expression. Indeed, my work on digital diaries was inspired by a comment from a female student who called her password-protected mobile diary application ‘my digital dreamkeeper’, while feeling silenced and shamed in class amidst gendered barriers. This mirrors wider patterns around how gender-inequitable attitudes may affect female refugee learners' self-esteem and confidence.

Digital diaries can also promote creative expression and storytelling. For refugee youth who have experienced trauma and loss, narrative expression creates space to process and make meaning around their experiences. Unlike traditional diaries, digital diaries provide a rich palette of multimedia tools: students can use text, images, videos, and audio recordings. These multi-sensory stories can also build community: if students are supported to feel comfortable sharing their reflections with each other, the sense of belonging and connection created may help counter isolation and alienation.

Finally, digital diaries can support language development, particularly for refugee learners who may be struggling to adapt to unfamiliar languages. I have witnessed how children struggling to navigate forced displacement miss the rhythms and routines of their old life, not the least of which is the sound of their mother-tongue. Language is never merely a vehicle of communication: for one of my child-participants, speaking her mother-tongue anchored her in memories of going to the temple and befriending the fruit-sellers in her former neighborhood. This is why digital diaries might help young people connect their previous identities and current realities. Some child-participants have reported that being suddenly pressured to rapidly acquire a new language in an unfamiliar environment can feel overwhelming. However, by allowing learners to write in their first language and later translate it, digital diaries can help learners to build their vocabulary and improve their writing skills in the target language, while retaining opportunities to write in their mother-tongue. In turn, language practice in a safe space, free of the typical pressures of in-person instruction and testing, may have a ripple effect on learners’ sense of confidence, agency, and self-efficacy.

Resources

Numerous resources can be used to create digital diaries; the majority are free. These resources include Evernote, Google Docs, OneNote, Padlet, and Journaley. In addition to these tools, many classrooms also use Learning Management Systems (LMS), such as Google Classroom or Canvas, that can include personal journals and diaries as part of the coursework. These are just a few examples of the wide-ranging resources available. Experimenting with diverse options and prioritising refugee learners’ own preferences is a generative approach. Keeping learners’ voices and experiences at the heart of human-centred design can enable a mindful and meaningful use of technology – generating, in turn, rich psychological opportunities for self-reflection, creative expression, and community-building that foster long-term motivation and engagement as ‘digital dreamweavers’.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nomisha Kurian is a University of Cambridge Teaching Associate at the Faculty of Education. She is currently researching how human-centred design can produce empathy-driven technology and recently spoke at the UNESCO International Forum on Artificial Intelligence and Education. She is the first Education researcher to win the Cambridge Applied Research Award, out of 260+ applicants, for designing and delivering Widening Participation interventions for 286 low-income learners across the UK. Previously, as a Yale Henry Fellow, she used human rights law to design an anti-bullying framework. Her work has most recently been published in the Oxford Review of Education and the British Educational Research Journal.
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Sarah Dryden-Peterson