The Journal of American Indian Education

URL:  http://jaie.asu.edu/index.html

Published through the Center for Indian Education , the Journal of American Indian Education provides a wealth of information about indigenous education. Published three times per year, the articles of the JAIE can be very useful for research about indigenous topics of all kinds.  The website gives access to abstracts and full articles published since the Journal was founded, in 1961. The editor and review panel are clearly disclosed.  Subscription information is clearly detailed.

The article search link seems to be broken and that makes finding articles of specific topics time-consuming for researchers as the articles are never listed by topic, rather by date.  Despite this set-back, which is potentially temporary, I believe the Journal of American Indian Education reaches its’ goal of improving  “Native Education through knowledge generation and transmission to classrooms and other educational settings”.

Turtle Island News

Celebrating 15 years the Turtle Island News is a 100% First Nations owned newspaper available online.  This newspaper covers  First Nations and Aboriginal issues throughout North America. I believe this to be an important educational resource. Turtle Island News is but one example of First Nations creating their own media network. Mainstream media has vigorously sterotyped aboriginals in print and images. Many of these stereotypes  have lived on despite a general public that should know better. The Turtle Island News is an example of a successful effort of Aboriginal owned and created media.

The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA)

The site is run by the University of Texas at Austin and is bilingual in English and Spanish.

This sites hosts a digital archive of recordings and texts in Indigenous languages. The site collects natural discourse and materials about the languages, and some of these materials are designed for use in indigenous language revitalization programs. The links from this site include other organizations that produce materials for language revitalization. The mission of the site is three fold.

 1. They seek to preserve recordings of indigenous languages. 

2. They seek to make them available to indigenous peoples (as well as scholars).

3. They seek to provide support to native communities to use this media as a way to build up a discourse.

This seems to be a good model for the way technology can be used to help communities develop  an online database of material.

Site URL: http://www.ailla.utexas.org/site/welcome.html

The site also hosts links to other sites. Some of the categories are listed below. Unfortunately not all the sites are currently active.  

1. Archives
2. Sites about the indigenous languages and cultures of Latin America
3. Sites about the indigenous languages and cultures of North America
4. Sites about bilingual education, multilingualism, and multiculturalism
5. Software for linguists

In researching aboriginal science and technology education I have found a variety of resources that have been very enlightening.  One of the most interesting is a book that assembles a number of research articles and reflections on the subject of First Nations education in Canada

The Circle Unfolds takes a critical look at First Nations education form a science and technology perspective.  It provides an accurate history of Aboriginal education in Canada and reflects on how best to restructure and transform Aboriginal education in terms of learning processes and teaching.

Some of the articles deal with specific issues related to some of the research proposals we have written such as “Non-Native Teachers Teaching in Native Communities” by Taylor “A Major Challenge for the Education System: Aboriginal Retention and Dropout” by Mackay and Myles and “Redefining Science education for Aboriginal Students” by MacIvor.

The collection is both broad and deep providing a great overview of many of the challanges First Nations Education has had in the past and explores how it might change in the future.

Most of the book is freely available through Google Books so I suggest checking out the contents to see if there is anything useful for your own research.

Ong, W. (1982) Orality and Literacy:  The technologizing of the Word. Routledge, London and New York.

I highly recommend this resource as it delves deeply into examining the differences between oral and literate based cultures.  The major critiques of the book centre around the literary deterministic tendencies of the book.  The author also states the incredible challenge of examining oral based cultures from the perspective of a literate researcher.  However the strengths of the book centre around providing the educational technologist a perspective on attributes and ways of thinking and remembering of more orally based cultures.  Understanding the differences can support and enhance instruction.