finally I found a aboriginal blog that is built to participate in networked culture

http://www.abtec.org/blog/?page_id=2

Form their site

“The main objective of AbTeC is to discover, define and implement methods by which Aboriginal people can use networked communication technology to strengthen our cultures. AbTeC’s Skins project will bring Aboriginal community organizations together with academic institutions to conduct research into the means by which the power of digital and networked technology can be put to use in producing and preserving our knowledge, culture and language. We will work with elder who have stories to tell, bands who have histories to preserve, and Aboriginal language speakers who want to share their knowledge. The goal is to provide conceptual and practical tools that will allow us to create new, Aboriginally-determined territories within the collection of web-pages, online games, chat rooms, bulletin boards and virtual environments that we call cyberspace.”

Love it!

The site cites current projects that include the use of computers in cyber pow wows, 3D story telling and computer programing

Still on the hunt for some aboriginal blogs I came across RedWAY BC News E-zine; a free on-line electronic magazine connecting 8,400+ international subscribers

The biline reads: “Harnessing Technology to Honour, Inform and Connect Urban Aboriginal Youth to Services, Opportunities, the Community and Each Other.”

This online publication seems like a well put together site with up-to-date information. Some of its contents include:

• Smoke Signals
• RedWAY BC News Team
• Events Calendar
• JPEN – Job Postings
• From the Street – Youth Voices
• Business, Entrepreneurship & Ec. Dev.

It looks like a fairly good source as long as those who are the intended audience(aboriginal youth), have the access to the material.

The links to up-to-date topical news items to be of most value as a means to inform a generation of the issues that should be of great importance to them. The site is built and maintained by aboriginal youth in a group called the AYM Team. You can see a video on the groups at: www.youtube.com/redway99


As of June ’09, they have published +80 issues of RedWAY BC News. Over 70 Aboriginal Youth contribute to RedWAY stories highlighting thousands of initiatives, programs, job postings and events.

You can subscribe to their free newsletter and their YouTube channel

Watch this video
Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story
Chimamanda Adichie speaks of her personal search for her culture. She points to how media defines a culture with a single story… a single story that narrowly defines cultures. For Chimamanda, a single story does not define a culture. She warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
Aboriginals also need to tell their stories. They need to find global voices so they don’t become one story… the story the media creates.

If you haven’t experienced TED.com then you really must visit. It several videos with diverse topics presented by our leaders/innovators.

Learn more about TED.com

You have got to watch this video from TED about the cultural differences of myth between India and the West. It is a real eye opener.

http://www.ted.com/talks/devdutt_pattanaik.html

Does this sound familiar?

I think Devdutt Pattanai does a great job talking about the narrative in both cultures. Now that we are becoming a global society with more informal conversations between cultures, we can create a new narrative that could include the preservation the planet. Our Western culture is all about concur and take what you need NOW before your death. Other cultures, like India, belief in multiple lives therefore you have to preserve the earth for your next life. (I might be wrong here)… but it is exciting to learn about how other cultures view the world.

Aboriginal culture is all about being one with the mother earth, respecting her and preserving her. We have the cultures on this planet that can help the West change our ways. Technology can help facilitate the communication between cultures. Social media and social networking allows all voices to be heard. Educational Technology can connect students from differently countries to discuss and learn from each other.
Can we change the Western narrative if we listen to other narratives?

I hope so. It may be our digital generation that moves our cultures together to create a new narrative that protects the planet

You have got to watch this, it is amazing!!!

A TED video about a technology that allows the user to use/find digital information while  in her/his physical environment. The learner in the physical world interacts with digital data using physical gestures. No longer will we need desktop computers or laptops. No longer will we have to sit for hours in front of a machine interacting with a machine (computer). We can get information while interacting with our physical world.

Pranav Mistry, an MIT graduate student has created a device called the SixthSense that uses our physical gestures and interactions with real-world objects and integrates/combines them with data (digital information) for ‘just in time” knowledge building.

He hopes that this will solve the digital divide. All equipment needed is extremely cheap and the software is open source. You only need a wireless connection to the internet.

Near the end of the video he shows how his device makes working with digital data the same as working with information in a physical form (on paper)

I love it. I can hardly wait until it becomes the norm.

I think this fits in well with aboriginal pedagogy. The learner can be in the natural environment and interact with digital information at the same time.

I thought it would be fun to have a little inspiration

check out this video: Teachers Today

watch this video on Sunlife

Sunchild E-Learning Community  delivers courses and student services that are flexible and sensitive to the unique needs of First Nations learners using e-learning tools such as Skype and Wimba.

Based in Alberta, the community is for adult learners and  high school students to further their education without the challenges of geographical location, daycare issues,work and class size.  Often classes are canceled due to the lack of numbers but since Sunchild is online students in remote communities can attend a class that their remote school cannot support.

They have courses for adult literacy as well.  Watch this video

I am starting to rethink my paper thesis. I think I want to change it to how blogs can fit into learning theories of Aboriginals. I was going to examine how blogs work with constructing social knowledge for the aboriginal tribes but I am starting to see how native learning theory and constructivism is very similar and blogs can play a role in constructing social knowledge.

The Journal of American Indian Education mission is:

to improve Native Education through knowledge generation and transmission to classrooms and other educational settings.

On this site I found this article LEARNING STYLES OF AMERICAN INDIAN/ALASKA NATIVE STUDENTS: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

Virtual Tour of Aboriginal Canada
This site has a visual map search of indigenous populations across Canada. I read the news and hear about various bands but I can’t geographically ‘place’ them. With this site, the maps not only geographically place tribes but with click will open a new window containing specific tribal websites. Not all the links are work but most do.

