My experience as a short term refugee and involvement with several NGOs that promote professional development for refugee teachers/teachers in emergency situations has created a sense of urgency to support them in any way I can. Today’s post is about an online encounter with a teacher in Kakuma refugee camp and how I’m now working to support his efforts to improve life for young adults in the camp.

In summer 2018, I participated in a pilot course for refugee teachers offered by the Carey Institute. I was one of a dozen teachers from around the world who participated in asynchronous and synchronous discussions about supporting students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE). The course was divided into six modules and included relevant topics such as how to incorporate social and emotional learning (SEL) into our lessons. Throughout the course and live discussions, I learned more about the amazing refugee teachers and newcomer teachers who participated. One of them is a refugee in Kakuma camp in Northern Kenya. He was teaching a course about peace and conflict resolution to refugees in his community. This is an important topic for them to be aware of since so many different nationalities live in the camp and many have suffered from very traumatic circumstances before coming to the camp.

The pilot course group continues to chat on WhatsApp and a few months ago, one of the teachers reached out to our group with a request for computers to enable him to teach other students digital literacy and basics such as Microsoft Word. I was intrigued and messaged him to provide a simple proposal with requirements and costs. As a result, over the past two months, In my limited ability individually, I’ve been supporting him and his students in Kakuma refugee camp. I am so impressed with his dedication and keen interest in learning for the benefit of his students and community.

That has led me to consider how I can get individuals, especially teachers and their students, to create a sustainable fundraising source such as a foundation. I am in the early stages of researching how to start the process. In the meantime, I believe it’s really important for the students to connect with the world outside of the camp, so I have encouraged Honore, the teacher, to begin compiling students’ stories in a @Wakelet collection. When I first mentioned this app to him, he wanted to learn how to get started. I was able to Skype with him and taught him the basics.

Two weeks ago, I Skyped with Heidi Carr’s class in Nevada. Once Heidi heard about how isolated the students felt in Kakuma camp, she suggested we try to connect her students and Honore’s students on @Flipgrid. I hope that using both of these tools, the students will start making connections with other students around the world and maybe work on projects together. I admire that Heidi is teaching her students about refugees and exposing them to real life stories such as mine and others.

I’d love for you to follow Honore’s organization on Twitter (@AfricanInitiat3) and consider how we can all work together to find sustainable solutions to a growing refugee crisis. For many, repatriation to their home countries while they prefer it, is impossible due to war, fear for their safety, lack of future opportunities, and many more reasons. Most who flee their countries, never return home. They are either relocated or live in a camp.

For more information: https://blogs.worldbank.org/dev4peace/how-many-years-do-refugees-stay-exile

During this month of gratitude, please leave your comments and let me know if you’d like to connect with me to help support refugees.

A consequence of living and working in Kuwait is a feeling of isolation from what is happening globally. The newspapers report on stories about various countries and regions, but finding out what is happening in education or other fields, is not as accessible. It’s one of the reasons I began attending international conferences; to learn from educators and find out what was new in the field of education. One of the first things I realized was how similar students and their learning profiles are no matter where you reside around the globe. Another was how much educators try to make a positive impact on their students’ achievement in spite of obstacles such as learning disabilities and language levels.

Attending conferences around the world is wonderful but very expensive and time consuming; therefore, unsustainable as the only way for me to learn more about international educators. I had to find other ways to enhance and expand my professional development. I also had limited time in my very busy role as an administrator, so whatever I was going to do needed to work for me. It needed to be personalized. I wanted to connect with other educators because I believe that networking is an important skill as well as a wonderful way to expand my professional learning network. So I set out to use social media to create my learning space.

In 2008, I presented “No Fear Leadership” at a local teacher conference in Kuwait. I remember speaking to the attendees about my initial fear of technology caused by my lack of knowledge about it since I considered myself a digital immigrant; someone who didn’t grow up with technology around me. Soon after, I began reading that digital natives and digital immigrants don’t really exist, except in our mind. And thinking this way was holding me back from overcoming my fear of using technology. I felt empowered to make mistakes and fail, all in the cause of learning. At the same time,

I started my journey to expand my knowledge of technology by joining Twitter in 2012. I’ll be honest that I “lurked” for over a year to learn how educators were using it and following accounts that aligned with my purpose for learning which initially was teaching English to second language learners. Along the way, my purpose expanded to learning about tech tools that could support English language learners. Lurking allowed me to observe how tweets created interaction among educators and who were the active accounts to follow. Once I felt more comfortable, I began responding to posts that I had feedback or questions about. I loved the interaction! I began following wonderful accounts like Barbara Bray @bbray27 and Brian Aspinall @mraspinall who are leaders in the field.

