The use of contemporary digital technology is inevitable and evolving as the community grows and interacts each other. The adoption of novice technological devices and tools influenced us in the way how we manage our daily tasks and engage in social circles. We have already found that the advancements of technologies and social media applications made our countries closer and communities stronger. This is more relevant for us, as migrants, when we get to speak to our parents and relatives who live in distance, by using audio or video calling features in the smartphone apps, where we used tedious, time intensive personal letters or telegram features in the past. While we enjoy the benefits of such digital companionships and social engagement tools, it is crucial to know how the excessive, unethical, digital overhauls lead to communities’ social, physiological and psychological dilemmas, especially when consuming resources and tools.

Current trends in digital transformations and sociocultural interests lead communities to cross morality breaches. Obviously, children are the most vulnerable community for being exposed to such challenges easily. This is a real threat to the future of our upcoming generations, so it has to be addressed carefully. This article encompasses some of the recent integrity dilemmas and possible solutions that can be considered by the church and community to eliminate such issues raised through the horizon.

Digital wellbeing and social media encounters

Crucial concerns of living in the misinformation sphere and countering potential consequences of privacy have gained alarming reviews while we embrace digital technology, that includes Artificial Intelligence and social media. Due to such several contemporary issues in the society, privacy prism of vulnerable citizens currently face many unresolved challenges. Over the past years, as an educator and an information professional, I have identified and witnessed people who are victims of social media and societal attacks. And I feel the insecurity of my family while sharing photos or connecting with others via social media platforms.

As a mother or two, I found it difficult to deal with such dilemmas in a timely manner. I have gone through situations where the technological devices and social media apps taking most of our productive family time, especially when I am at work, leaving my children at home, visiting websites and accessing internet resources that might harm them in one way or other. Sometimes, we can’t help with it, due to the pressure of managing family, maintaining our social status or even the thirst for making a comfortable living. I feel regretful about children misusing such devices or tools, and this is most of us parents in norm.

Dealing with misinformation:

On our daily intakes, we have seen many people use variety of sources to consume knowledge that they are interested in. Some people may be interested in creating social media content, reading and sharing thoughts while others may enjoy spending time on viral footages and trolls shared through social media platforms. In reality, most of us are not in a position to realize the hidden agendas behind these information sources. When we read a story or watch a review shared around either via social media platforms or through other channels, we think it is right. This may lead us to be biased and build our own perspective on the topic, without scrutinizing the content. Therefore, it is crucial for us to know the pitfalls of dissemination of fake and deceptive content and analyse the sources for credibility and safe use.

The deluge of information sources created via social media and other platforms take us in dilemma on how to treat them wisely and safely. So, my question is, when we have the option of getting all the information that we need in handy, who is going to evaluate if it’s worth enough to use? Galatians (6:1) says, “you need to consider the consequence of your choice before you choose”. Catechism classes are great platforms where teachers can assist students to generate those skills to identify the good resources and make right choices. Before we use or share an information, it is relevant to:

• have skills to locate fake news and disinformation spread around us
• identify misinformation – we will need to keep updated about the current trends and relevant real-life situations.
• encounter manipulated content – we may need to have a strong knowledgebase about different misleading websites and other internet platforms. So, using our critical thinking strategies are relevant to build such knowledgebases
• verify sources – check the author or creator of the resource or website for credibility (is the information shared current, reliable, or accurate and attributed? is the website owned by a reliable author or government body?)
• know what and where the information needs to be shared around- to address the privacy concerns, we will need to know how to secure our identity and the platform where we share our personal information.

Managing digital well-being: Role of Religion

The everyday internet-based communications, including social interactions, entertainments, and even commercial transactions through digital devices and applications are now getting popular. While we embrace the possibilities and advancements, we will need to think about the potential challenges that are being created. Constant use of digital media practices assists marketing agencies to target user behaviour or create a digital footprint, thereby gather related data that they use for their marketing purposes. However, there are instances where some exploit this data. They may intend to attract vulnerable individuals including children, who are the prior victims of such mal practices (deep fakes), or may have created intentionally to sneak peek on celebrities, earn money or advertise businesses.

The uncontrollable use of digital devices and applications can be decisive and pose substantial threats to the digital natives. This is a real concern when the digital platforms violate user privacy, spread fake news and create disconnected generation or create psychological issues such as addiction or other associated mental illness. These are few of many reasons for us to maintain our digital well-being.

