Settle+In!+-+Benefits

=Learners are accessing more e-learning=

Most of our newly-arrived humanitarian students have never accessed internet or even computers before. Because the videos and podcasts are easy for them to play, are translated into their language and contain highly relevant settlement information they are very motivated to learn how to access the website and navigate to the relevant pages.

The photos below show a class of newly-arrived Bhutanese refugees having their first experience of logging into the Polytechnic computers, accessing the internet, the **Me in Tassie** website and navigating to the Nepali versions of the **Settle In!** podwalks and videos.

With 12 students, we had six people (teachers, library staff and volunteers) helping! 1.

=Improved Adult Literacy Skills= Students involved in producing the videos and podcasts developed their written language skills through researching information and reading and writing captions and transcripts. Students who access the resources developed computer literacy skills (internet navigation) and reading captions. They were also involved in completing on-line evaluations (surveymonkey).

=Responsive, high quality education and training= The project enabled the Migrant Education Program in the Tasmanian Polytechnic to further explore and develop project-based learning approaches. In the Settle In! project, learners were responsible for proposing the topics and carrying out each of the component tasks leading to a valuable product which is aimed at a specific audience. This has empowered the learners and teachers and given them the skills and motivation to complete similar projects in the future.

=Increased Opportunities through Social Inclusion= The settlement information resources help newly-arrived migrants and former refugees to access services and opportunities in their new community. The learners involved in producing the resources also had increased opportunities to form networks and contacts with people outside their language classroom.

=Improved opportunities for mature aged learners= Most of our learners are mature-aged and need to develop computer skills, especially in order to access resources for language learning and settlement information. Through the project, the learners were given repeated practice with accessing the internet (from logging in to computers, to typing internet address, to navigating to the relevant web pages etc).

=Skills for work= Learners involved in producing the resources developed a number of important workplace language and literacy skills - telephone transactions to set up meetings with service providers; formal and informal emailing; interviewing; transcribing interviews; discussion and providing spoken and written evaluations and feedback.

= Social inclusion and benefits to communities = There is potential for the settlement information resources we produced to provide great benefits, particularly to emerging communities who have limited access to reliable interpreters while their communities are becoming established.

= Benefits for the Tasmanian Polytechnic = The trial resulted in information resources being produced that help our client group to understand about studying at the Polytechnic and also has established a template for producing further similar resources in collaboration with other workforce sector teams to promote their programs and explain how things work.

= For the Broader VET Community = The trial has produced examplars of: - project-based learning and assessment - lesson plans and procedures for producing similar resources with students in a range of VET situations - using videos and podcasts on-line and via MP4 players to provide "just-in-time" information in a format that is accessible to learners with low literacy or language skills.

=For our major stakeholders - Settlement Service Providers= A large network of settlement service providers has been involved in evaluating the resources and we have received very positive feedback about the potential of the resources to be used by them with their clients and for future partnerships to produce more resources next year.

We have also been invited to join a Tasmanian Settlement Network working group which will design and implement a "Multicultural Internet Portal" which will integrate information and resources for migrants and former refugees and key service providers.

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