And then in Spring 2016, I read someone’s post about the ISTE conference. I was intrigued. After all, educational technology was an area that I wanted to learn more about and this was an organization that focused solely on that topic. Once I followed @ISTE, I discovered that some sessions were live streamed. So I began watching some of the presentations that were compatible with the Kuwait time zone. The more I watched, the more FOMO I became. I decided to join ISTE and do whatever I could to attend the 2017 conference in San Antonio. The following year, I did attend ISTE. In fact, I had also learned about micro-credentials on Twitter and decided to attend the Badge Summit the day before the conference officially started. I will tell you that I was starstruck meeting face to face with people I’d been following on Twitter. During one of the Summit’s sessions, I was sitting alone and a lovely woman came over to sit with me. She introduced herself as Barbara Bray and I told her I was following her and so admired her support for teachers and personalized learning. As the day wore on, we realized how much we had in common and she invited me to join her for an event that evening.

Fast forward three years, and we’ve been roommates every year at the ISTE conference, we are teammates for the TedTalk course, and we have shared laughs, personal stories, and professional learning. I have Barbara and my other wonderful connections on Twitter to thank for helping me overcome my fear of technology and encouraging me to share my personal journey. In fact, I encourage others to share their knowledge and personal stories because that is how we all learn.

This week’s post recognizes the brave men and women who served during Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990-91. It also honors the memory of Kuwaiti martyrs and members of Kuwait’s Resistance. I cannot begin to relate my feelings on February 26, 1991; seeing the news reports of American troops being greeted by Kuwaitis who had been under occupation for seven months. “Elated” is an understatement. Here are some vignettes about the occupation and liberation from those who stayed. When I mention the Gulf War to people, they are immediately interested in knowing more about what really happened inside Kuwait since news reports at the time were often second hand and there were no foreign reporters inside Kuwait to show the living conditions under the Occupation.

Although I wasn’t in Kuwait during the Gulf War, I was able to receive updates from various sources through other Kuwaitis who were living near us in Spain. Phone lines were cut, banks closed, the airport and shipping were stopped which meant essential supplies were not able to reach the country. All goods came through Iraq. Foreign workers began fleeing after their embassies organized emergency evacuations during August and September. Checkpoints were set up to check for certain military officers and members of the royal family to ensure the success of the occupation. Kuwaitis began forming pockets of resistance in their neighborhoods and citizens banded together to support each other.

Kuwait’s Resistance Movement
The Kuwaiti Resistance began organizing during the first weeks of the occupation to deliver messages to the outside world on a limited basis using satellite phones and written messages smuggled out by those who were able to escape during the first two months. Our friends in Spain heard that Kuwaitis had organized themselves in neighborhood groups to pick up the garbage, distribute food (especially bread and milk) to those who couldn’t leave their homes for fear of being arrested by the Iraqi troops, and also to distribute money to those who didn’t have access to funds.

Kuwaiti martyr, Asrar Al Qabandi

One of the members of the Resistance was Asrar Al Qabandi. At 31 years old, she was an independent woman who had traveled the world to help others, but returned to her home to be with her family. After completing her degree in Computer Science, she worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the information center. As soon as she realized the seriousness of the situation, she told her family she was leaving the country. In reality, she got a fake iD card and began the process of using her computer skills to safeguard the government’s most sensitive and irreplaceable documents. She also helped smuggle them to Saudi Arabia to share with Kuwait’s government in exile. It didn’t take long for the Occupiers to find out about her activities and they began looking for her. She continued to bravely defy the threats but was caught at a checkpoint in November, 1990 and arrested and reportedly tortured. She was martyred soon after. I am leaving out details of what happened because of the brutal nature of her death.

Al Qurain Resistance-final battle

A yellow brick house in the Kuwaiti suburb of Al Qurain is the site of one of the final battles before liberation. In the Gulf War, this is the location where about 19 members of the Massilah resistance group fought the much more heavily armored Republican Guard. The Kuwaitis staved off the Republican Guard soldiers for about 10 hours in spite of having only simple guns to the Republican Guard’s sophisticated weapons. A few Kuwaitis were able to escape. Those who continued to resist became martyrs.