To enhance our digital well-being, we will need to:

• formulate clear ethical standards and laws on digital device use. It is vital to create awareness of safe and ethical digital media practices. We need to know what data or personal information should be shared. This can be promoted through incorporating ethical resources, moral education such as catechism classes and shared production of doctrines with the help of teenagers and other vulnerable children. Promoting digital resources that exemplifies safe and responsible use of technology will create significant changes on those people who use it.
• restrict digital device use- make sure that you have set time for kids in the social media use and offline activities. Remind them to take screen time breaks. Diverting their mindset from digital devices to work on productive things such as volunteering or assisting parents and friends in need, to be promoted through proper channels in religious institutions and educational facilities.
• manage offline activities. This can be done by encouraging them to participate in community initiated physical activities or outside games. Take a time to play outside games with them or take them for a friendly walk and engage them by casual retelling motivational or moral stories. These will definitely make a difference.

• deal with privacy threats. We will need to maintain our digital devices and personal data. Adding extra security measures such as setting up privacy apps and device notifications can be used to ensure that we are extremely protected from privacy concerns. This will also help our community members to manage their physical and psychological health.
• maintain our healthy social relationships. While interacting with digital technology and social platforms, it is also essential to maintain a healthy relationship with our friends and society. Pop up groups can be established by the church community to motivate such social connections and use volunteering opportunities
• locate the disconnected people and encourage them to participate in activities and events conducted by community
• watch kid’s online behaviour and support them if they are exposed to cyberbullying or addiction.

Psychosocial influencers -drugs and vapes

Another significant role of religious education is focusing on the kids who are tempted or exposed to the use of drugs or similar avenues. The availability of drugs and vapes in different forms such as in coloured pouches attract many of our youth and they use and share those around among peers. Such instances should be carefully monitored and controlled to avoid further consequences. Offering psychological advice and resources on having a safe digital media use in Catechism platform is worth promoting.

Since faith formation is the basis of our spiritual life, addictions including drug use tend to violate God’s will and cause for moral failing.  The catechism classes will need to incorporate moral lessons about consequences of drug use and similar addictions. Children should be motivated to follow a sacramental approach in their daily life, as sacraments help them to overcome multiple problems they face while they are prone to such obsessions.

For maintaining the safety and well-being of our young children, I’m hopeful that the above minor actions that we take as a team, will benefit to the whole community. I also think, it is worthwhile for us, parents, to be knowledgeable about the hiccups in the current society. In contrast, as catechism teachers, it is also important for us to share with children, our knowledge and the morality concepts that we gained through our catechism classes and church activities, and how that assisted us in taking right decisions in life. Consequently, conquering the world of modern morality crossroads, in the advent of moral and religious education such as catechism classes are crucial, for winning the responsible use of technology. Hence, we can make sure that our children are not anymore hacked!!!

References:

Digital well-being theory and research

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448211056851

-Everyday disconnection experiences: Exploring people’s understanding of digital well-being and management of digital media use

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14614448221105428

-Setting the Relationship between Human-Centered Approaches and Users’

https://www.jsod-cieo.net/journal-tsw/index.php/jtsw/article/view/322

Towards a Just Digital Society: Shared Responsibility According to the Catholic Church

https://publisher.stipas.ac.id/index.php/pbs/article/view/98/98

The Ethics of Digital Well-Being: A Thematic Review

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-020-00175-8

Understanding the Digital Companions of Our Future Generation

Identification and assessment of Machine generated or AI generated content is a global responsibility to support educational institutions and organizations. The risks of potential inaccuracies and biases create a big gap in consumption of information world. As part of skill development and promotion of accurate information use, an evaluation criteria or framework to be developed and practiced. CRAAP test fro AI generated content is a great way for such assessment and evaluation process.

Areas AI to be used in terms of preparing students for future careers

Brainstorming ideas, Communication skills development, generating policies, drafting emails, job description, platforms use for communication- training AI platform, exciting and engaging, formulating ideas

researching topics, communicating things, acting on bias, take responsibilities for using AI, general ethics. AI literacy

distinction between OA resources and copyrighted materials

AI driven future of work? environmental consideration, music generator , create workflows, student potentials are displaced,

emphasis human component of AI

AI in education equitably, inclusively, pre-programming, handouts, need to know the jargons as AI is more techy.

Open source models – free and open access resources, flexible

advocate of AI on behalf of staff, students etc.

