The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project is run by SOAS at the University of London. It has a staff of about 14 people, many of them with PhDs and is extremely thorough and professional. My original idea was the use of technology to allow communities in rural Mexico to build up a cultural discourse, through the exchange of shared experience, knowledge and linguistic resources among children in  isolated communities, perhaps using Wikis. Just looking at the extent and depth of the material on this site I now realize that the project is much more complicated than I had envisaged. I really need to read many of the articles from this site before I go any further.The site houses OREL: Online Resources for Endangered Languages, that is up to date and contains about 350 links to resources for every aspect of revitalizing indigenous languages.

Site Address: http://www.hrelp.org/

Though there are many articles and links for documenting languages by experts (which does not interest me), there are also tasty numbers like:

The Birth and Death of Languages

David W. Lightfoot

Developing Linguistic Corpora: A Guide to Good Practice

ed. Martin Wynne, AHDS

What Native Communities Want from Web-Based Data

Doug Whalen

Who Owns Native Culture?

Michael F. Brown

First Nations University of Canada

First Nations University of Canada (2003)  was formerly known as the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College which was founded in 1976. The university boasts programs which are designed to specifically address the needs of Aboriginal communities. Programs at the university include: Indian Communication Arts, School of Indian Social Work, Indian Fine Arts, Intercultural Leadership Program, Department of Indigenous Education, a multitude of programs related to the health sciences and many more.

The FNUC allows students of all nations to learn in an environment of First Nations cultures and values.Their mission statement ” To enhance the quality of life, and to preserve, protect and interpret the history, language, culture and artistic heritage of First Nations.”   

Links

First Nations Veterans Memorial

First Nations Pedagogy

This site has been active since 2006 and is a personal site for June Kaminski of mixed race (First Nation and European blood) who is currently working on a PhD in Curriculum Studies and Technology Education. The objective of the site is to promote First Nations Pedagogy worldwide. It focuses on the ways of knowing, learning and teaching in first nation education and the sites works to help educators design educational initiatives for first world communities. June works as a consultant and offers her services through the site, however there are also links to interesting and scholarly papers.

Site Address: http://firstnationspedagogy.com/portfolio.html

June’s specialty field is health, but the site offers links to several interesting papers on pedagogy such as:

Aboriginal literacy and education: A wholistic perspective that embraces intergenerational knowledge.

Indigenous knowledge and pedagogy in First Nations education

Enabling the Autumn Seed: Toward a decolonized approach to aboriginal knowledge, language, and education.

Distance education in remote Aboriginal communities: Barriers, Learning Styles and Best Practices. –

Pedagogical Considerations of Using Moodle in Course Development

This site offers a good place to get idea of best practices in indigenous education. As I am particularly interested in using technology to help Indigenous communities develop a discourse, the articles on distance education and the use of Moodle are particularly interesting.

RedWAY BC News E-zine

Description and Relevance

In my ongoing search for a research topic I came across this site which was linked to the one Sophie posted on First Nations Pedagogy. The purpose of the site is stated in the heading byline:

Harnessing Technology to Honour, Inform and Connect Urban Aboriginal Youth to Services, Opportunities, the Community and Each Other

Once again I found this to be intriguing considering the points of view we explored in Module 1 that questioned the value of participating in the online world from a cultural perspective for First Nations Communities.

The main goal of the site seems to be focused on empowerment for urban aboriginals through employment potential, leadership, community building, advocacy groups, etc…

Features and Links

Some of the areas of interest I navigated to from the home page included:

• profiles of success
• Metro Vancouver Urban Aboriginal Strategy

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVHgvURX_vM[/youtube]

American Indian Education

The site was set up in 2009 and is hosted by Northern Arizona University.

It is a comprehensive web site that aims to provide information and on many topics related to American Indian Education (AIE). It offers many, many links to other interesting sites. Some of the areas of focus of this site are the history of AIE and the way American Indians are being taught now. It has interesting pages on learning styles, identity, literacy and languages among many others. More than specializing on any one theme, it is a very up to date link to hundreds of relevant resources on the Web, be they sites, articles or journals on everything to do with North American Indigenous Education. It is scholarly and a really good place to start any investigation on American Indians.

Site Address: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/AIE/index.html

There are far too many links to sites to post all of them here, but here are just a few from the most general page :


Carlisle Indian School Barbara Landis’ site

If I can read, I can do anything Aims to assist Indian communities with increasing literacy skills 


Indian Education Links Montana Office of Public Instruction


Indigenous Studies Portal: Education University of Saskatchewan


Journal of American Indian Education Over 100 full text articles from 1961-2002


Native American EducationWill Karkavelas, Osaka University


Northwest Indian College Virtual Library


Selected Resources on American Indian Education Annotated bibliography of printed sources by Jon Reyhner


Teaching & Learning with Native Americans Handbook for non-Native American adult educators.