The Iraqi popular army was tasked with checking each home in Kuwait at least once. They were searching for specific people and also randomly apprehending Kuwaitis and foreigners, especially Americans. As a result ordinary citizens who were their neighbors and co-workers hid Americans in air conditioning ducts and behind false walls. On a personal note, my mother-in-law moved into our house in the suburbs after the first day of the invasion due to fears of her house being subject to increased scrutiny due to its location on a main road near Kuwait City. Soon after, she was visited by the patrols and asked who else lived in the house with her. She told them her son lived there with his wife and children. The visitors asked for the names of each family member. She listed my husband, children and then told them my name was “Alia” instead of Ilene. She knew if she said a foreign name, they would search the whole house and begin looking for me. I’m not sure how she thought of it so quickly and under such stressful conditions, but it meant that they only checked the first floor and then left.

The liberation on February 26, 1991 was the result of Coalition efforts led by the United States military and supported by Kuwaitis who sacrificed their lives (1000 martyrs, 600 missing). Today and every day, we salute all veterans of Desert Shield/Desert Storm and the Kuwaitis who resisted inside Kuwait and those who were outside Kuwait and enlisted as translators with the American ground forces.

I just read in the news that cell phones have been banned in classrooms in Ontario, Canada and France. In Kuwait, there is an informal ban in many classrooms of personal devices and this troubles me. It tells me that policy makers, some educators and parents don’t understand the power of mobile devices for learning. In fact, it sends the wrong message to students.

If you had asked my opinion of this topic about five years ago, I may have sided with those who believe mobile devices in the classroom distract students from learning, but since I joined the education community on Twitter, members of my #PLN have shown me the many ways that mobile/cell phones are valuable tools for learning if used correctly and taught alongside lessons and examples of digital citizenship.

When I first started teaching intensive English in 2010, I was told that cellphones in the classroom were not allowed and repeatedly told/asked students to put them away. Students own multiple devices and many have more than one phone to be used for different reasons. They were distracted by their phones delivering messages and calls in the middle of my lessons. Some students were compliant with the university rule, but others were so addicted they found a way to pull them out again while I wasn’t looking. Eventually, I gave up and ignored their devices placed next to them as long as they weren’t distracted. In fact, several students told me the reason they needed to have them out was in case someone at home tried to contact them because they had an ill parent or child at home. I didn’t think of having them use their phones until I read a few posts on Twitter modeling ways the device could be used during a lesson.

I decided to start with something small and easy for me to monitor. When the students were writing their essays, I allowed them to use a dictionary online rather than a hard copy since those were limited and the device made it unnecessary. I was skeptical in the beginning that they could limit themselves to looking up a word and then return to their writing, but to my surprise that’s what happened! I began to allow them to keep their devices out when I knew there were opportunities for using them productively. In another lesson, they were required to practice their presentations before being assessed, so I would have them record it and watch it or share it with another student to get feedback before they practiced in front of the class. These were simple ways to show them the variety of ways they could use their phones during class.

Last summer, I was in a Voxer book club group with author/educator Jennifer Casa-Todd to discuss her book, SocialLeadia. She has many examples of student- and teacher-led lessons and projects that model good behavior and deep learning using cellphones and other mobile devices. The discussion by those who joined in the book club was filled with questions about digital leadership. Here’s an excerpt from the book:

Shifting to Digital Leadership
At its core, digital leadership is the belief that students can use the “vast reach of technology…to improve the lives, wellbeing, and circumstances of others.” (from www.georgecourse.ca/blog/archives/3584)

What I have observed is that students do this by the following:

1. Learning and sharing their learning
2. Empowering others who have no voice
3. Addressing societal inequality
4. Promoting important causes
5. Being a more positive influence in the lives of others

Casa-Todd goes on to say that it’s important to empower students to “connect beyond their friends, giving them the tools and the opportunities to pursue a more positive use of technology…”

Another concern by some educators and parents is the use of other personal devices, including laptops in the classroom which allow students to access their social media and other sites that aren’t related to their lessons. But I have found the opposite behavior when students are immersed in learning and shown ways to use their devices to support their learning. I have also been discovered new ways to use technology in a blended learning environment. Most of the credit goes to my Twitter #PLN and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), an organization with thousands of members who work hard every day to find the most effective ways to use technology in the classroom to enable students to work independently, confidently, and are connected to their learning outcomes.

I will continue to advocate for purposeful use of technology in classrooms including cell phones since worldwide, they seem to be the most available device, even in refugee or emergency situations. However, I will also advocate for useful ways to use technology to model digital citizenship, digital literacy, and digital leadership.