Intro to AI training,

Prompt Engineering for Everybody with ChatGPT and GPT4 – Alexander Street, a ProQuest Company (usq.edu.au)

http://newskills.ai/playground/

GPT- Generative Pre-trained Transformer

AGI- Artificial General Intelligence

Throughout the presentation, the academics talked about various views on the potential issues associated with university students academic integrity and academic learning outcomes. When we think about the use of this tool, from the student point of view, it would be beneficial in the sense that it could protect student interests and may reduce students workload, but it seriously questions the relevance of ethical practices and policies developed by the educational institutions. The reputation, expectations and standards of institutions are threatened by the over popularity of artificial intelligence tools. This will threat the possibility of consistency methods used in the assessment practices and student learning outcomes. The answers generated by the chatGPT may not be trustworthy and reliable, so it poses complexity and ongoing risks of course delivery practices.

How can we turn this into opportunities?

While embracing the new phase created by ChatGPT, the educators should consider the opportunities it has to offer to academia. It should be used as a stepping zone for improving creativity in assessments. The design of quality assessments should respond to restructured framework and sustainable strategies regulated by the academic integrity practices. It should address the transparency, equity and challenge rewarding student experiences and expectations. The academics and students will need to know the ongoing risks associated with ChatGPT on course delivery, reflective practices, especially how to use it as an opportunity or a catalyst for critical reflection and expertise on action plans. There should be information sessions and awareness classes on acceptable use of chat GPT generated information and the relevance of data generated.

International framework on academic integrity practices need to reflect on standard assessment methods, monitoring moral risks, and promptness to handle technology wisely and timely. Academics can change the assessments to suit the new challenges, demonstrated student learning outcomes can be recorded via an invigilated exam or restructuring reproduced knowledge creation.

Students will need to take the responsibility of learning when and how to use AI generated tools, similar to any other new technology and develop skills such as critical writing and communication, and to scaffold learning through the use of AI tools. They can find it as a co-partner in their learning and can use it for simple tasks that does not require critical thinking skills or for basic research requirements. It can be used as a language aid, for comprehending or translating phrases or for those who lacks writing skills or from someone from a non-English background.

Whilst the AI generated tools challenge itself on fulfilling human interpretation or expectations, different approaches to be positioned and invested wisely, otherwise it may result in cognitive degradation and ethical considerations. Therefore information collaborative conversations within the academia sector is necessary to eliminate the issues of transparency and morality. Best models of practice and policies to support the ethical use of AI generated tools should be introduced. New modes of assessment practices and design considerations to be promoted. Efficient integration and moderation of content creation and access provisions to be used, data detection techniques to be applied and educating people on making moral judgements are found to be effective before processing misconceptions regarding AI generated tools such as chatGPT. It should also consider impact of scholarly publishing and firewalls to be established to access quality resources for a future focused society. Also keeping uptodate with AI tools and utilise opportunities will help us to make contributions on AI world.

Academic Library adaptations:

Investigations on adapting the challenges of Artificial intelligence open the doors to its potential applications in the academic Library services and resources and the performance practices. The incorporation of AI into academic libraries will be supplementary resources to offer efficient service to the patrons (Duncan, A.P, 2022). These can assist Library staff to:

• make the easy access of physical collections on open shelf by AI powered self check machines, shelf reading techniques and use of smart technology book sorting processes.
• Learn how to effectively use AI powered agents, reference and information literacy modules to use the library
• learn how to write best prompts to generate required output
• assist in deep awareness of limitations of tools
• help in knowing the use, confidence level and the information seeking behaviour
• explore what AI can do and can’t do
• make better use of AI powered tools for disabled patrons
• know about changing nature of research and AI generated data
• incorporate the AI art making tools into content creation- for example creating posters, interactive lessons and other visual aids

My experiences with ChatGPT

ChatGPT for my personal use: I was keen to see how it works and when I had a chance to experiment with chat GPT, it was a wonder in the sense of it’s potential for providing answers as per the prompts. The tests always did not come up with the results that I expected and some of the results were out of scope. I also experimented this tool in another language that also made no difference. Then I thought I was not asking the questions properly, so found the course in LinkedIn- “How to Research and Write Using Generative AI Tools” by Dave Birss – useful especially when setting up prompts.

Integrating AI into our writing includes different strategies such as what aspect of our writing needs assistance with AI are vital when we use AI into our practical life. My experiments with ChatGPT helped me to formulate some thoughts around AI in academic setting. Incorporating ideas, structuring, formulating inferences and rephrasing tasks can be very effective if we use AI applications wisely and ethically while referencing formulation is at risk in the hands of AI. I also found that some citations created by ChatGPT could not be located. The points listed as per the prompts were very in depth and the generated ideas or key terms can be used for researching scholarly articles via databases, but sometimes I found that it makes things up. I think it is always a good idea if we place a disclaimer at the end of our work about the use of AI into our writing.