FirstVoices is run by the First Peoples’ Cultural Foundation established in Canada. FirstVoices is a site that offers tools and services to help indigenous communities record and teach their languages and so to promote cultural revitalization. It is supported by a trust, the Government of British Columbia and the Federal Government. The site allows indigenous communities to add their languages bit by bit to build up a comprehensive record of the written and spoken language and share it for future generations. The interesting thing about the site is the way that indigenous communities are allowed to choose whether to give access to their linguistic resources to the general public or not. This site is a ready-made tool that allows indigenous communities to easily teach their written and spoken language and share images of cultural practices, songs and stories. There are also games that work with the database of words that a community has added. There are currently over 60 communities storing their linguistic history on the site, but this should increase. At the moment Membership is only available to indigenous communities in Canada, America and Australia, but I see no reason why it would not be possible to write to the production team and get the Indigenous communities of Mexico included.

Site address: http://www.firstvoices.com/

The site does not include links to other sites, but it is a very interesting use of media technology to help the revitalization of indigenous culture by indigenous cultures.

Native Studies 20

This webpage was create by a fellow Native Studies teacher in Saskatchewan. She developed this site around the Sask curriculum (which has since been revised) and shared with her colleagues. I used this site a tremendous amount as we did not have access to a text. Although I am not teaching Native Studies this year I have passed on this site to many teachers who teach social studies. It is a fantastic resource for teaching Treaties and Global Indigenous Issues. I found it an excellent way to show students the similarities and differences in treaty experiences around the globe.

Unit One: Introduction

Unit Two: Self Determination and Self Government

Unit Three: Determinism

Unit Four: Social Justice

Turtle Island Native Network’s Forum

Description and Relevance

As a ‘current events’ junkie I found this area of the overall TurtleIsland.org site to be very useful. This is a news and discussion forum that organizes current events issues impacting first nations people into broad categories and acts as a collection for news items related to those topics. Members can post and comment and participate in a online discussion community related to those issues.

Features and Links

• Note: This page is divided into three basic sections
  1. The first section is organized by topic/interest area for community connections
  2. This second section is the area that focuses on Current Events Issues
  3. The third section looks at issues related to indigenous people around the globe

• Areas of interest for me in the Current Events Section included:
  • • Residential Schools
    • Justice and Human Rights for First Nations
    • Education/Learning/Training

Address: http://www.turtleisland.org/front/_front.htm

Indigenous Peoples, Technological Globalization, and Social Mobilization

            I was originally looking for a site which deals with the problems that indigenous communities face when dealing with technology. I came across this site and in particular a paper by Green-Barber about the use that indigenous groups have made of technology. The author states that “technology is creating new possibilities for the empowerment of marginalized groups, such as indigenous peoples, in the political, social, and civil spheres as well; indigenous peoples themselves are selecting the ways in which they wish to be empowered.”(Green-Barber. 2009. P.3) The article is very thought provoking and the site has a number of interesting academic articles, although I was a little concerned that I could not find who is ultimately responsible for choosing the material.

Main site

http://www.allacademic.com/

Article:

Green-Barber, L. , 2008-04-03 “Indigenous Peoples, Technological Globlization, and Social Mobilization” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the MPSA Annual National Conference, Palmer House Hotel, Hilton, Chicago, IL Online <PDF>. 2009-05-23 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p267575_index.html

Indigenous Education Institute

            The moment I opened this page I was drawn in by both the colours and the images. As I explored the site I found within it an article called Paradox and Transformation ( Maryboy et al. 2006.) This article points out the problems involved in education due to the different value systems that operate in the Western world and the Indigenous world. The authors mention that “Like the Navajo, most Indigenous people are spiritually grounded in specific geophysical and celestial environments. “ (Maryboy et al. 2006, p.7) In contrast, the current western educational curriculum which we value, places almost no emphasis on the world around us. Instead, we must accept that when we look at the indigenous world, we are guilty that “This knowledge has been marginalized and discounted in most educational systems of the dominant society around the world.” (Maryboy et al. 2006, p. 12)

http://www.indigenouseducation.org/

http://www.indigenouseducation.org/WINHEC%20Journal%203-29-06%20Final%20c.pdf

The Pathways Project

            I was looking for sites which deal with the importance of oral traditions in indigenous communities, when I came across this site which compares oral traditions (OT) with Internet technology (IT). This site reinforced an idea I had about using technology for languages which have never been written down. I was fascinated by the concept that “Because of their inherent dynamics, both OT and IT are always in flux; they remain open, emergent, and forever under construction rather than closed, determined, and complete.”(p.1)

            At first I found myself trying to read the information in my traditional linear style, but this site really encourages you to step away from the traditional and to wander around the site following whichever threads of the conversation interest you. I spent some time in the Museum of Verbal Art and from there I sidetracked to the Ideology of the Text.  I ended up a long way from my original search, but it was worth it.

http://www.pathwaysproject.org/pathways/show/HomePage