Indigeneity, Technology and Education
Weblog 4.4
http://education.chiefs-of-ontario.org/
It was very interesting looking at the Chiefs of Ontario Education Portal. This seems to be another organizations (under the Chiefs of Ontario) that is dedicated to self-determination of FN in education. The projects they are involved in are similar to those of FNESC in BC.
Posted by Trevor Price
August 4, 2015
In wondering about self-determination in general, I started looking at treaty negotiations and the laws behind that extremely complicated situation. One site I found was the BC Treaty Commission site. The BC Treaty Commission facilitates negotiations between the government(s) and the FN of BC. This site has a great timeline of treaty history beginning in 1762 with the Royal Proclamation that recognized FN title to their lands and ending with 20th Anniversary of the BC Treaty Process. They are involved in providing education for students around the treaty negotiations.
I also found this very interesting blog entry run by Indigenous Corporate Training Inc. called The Indian Act vs Self determination (http://www.ictinc.ca/Indian-Act-vs-self-determination). It discusses how the Indian Act and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples are involved in issues around self-determination
Posted by Trevor Price
August 4, 2015
Weblog 4.2
The First Nations School Association is a BC organization that works with BC FN schools around the province. Their priorities are:
FNSA often works closely with FNESC (I believe they are co-located in the same building). FNSA has been very helpful in helping provide culturally appropriate curriculum in BC and also with bringing FN schools and educators together.
Posted by Trevor Price
August 4, 2015
Weblog 4.1
The First Nations Education Steering Committee is dedicated to First Nations-controlled education and improved outcomes for BC FN students. They run a wide variety of programs, including a partnership with SETBC (special ed. technology), Connected Classrooms. They support FN language education, health and science career promotion.
The Connected Classrooms programs addresses a serious problem for FN students (8 – 12) in isolated communities or small FN schools, which is the lack of access to qualified instructors in advanced courses in math, science. Connected Classrooms tries to offer “a combination of technologies, including real time video conferencing, to connect and create an interactive classroom environment” where students are taught by an instructor online (live) along with an in-home educator who is present with the students.
Posted by Trevor Price
August 4, 2015
Creating Emotional Health and Wellbeing
This .pdf is a slideshow for a talk Brown gave in 2013. I have been looking unsuccessfully for more work by Brown and this, at least, outlines the thoughts he dicusses at https://connect.ubc.ca/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_61105_1&content_id=_2725247_1&framesetWrapped=true a little more visually. Lee Brown’s explanation of how emotional well being ties into cultural awareness is an important point in my paper for the final assignment, so the more I can find, the better.
Post by Trevor Price
July 4, 2015
In the Skins project, games are built by youth and elders. The project involves transmitting old stories in a virtual reality format. They are preserving the culture and engaging youth, not only at the design stage, but also at the consumption stage as well. Students deal with the old stories in a respectful manner, but they also present them in a forward-looking manner.
Post by Trevor Price
July 4, 2015
“By immersing Native Americans in their traditional languages and customs, Thornton hopes to teach them how to preserve parts of their culture in danger of dying out.”
The article linked to below explores the work of Don Thornton who created a language education game called RezWorld. The first iteration of this game was in Cherokee, but it can be adapted for any language. The article also leads us to the abtec website and to the Skins project (link below).
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_184/5652-Native-Resolution
On the AbTec.org site is a network of people dedicated to encouraging aboriginal presence in the areas of “web-pages, online games, and virtual environments that we call cyberspace.” The site has articles outlining the curriculum for game design for First Nations youth (E.g.: Skins 1.0: A Curriculum for Designing Games with First Nations Youth).
Post by Trevor Price
July 4, 2015
‘In the 19th century, Métis leader Louis Riel predicted: “My people will sleep for one hundred years. When they awaken, it will be the artists who give them back their spirit.” Most Aboriginal groups in Canada have relied on the oral tradition to convey an idea, message or value.’
– n.a. Media Smarts
Discusses FN successes with tv, film and theatre, music and radio neworks and the Internet. Although not specific to youth, the article gives a good overview of media, but also points to a game – Path of the Elders (http://www.pathoftheelders.com/index.php) by FN people and for FN children.
Post by Trevor Price
July 4, 2015
https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/ien/Faculty/Dr._Suzanne_L._Stewart.html
“Education is urgent issue for our people right now because, again, education was once the tool of oppression. Now education is the tool for empowerment for our people, to help us learn how to adapt to the western world and for the western world to learn how to adapt to our traditional ways of teaching and learning.”
– OISE: Associate Professor Suzanne Stewart on Aboriginal Education (video) @ 50 sec.
I followed the above link from a site that came up with a search for information related to my final assignment. I was impressed with the topics Stewart was writing about – the challenges faced by urban First Nations youth. Upon searching a little further, I discovered the following article, which details the outcomes of a project that involved aboriginal youth, health and media production. This article draws a very direct line between media production and aboriginal youth well being and, as such, supports my thesis. It discusses a project that had aboriginal youth researching and creating media about healthy eating.
Stewart, S., Riecken, T., Scott, T., Tanaka, M., & Riecken, J. (2008). Expanding Health Literacy Indigenous Youth Creating Videos. Journal of Health Psychology, 13(2), 180-189. Retrieved from http://hpq.sagepub.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/content/13/2/180.full.pdf+html
Post by Trevor Price
July 4, 2015
Wednesday, June 17th
This article suggests that the nature of IT, although not culturally neutral, allows indigenous Australians to express themselves without suffering western enculturation. IA’ s are enthusiastic about new technology but have low adoption rates due to lack of funds and low tech literacy rates