Supporting libraries to explore AI?

Recommendation to practice and experiment new AI tools

– to recognize misinformation & citations

-to design and deliver learning opportunities for users to explore GenAI in creative and critical ways

-to foster info Literacy skills

-to create awareness of ethical and social implications of AI

Testing chaptGPT for work:

Incorporating Chat GPT into Library practices was the main theme, while I start my experiments. I was able to generate a prompt to ask chat GPT, and the results listed in response to my prompts:

Q: How do academic libraries incorporate ChatGPT? Academic libraries can incorporate ChatGPT in various ways to enhance their services and support their users. Here are some common ways academic libraries can make use of ChatGPT: Research Assistance: ChatGPT can serve as a virtual research assistant, helping users with their research inquiries. Students and faculty often have questions about finding specific resources, conducting literature reviews, or accessing relevant databases. ChatGPT can quickly provide information and guide users towards appropriate sources. 24/7 Support: Academic libraries may not always have staff available round-the-clock to answer questions. By implementing ChatGPT, libraries can offer 24/7 support to their users, ensuring that assistance is available even during off-hours and holidays. Reference Services: ChatGPT can be integrated into the library’s website or online platform to handle reference queries. Users can ask questions about citation styles, library policies, or general information about library services, and ChatGPT can provide instant responses. Subject Guides and Recommendations: Academic libraries can use ChatGPT to create interactive subject guides that offer recommendations for relevant resources based on user input. This can be especially helpful for students looking for research materials in specific academic disciplines. Interactive Tutorials: ChatGPT can be utilized to develop interactive tutorials or self-paced learning modules. Students can engage in conversations with the AI to deepen their understanding of research strategies, database navigation, and information literacy concepts. Language Translation: For libraries with multilingual user bases, ChatGPT can assist in providing translations for library guides, policies, and other important documents, making the information more accessible to diverse communities. Support for Special Collections: Academic libraries often house unique and rare materials in special collections. ChatGPT can aid in navigating and discovering these special collections, helping users locate rare books, manuscripts, and archival materials. Outreach and Engagement: ChatGPT can be used as part of outreach efforts to engage users on social media platforms or the library’s website. Fun and educational interactions with the AI can attract attention and foster interest in library resources. Personalized Recommendations: By collecting user data (while ensuring privacy and consent), academic libraries can use ChatGPT to offer personalized book recommendations, articles, or research materials based on individual preferences and academic interests. It’s important to note that while incorporating ChatGPT can offer numerous benefits, academic libraries should be mindful of potential challenges. Ensuring accuracy, addressing bias, and maintaining data privacy are critical considerations. Additionally, libraries should clearly communicate to users when they are interacting with an AI and when they are engaging with human librarians to promote transparency and trust. By thoughtfully integrating ChatGPT into their services, academic libraries can enrich the user experience and adapt to the changing needs of their communities.

Another example from the ChatGPT to search for keywords.:

Another question was: Can you please create a library guide on academic integrity displays

Q: Can you please design a booklet on study support

References:

https://www-emerald-com.ezproxy.usq.edu.au/insight/content/doi/10.1108/LHTN-01-2022-0014/full/html

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/how-to-research-and-write-using-generative-ai-tools/meet-your-ai-creative-collaborator?u=100850906

Extra reading:

Students answer your questions about generative AI – part 1: Assessments and their future

I found some resources that might be of interest:

https://nick-s-site-9a5e.thinkific.com/courses/aiteachers

Creating a collection of creative ideas to use AI in education

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/how-to-research-and-write-using-generative-ai-tools/using-ai-to-help-you-create-fast-user-personas?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&resume=false&u=100850906

Challenges-chatGPT

The hype challenge- technical solutionism, technology in search of a problem

Data challenge-confidentiality, data breach, question of accuracy, copyrighted work, public record, ethical challenge, responsible use of generative AI,

Not replaced by human integrated services- Persuation & negotiation, ethical judgement & integrity, compassion, cognitive flexibility, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, physical dexterity, creativity

new skills- AI ethics & regulation, AI human task management, generative AI output customization

Opportunities-

The hype opportunity- new thing, how we are going to tackle, human integration

Data opportunity- data governance, data policy, using stds,

ethical opportunity- application of professional values, finding safe ways, transparency

Ref: Research Report: the impact of AI, machine learning..…

ALIA event: ALIA Library Technicians Symposium 2024- Embracing

skill shift- Library professional-

ethics and values

talk to customers about AI

Generative AI -not replacing jobs, but its affecting the tasks and skills we use to get the job done (ref- ALIA symposium)

The future is bright, so we gotta wear shades!!

blue sky– social media (Liz walkley)

Stay uptodate with each other,

the way to look at new things for opportunities to learn

Ref: AI and the Library community: the experts are in

Researcher mindset- to see the mistakes

AI augmented work- acknowledgement?,

enough technology- to fact check? integrity conversation?

eg – as a tool? suggestions for reluctant readers, give eg of reading challenges, lists, brainstorming ? starting point, giving as idea- we get spark with it and we go from there.

