LIT2T Leadership Guide

51 TO: TABLE OF CONTENTS among immigrant groups, new immigrants in particular can be characterized as information poor because they have not had time or opportunities to develop adequate local networks (in terms of both network size and access to resources), and they may not yet know how to navigate their new information environment.(Ibid. p. 503) The Settlement Continuum The authors have advocated an approach, “… that situates the information needs of immigrants along a continuum of settlement stages. Using Mwarigha’s (2002) stages of settlement model combined with George and colleagues’ (2004) work on pre-migration stages, the authors point out the usefulness of situating information needs along four (overlapping) stages: (1) the premigration stage (before the individual actually immigrates to the new country; information is then gathered from formal sources such as government agencies’ publications and websites, immigration lawyers or agencies, as well as informal sources such as family and friends, blogs, and online listservs); (2) the immediate stage (information about pressing needs for survival such as shelter, orientation to the new city, language instruction); (3) the intermediate stage (information needed to access various local systems and institutions, such as municipal, legal, long-term housing, health, and employment services; and (4) the integrative stage (as immigrants become accustomed to their new country, their information needs are more diverse and may encompass the desire for increased political and civic participation (p. 505) The challenge for Canada’s settlement language training sector is to leverage and focus language instruction to facilitate the immigrant’s transition to the fourth stag As a side note, the authors of this fine article (unfortunately it’s behind a rather expensive pay-wall) reflect a need for pre- arrival information that aligns with exploratory public policy shifts in the sector. According to the authors, “pre-migration information is an essential component of the immigration and settlement process and that pre-migration information is often found to be insufficient in terms of both quantity and content” (P. 506) . Pre-arrival should not be seen as a problem looking for a large scale national initiative, but a need which can be met by nimble, technologically savvy local or regional organizations using online distance modalitie How do new immigrants use the Internet? We will have additional survey material to look at it later in this unit in the form of a LearnIT2teach evaluation report from two years ago. But, the very informative article from the information sciences perspective by Caidi, Allard and others at the University of Toronto has something to say: “A report on the role played by ICTs in fostering social inclusion, commissioned by Human Resources and Social Development Canada (Caidi, Allard, Dechief, & Longford, 2008), documents how publicly available ICTs are used by immigrants at non-profit institutions such as community networks (CNs), settlement agencies, and public libraries. Their findings demonstrate that employment-related activities are among the main reasons immigrants use ICTs at these locations. Indeed, new immigrants are very busy making ends meet and have to make strategic use of their time in public settings where computers and other information and settlement resources are available. In the current era where mobile devices are near ubiquitous, smartphones, tablets and cellular data or ready wifi access connections mean the communication and information seeking needs performed for newcomers by personal computers short years ago, are normally available in their pockets or purses. The report indicates that ICTs may be used for a variety of other purposes, such as for communicating with family and friends in the home country and accessing various online media in multiple languages. In addition to the fact that social networks are necessary for information seeking, information seeking itself (using a variety of pathways including ICTs, weak network ties, and formal organizations such as libraries and community networks) promotes the development of much needed local social networks for immigrant (P. 512)