I can now understand where all the aboriginal communities are in Ontario.

To me this looks like a well-maintained site, with a great deal of sources and it is visually appealing.

First Nations Pedagogy

for Online Learning

http://firstnationspedagogy.com/portfolio.html

This is a efolio site for June Kaminski, BSN MSN PhD. June is currently a PhD Candidate in Curriculum Studies and Technology Education at the University of British Columbia. She is also a Metis

The site is built to raise awareness of First Nations pedagogy – the ways knowing, learning, and teaching inherent to the traditional methods of aboriginal education.

I was fascinated by the learning theories of this site. The resources lead me to exploring the pedagogy of the First nations. Although not completed it does offer a list of theories that I will explore more deeply. This site got me thinking about learning theories and how some Western theories, mainly constructivism is very similar to First Nation learning Theories. This site will prove useful for my paper.

It connects well with our reading in Module 3 Education Indigenous to Place: Western Science Meets Native Reality

http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginals

This website is devoted totally to aboriginal issues, including:

• land claims
• celebrations
• heritage
• facts & figures
• FAQs
• Native Affairs
• Disputes
• Leadership & models
• politics
• residential schools
• Native rights
• National Rewards

You may link to the Home Page or internal pages of the CBC Digital Archives Web site, but may not link directly to images or media clips, copy any of the material, or give the appearance that any of our content is a part of any other website. Most of the images, audio, video and text on this site is the property of CBC and Radio-Canada, or have been acquired with permission for use on this site.

This particular page archives.cbc.ca/for_teachers/525/called “Current Aboriginal Issues” has a webquest in the form of a pdf.

More Resources For Teachers – Educational activities

• All Grades – Going to a Residential School
• 6-8 – A Letter from School
• 9-10 – Residential School Diary
• 11-12Healing and Reconciliation
• 11-12 – Current Aboriginal Issues
• 11-12 – First Nations Reborn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_peoples_in_Canada

I don’t know why I didn’t think of wikipedia before, but this page has a great list of resources and information on the  Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Since I am a totally rookie, this site is a great jumping point for me.

I am still in the search for bogs, so if anyone finds some please let me know.

http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/blogging_part_1.htm

The Art of Blogging – Part 1

by George Siemens a professor at Athabasca University who is a theorist on learning in a digitally-based society.

This is a good starting point to learn how blogs are used for knowledge construction

The sites byline says it best

“Bridges to Understanding uses digital technology and the art of storytelling to empower and unite youth worldwide, enhance cross-cultural understanding and build global citizenship.”

They try to connect ‘middle and high school students in the developed world connect with their contemporaries in indigenous communities established in Peru, South Africa, India, and Guatemala.’

A great resource for a classroom teachers, this site includes student documentaries and curriculum resources.  The videocasts  create a ‘cyber-gallery’ (this one is for North America). You have to be patient the videos take a while to download

Off-reserve aboriginal people in Canada face “second” digital divide

The survey is done by stats Canada in the winter of 2004 :
www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2004003/article/7732-eng.pdf

The study points to the fact that most off-reserve aboriginals live in rural areas and these areas tended to offer poorer Internet access

34 percent of urban aboriginal Internet users described their computer skills as “excellent”, but only 21 percent of rural users rated their skills at that level.

The survey suggests that aboriginal people have historically had less Internet access than other Canadians and aboriginal Internet users were “much more likely to be recent learners”, the study stated.

Conclusion: “a gap existed among Aboriginal users themselves, separating more experienced urban users from their rural counterparts”; hense creating a 2nd digital divide

As an alum of UWO, I often visit the Western NEws to see what is up. I cam e across this article that I know some of my classmates would use Online course preserves Mohawk language

David Kanatawakhon-Maracle, part of in the Department of Anthropology, teaches an online distance studies course called Introduction to the Mohawk Language. He uses MP3 recordings, combined with html to workbooks enabling students to click on the word and hear the pronunciation.

David believes “If you change a language, you change a culture and if you lose a language, you lose a culture,”

http://www.aboriginalaffairs.gov.on.ca/english/default.asp

Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs

Since I am new to this area I start my search with a ministry site. I am afraid it is very naive of me but I am not well versed in Aboriginal Issues, culture and education.

I am hoping this ministry site will lead me to other sites

I decided to keep my search closer to home so I went to Fanshawe College, the college where I work. Their virtual library has a list of aboriginal links.

http://www.fanshawec.ca/EN/vlibrary/vlibrary/default.asp

including:

I am very excited to see Databases and e-journals which include Education and training.

Again, staying with the theme of staying home I jumped on the First Nations Technical Institute link
An Aboriginal owned and operated education and training facility located near Deseronto, Ontario.

Not much here to offer information about blogging but interesting to see what types of programs they offer and which universitites and colleges they partner with.

Then there is a link to Six Nations Polytechnic – Post-secondary institution at Six Nations of the Grand River, Ontario, Canada. They also offer programs in partnership with main stream Universities and colleges in Ontario

Looking for aboriginal blogs I stumbled upon RezXtra: http://communities.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/blogs/rezxtra/archive/2009/06/30/canada-day-is-my-aboriginal-day.aspx

It is  a entertainment magazine type blog that speaks to aboriginal issues and other current events. It is based out of Regina Saskatchewan.  I can tell that because of the weather the blog is linked to.

I was hoping to see if they had created a blogoshpere and  connected with other aboriginal blogs to create a community  but unfortunately they have not. REzXtra is a blog inside of LeaderPost, a division of Canwest publishing.  The bog rolls connects to other  canada.com  blogs.