Reference list from Liz

ALIA (2023) ALIA Skills, Knowledge and Ethics Framework for the Library and Information Services Workforce. https://www.alia.org.au/Web/Web/Careers/LIS-Framework-Pathways-Project/LIS-Workforce-Framework.aspx

ALIA (2023) Core Domains. https://www.alia.org.au/Web/Web/Careers/LIS-Framework-Pathways-Project/Core-domains.aspx

Bourlioufas, N. (2023) How AI will change the labour market. The Australian Financial Review. 7 June 2023. https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/how-ai-will-change-the-labour-market-20230425-p5d31t

Bridges, L., McElroy, K., and Welhouse, Z. (2024) Generative Artificial Intelligence: 8 critical questions for libraries. Journal of Library Administration. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2024.2292484

Cox, A. (2021) Research report: The impact of AI, machine learning, automation and robotics on the information professions. CILIP. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.cilip.org.uk/resource/resmgr/cilip/research/tech_review/cilip_%e2%80%93_ai_report_-_final_lo.pdf

Deloitte AI Institute (2023) Generative AI and the future of work. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/consulting/us-ai-institute-generative-ai-and-the-future-of-work.pdf

The Economist (2023) Your job is (probably) safe from artificial intelligence. 7 May 2023. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/05/07/your-job-is-probably-safe-from-artificial-intelligence

Enis, M. (2024) Next Gen AI: Libraries Work with ChatGPT and Other Emerging AI Tools. Library Journal, 8 January 2024. https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/next-gen-ai-libraries-work-with-chatgpt-and-other-emerging-tools

Goldman Sachs (2023) The potentially large effects of artificial intelligence on Economic Growth. 26 March 2023. https://www.key4biz.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Global-Economics-Analyst_-The-Potentially-Large-Effects-of-Artificial-Intelligence-on-Economic-Growth-Briggs_Kodnani.pdf

Hosseini, M. and Holmes, K. (2023) The evolution of library workplaces and workflows via Generative AI. College & Research Libraries, 84 (6) https://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/view/26094/34016

Ignatius, A. and Lakhani, K. (2023) AI Won’t Replace Humans — But Humans With AI Will Replace Humans Without AI. Harvard Business Reivew, 4 August 2023. https://hbr.org/2023/08/ai-wont-replace-humans-but-humans-with-ai-will-replace-humans-without-ai

McCallum, S. (2002) MARC: Keystone for library automation. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 24 (2) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1010068  

Open AI (2024) What is ChatGPT? https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6783457-what-is-chatgpt#h_2b44c401ef

Urban Libraries Council (2023) Leadership Brief: Explorations of Generative AI for Library Systems. https://www.urbanlibraries.org/files/AI_Leadership-Brief_October2023.pdf

World Economic Forum (2024) Why there will be plenty of jobs in the future – even with artificial intelligence. 26 February 2024. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/artificial-intelligence-ai-jobs-future/

Representation of diversity and inclusiveness is a crucial when driving a diverse space such as Library. It marks the valuable additions of different people and different skillset, achievable outcomes and practicability in terms of critical thinking and workaround process. The equality of accessible resources, accessibility and transitioned interference will lead into the future academic development.

The project aimed to source elements of diversity and inclusion in the first place, but also support recommendations from the team members who were involved in locating resources and finding ways of suggestions. The IDEA committee represented members from different faculties including a research Librarian and EBP coordinator. The proposed suggestions were limited to important points to represent each area of the Library.

Other diversity and inclusive Challenges:

language barriers

learning curve-cultural differences, systems and pedagogical methods and skill sets

level of confidence and lack of knowledge

Recommendations:

create space for more cultural transformation

acknowledge disabilities and diverse backgrounds including ethnicity and religious perceptions

include activities that can trigger positive student/ staff engagement

With me, as one of the teachers known to the community, was chosen to co-ordinate language classes when the Toowoomba Malayali Association(TMA) https://toowoombamalayali.org/gallery/Madhuram%20Malayalam,

a non-profit organisation formed to share the cultural values and join celebrations of community members hailed from South Indian state of Kerala, decided to start their new initiative “Madhuram Malayalam classes”. It’s main aim was to introduce Malayalam words, cultural heritage and traditional language concepts to the kids in the community who are residing in Toowoomba and have no connections with Malayalam, being their parent’s first language or mother-tongue.

I am enjoying each and every part of it, even though I am not an expert in Malayalam. You will find me not knowing any Malayalam words when I started my schooling and receiving report cards without any language proficiency at the beginning, just because I was exposed to Hindi than Malayalam as my childhood language. But now, if you ask me something in Hindi, you will be surprised, Hindi is not my favourite at all!! After years, when I got chances to spend my days in North India again, I’ve tried my best to communicate with my fellows in Hindi which wasn’t successful at all and had to change my medium of communication to English to effectively carry out my teaching practices, and just to avoid talking in Hindi language. I had always problems with languages, I should say. I still think its my confidence level, may not be the knowledge level, just like everyone else.

Where problem begins….

When we started language classes, there were different age levels in one group, even though the classes were grouped under their primary knowledge of Malayalam alphabets and concepts. At the start of the classes, most of the kids in the community attended classes, but there were issues due to a variety of reasons. Lack of regular attendance was the main reason-Parents found it difficult to drop their kids due to the nature of their shifts. Some kids just turned up whenever possible, but there were no regularity in their attendance which made the teachers to battle in keeping up with their lessons, resulting in low positive student learning outcomes. Just like every other languages, the alphabets needed to be learnt before they practice reading and writing. Due to the number of alphabets (56 and more) in the Malayalam and the writing of the letters was not easy as in English, kids, especially young students struggled to find a better way to practice. Parents needed to follow up with their regular practices including homework. Some parents did not care about assisting with their homework, thinking that it is not important as their school work. Additionally, there were other reasons such as underestimating the importance of learning Malayalam which was not a recommended in a foreign country. Some parents also thought, by learning Malayalam, their kids may fall behind in studies, and may achieve low educational outcome as expected of their school work. I found that the problem of cultural identity, racial prejudice and parental expectations are common in migrated population, but I was amazed by the number of parent supporters later who joined us in our attempts to get connected through language teaching and learning.

What worked and what not…

The support from the changing TMA committees, dedicated teachers and parents made a huge difference. When most parents decided to send their children on a regular basis, the classes were highly interactive and engaging. TMA committee also was very strict in not cancelling any classes due to lack of student attendance. Surprisingly, for the last few years, lot of students attended the classes regularly. Through adoption of different teaching methods including story time, and other interactive and blended pedagogical practices, students benefited from learning alphabets and associated words, they also started to engage in differentiated activities and participated in community driven events including a Drama. ‘Madhuram Malayalam’ students are now a strong community by making their presence in the major community events and proudly leading the programs in most of TMA triggered events. I think they start to feel that they belong to the community and would like to stay as strong advocates of Malayalam by interacting with others and communicating with community members confidently. Due to the challenges of Covid -19, the classes were on halt for few months, but resumed again in April 2022 with a greater number of enrolments where the students in the Senior group started to read and write in Malayalam, the speaking activities were introduced as well. The new students are now enrolled into junior group where they start to understand the basics through story based learning. The teachers are taking all their efforts to clarify dilemmas around different letters and sounds, and hopefully they will be able to make a huge difference in the lives of next generation while we take the efforts of grooming them by mediating through malayalam, accepting community feedback, frequent reflections and taking proper measures to face the challenges as we move forward .

The benefits of learning first language- my foot on Research

As a teacher and librarian, I tried to walk into the shoes of a researcher (not officially yet) and I have decided to make a step forward…to take up the challenge of digging deeper into locating resources and researching the implications of first language in the migrant community and their kids (we, being the first migrant generation and our kids on their transition generation). I found some interesting research results which is exciting and promising. This is what I want to share with you as I dig deeper into the possible answers of my questions related to the impact of first language in teaching and learning practices.

From the literature: The interactions with multiple languages enlighten the cognitive skills of an individual. Many studies have been done on the cognitive advantages of using different languages from birth(Huang, Ting ; Loerts, Hanneke ; Steinkrauss, Rasmus, 2022). Language users are influenced by a variety of factors, including phonemic coding ability, associative memory, grammatical sensitivity, and the capacity for inductive language learning (Baddeley 1992, 2003). Language comprehension, learning, and reasoning are all crucial components of the acquisition of multilingualism.

Another attempt ended up in finding the connections between the first language and its significance on cultural heritage. By involving in reading, writing, listening and speaking our mother tongue, we are able to explore our belonging, identity and the hidden potential of our culture and language through another lens. This is very crucial in finding the meaning and concept of our own home and its links to our fore fathers and traditions.

When we touch other elements such as reading books from diverse authors in our first language, we get a chance to glance through and feel the world in the eyes of someone from your culture or skin colour that will help us to understand, accept and embrace our culture influenced by a common heritage. When we make a visit to our country or talk to our relatives, the experiences that we go through en root our connection with our language and related people in the community. Exposure to first language, will seed such connections to enrich our experiences and expand our dreams to another horizon. I feel that our first language is the primary and basic root where we all are get to be nurtured, connected and flourished. Let us all extend our branches and embrace our culture through Malayalam or primary language which is the cornerstone of our cultural heritage and identity. We can share the love and care to next generations by being connected, and embracing culture. Let us promote language learning concepts by building up our cultural values and take every step to communicate in Malayalam confidently and thereby fill the gaps, so that we are the role models of our future generations.

To me, being bilingual,

*I will have the opportunity to make connection with different people speaking different languages

I can seek ways to contribute or help out by connecting my knowledge and thoughts

I will learn new things that spark/ motivate my thoughts when talking to friends, colleagues and my fellow members.

It will assist me to identify the gaps and adapt new knowledge and new culture

Helps me to accept the differences and inclusiveness

I can share the transferable skills from one culture to another

I will be able to support people to recognise skills and identify language barriers

I can gain confidence in juggling with different languages

I found that cultural knowledge helps establishing realistic pre-departure expectations and awareness of available alternative sources of encouragement ( Leiba-O’Sullivan, Sharon, 1999)

I will be adding more research findings here as I explore further on this topic.

References:https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/04/05/the-power-of-language-5-ways-multilingual-brains-work-differently

https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.usq.edu.au/doi/full/10.1080/13670050.2019.1703894?scroll=top&needAccess=true

https://www.proquest.com/docview/197158272?parentSessionId=5OcHdRWzyx5Tllq77WGSLabNm56Xvkmq38J1cKTLS9E%3D&pq-origsite=primo&accountid=14647

We are currently living in a highly complex world and it is going to be challenging for our next generations, in terms of teaching, learning practices and student learning experiences. To keep uptodate with pedagogical practices and digital technology, our kids have to accumulate current knowledge, develop multiple skills and grow over the advanced digital world. Growing in a digital world means students involve in various skill development practices through digital enhancement practices. This article will analyse the possibilities and methods to amalgamate skills set that we need our kids to develop and practice over the period of time.

Soft skills: The educational institutions are focusing on getting our students ready to graduate with their explicit skills polished. Equality of skills developed through various institutions are questioned as always. Is there a gap between institutions and educators in providing the services for students? What methods are there within the educational institutions to make this consistent? While our students do their elementary and higher education, how are they going to develop the skills such as innovative and creative thinking, effective communication practices, team management, problem solving skills, ethical practices and self confidence? I found that the following actions are always useful to make those happen.

Discussion forums: The educator supervised discussion forums create a space for students to interact freely and share knowledge on specific topics. But the practical issue of such forums involves the confidence levels of students asking questions or sharing resources when their knowledge base is questioned. The varying levels of student approaches to such discussion forums depend on the educator -student relationship, cognitive and emotional balances of students, cognitive and knowledge variants, family or social backgrounds. These issues should be addressed differently in order to enhance the student potential, so that all the traits and variants are properly nurtured, and maximized. I have seen a lot of students who will be active in peer groups, but they are less likely to interact with their educators comfortably in their relational zone which becomes unclear for educators to predict and cure.

Hard skills

Participation in creating content using all the possible digital and media platforms that can be sharable and open to everyone. Students will be involved in creating knowledge, and they will be our next digital dexterities. The virtual spaces will need to be modified to suit the student perceptions and growth mindsets. The free content creation platforms such as Open educational media should be explored by students to motivate themselves and to to seek the possibilities of the current content and future contents in the current educational systems. This will help them to think more deeply and identify the gaps through research practices. The curriculum and educational programs should give them the chances of attending more future focused workshops and social media platforms where knowledge is created and shared, so that they can think of a reconstructed pedagogy that are flexible, diverse and that can be modified as required.

Literacy &Numeracy skills

Research skills

The 21st century career world requires its learners to perceive and practice conducting effective research. They need to assess, analyse, and evaluate information that are delivered in different formats. The information explosion and inability to follow appropriate guidelines to practice research skills hinder current learners to offer their academic performance to a higher level which may negatively impact their career goals. So adequate nurturing of research skills is required from their early stages of their academic life. Therefore, academic libraries and school libraries play a vital role in transforming future focused learning and knowledge creation, through enhancing information literacy skills. In the following paragraphs, I’m taking myself to a tour of what my experiences and learning on how I learnt and practiced information literacy skills.

What would be the experiences of students who always relied on textbooks in the past for their learning? This was me, and this being my first challenge when I started my higher courses in a another country, and I am glad that I was lucky enough to experience the pleasure of locating and analysing resources for my studies. I had no idea what it meant when the lectures mentioned Course readings or resources required for your course. I also went with the flow- read materials given through the online study platform- even that was extremely different. Online? I never learnt anything online, I always saw students in the past like bookworms- underlining points, jotting down teacher notes and eager to follow study guides if their parents can afford it. V-guide and Labour India were a couple of popular guides other than textbooks that I could remember at this point- all printed materials.

Anyway, I continued to read most of the course readings that was linked by the course examiners for my post graduate teaching course and worried about the ones I missed due to the lack of time, thinking that I haven’t learnt the course properly (To us, keeping everything in mind, or learning by-heart- was considered as proper study. Later I realised that we don’t have to remember everything that is covered in the topic, but to evaluate and analyse the current and relevant topics are important than anything when considering learning and also knowledge and application of our understanding in different life context is more vital than learning -by-heart!!!.

When I was exposed to assignments, I was confused about the different terminology such as databases, journal articles, dois, referencing, and other knowledge bases. Even though I had experienced writing assignments and projects, the new way of referring to online resources such as articles were new to me. It took years for me to understand what it really meant, the pleasure of learning and understanding cultural differences!!!

The library professionals, irrespective of their roles and leadership positions, will need to transform their learning experiences into forms of reflective writings and practices in any formats, it could be microblogging, a pictorial representation or as a video or an audio format. I found this is very useful when we re-read and analyse our perceptions later. If I have a few thoughts on different perceptions, I would think of writing or jotting down as a note or points that could be the basic of designing or creating a space for L-L-Ls (triple Ls_ or Learner Led Learning. Below are some of those points I made when I feel like writing on something about co-designing factors that could be elaborated when I have strong points of clarification or evidence to make that into practice.

https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.usq.edu.au/doi/full/10.1080/15228959.2019.1629858?src=recsys

*Contributions from staff could form an idea or theme on a topic. The movement on Open Education resources and Open Publishing strategies make a difference and the developing universities take advantages of adapting textbooks and start publishing books on different topics.

Professionals get together on specific projects and take collaborative efforts by conducting workshops on topics mark a starting point. Conferences/ seminars on selected topics could be beginning points. They can work on collecting evidences through research and personal interviews or surveys.

Library blogs- reflection on issues/ solutions encountered in a weekly basis

renumeration/ awards on best practices/ ideas shared through

Students as partners program:

Students work on developing textbooks or other resources via a writing centre/ clusters/

student contributions/ student partnership programs on topics/ assignments/ projects

How come the students get access to free academic resources?

Possibilities of openness- widening up the world to Open resources with

free of cost, limited restrictions on finding information via internet

widening participants to contribute- edit, reliable relevant information sources

enhanced student – staff relationship (Mercer-Mapstone et al., 2017)

promotion of equity and inclusion(Marquis et al., 2021)

student motivation, increased student staff belonging and engagement

Student perceptions of learning

students being responsible in contributing, reflecting

disciplinary local evidences on knowledge creation

considering diversity and cultural backgrounds

feedback practices shared responsibility

skill building, co-creating learning environments, curriculum, assessment

students as passive consumers

high scholars students chosen by student unions who can represent students engage in ongoing communication and share learning experiences from their discipline

Reference”: https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.usq.edu.au/article/10.1007/s10734-022-00851-7

It is being a great issue for someone who does have their own personal traits that could have reflected in the life/work balance.

Communication skills: It has been a great challenge learning language differences and follow the practice into our daily life.When analyzing our loopholes to communicate effectively, it is the level of confidence in using and motivating our language premises.

As a newbie to a completely different country, I was like one of those introverts.

Some practices I found become eminent in this area include:

*Try to be involve in open dialogue between experts from different areas.

*Take initiative and show interest in talking to people that utilities the specific language conventions

*Be active in the social media networks and share ideas /comments on professional topics in a thoughtful way.

*Read continuously on topics that we are interested in, to explore and be knowledgeable in the area

*Social interaction

*make use of the Cognitive skills for innovation and redesign

*Ethics/integrity

*Professionalism Vs Workplace Motivation