MET Course Weblog

SAY Magazine (M-3 Post #3)

http://www.saymag.com/canada/index.php

SAY Magazine was developed for Native youth and is distributed throughout Canada at international news stands, Indigo Chapters, and is also distributed to high schools, post-secondary institutions, libraries, First Nations communities, Friendship Centres, youth serving agencies and others.  You are able to view past issues and the current issue of the magazine and you can subscribe to the online version for full access to articles.  The website contains an abundance of links to Aboriginal media, careers, education, financial aid & scholarships for aboriginal students, health, sports, Aboriginal languages, and other Aboriginal organizations.

http://www.abo-peoples.org/CAP/Index.html

Media section devoted to aboriginal issues in the news which contains links to videos and articles.  CAP  also consists of a Congress of Aboriginal Peoples Youth Council (CAPNYC).The Mission of the CAPYNC) as stated on the website “is to represent, promote, advocate, empower, protect and educate off-reserve, Aboriginal youth from across Canada; and further, to encourage unity and the growth of emotional, physical, mental and spiritual well being of oneself, family and community.

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network  (M-3 Post #1)

 http://www.aptn.ca/

APTN programming is by, for and about Aboriginal Peoples.  Programs include but are not limited to the APTN National news and APTN In Focus which takes a look at aboriginal news stories and offers context and historical perspective.

“History would have been told differently if our reporters had been there.”

APTN Investigates tries to uncover and expose the truth about some of the most controversial news stories involving Aboriginals each week.  In addition there is children’s programming, cartoons, and programs in English, French and a variety of aboriginal languages.  The website offers access to some past news segments and programs.

The Native Village web site is professional and well maintained. It is copyrighted by an individual, but  is too good to be run as a hobby. However, no mention is made of how it is maintained financially.

Web site: http://www.nativevillage.org/index.htm

This vibrant site publishes twice a month and is designed for educators and youth. It is not particularly scholarly but is a great example of a functioning format of a Web resource for an Indigenous community.

The first publication is “Native Village Youth and Education News” which is a news magazine of interesting stories on Indigenous topics.

Link to Volume 1: http://www.nativevillage.org/NOV%20News/V1%20November%202009%20headlines.htm

The second publication is “Native Village Opportunities and Websites”, which is divided into two sections:

“Opportunities” lists all the activities (and there are plenty) going on related to Indigenous Knowledge and Community.

Link: http://www.nativevillage.org/Opportunities/10-15-09%20OPPS.htm

“Websites” offers a selection of interesting Websites every fortnight.

Link: http://www.nativevillage.org/Libraries/NativeVillageLibrariesHOME.htm

There is also the “Native American Language Library”, which received recognition by the American Indian Review Magazine as the “Best Language Website on the Internet”. The page offers a lot of good links to websites on Indigenous languages and is a great resource for teachers wanting to bring Indigenous content into the curriculum.

Link: http://www.nativevillage.org/Libraries/Language%20Libraries.htm

Archives of ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU

Indigenous Languages and Technology

Web site: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~cashcash/ILAT.html

The ILAT site is an open forum Listserv, something that I had read about, but never seen. The site is run by the University of Arizona, and is visually simple with no frills, unlike other webpages. It is similar to the forums we use on Blackboard.

It is a list of messages archived by month on topics related to Indigenous Languages and Technology. It is up to date as there are 23 threads for November 2009 alone. It is a useful site because it allows you to search the archive by keyword. This means you can find out what people in the field have said about any topic. I did a search on the Listserv for the word Wiki and got 27 matches, the most recent being from January 2009. This post took to me to a site (http://drupal.org/project/i18n) where you can download Drupal, a free online program that allows for the creation of an online dictionary that can include audio, and video. The post suggests that the dictionary can be set up in a Wiki style so that users could add words.

I did another search on the word “Zapotec” and found that a researcher brought students down to Oaxaca each year to work on a Zapotec dictionary in a village not far from my house.

A real mine of information

http://www.lib.virginia.edu/etd/masters/ArtsSci/English/2002/Daniels/curtis/throssel/professional.html

Whereas Edward Curtis was a White man photographing Indians, Richard Throssel was a Crow Indian, hired by the Indian Service (of the US Gov’t) from 1909 to 1911 to depict everyday life on the Crow Reserve. While Throssel’s photographs are also coloured by the late-Romantic notion of the “noble Indian”, his insider’s perspective led to many photographs that depict a somewhat truer reality: Indians who weren’t living in an idealized past, but as contemporary to the rest of America at the beginning of the twentieth century.

On the page linked above, Valerie Daniels has posted a representative selection of photographs from Throssel’s employment by the Indian Service and his later private venture, Throssel Photocraft Co., along with a brief biography. A number of these photos, such as Showing the Better Class of Indian Home (1910) and Interior of the Best Kitchen on the Crow Reservation (1910) had been produced for use in educational pamphlets on “Indian Health”.

http://www.edwardscurtis.com/

I came across the name Edward Sheriff Curtis while reading Thomas King’s 2003 Massey Lectures, The Truth About Stories. Curtis travelled throughout North America in the early twentieth century, photographing “Indians”. According to King, Curtis took over 40,000 photos, of which over 20,000 were published. The gallery linked above shows thumbnails of a small portion of these photos, along with links to Curtis’ biography and some of his writings.

What is particularly interesting about these photos, again according to King, is the way Curtis constructed an image of the “Indian”, carrying “Indian” clothing, wigs and and other cultural paraphernalia to lend to those who didn’t look quite Indian enough to match the late-Romantic image of the noble Indian, even paying some to shave off western-looking facial hair.

I thought it would be fun to have a little inspiration

check out this video: Teachers Today

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_some_negative_effects_of_explorers_contact_with_first_nations_in_canada

Quite frankly, there is no real reason for me to include this weblog. However, I figured it’s a good example of why we should not take Google searches and wikis as fact. As you can see, although the answer is certainly true, there are some “small” or “minor” things (such as colonization) left out of the answer. I would not want my students using this for projects, or for increasing their knowledge.

http://www.fncfcs.com/projects/FNRS.html

First Nations Research Site

The reason that I chose this site is because it is an excellent resource for those who work with First Nations children or in social work. The goals of the DNRS are as following:

• To assist the Centre of Excellence for Child Welfare in analyzing and reporting on Canadian child welfare data, specifically data within the First Nations child welfare context;
• To share innovations and issues in practice, policy, knowledge research, skill development, and administration in First Nations child welfare;
• To stimulate discussion among local, regional, provincial and national child welfare agencies on current research, policies and/or practices that affect or benefit First Nations children, youth, families and/or communities;
• To promote networking and the exchange of ideas among First Nations practitioners, academic researchers, policy makers, and advocates who work in the First Nations child and family services field;
• To assist in building and strengthening research capacity among First Nations individuals, agencies, and organizations engaged in child welfare research, policy and/or practice;
• To build a pool of resources and networks from, within and among academic and private First Nations researchers;
• To promote the training of professional staff, researchers, caregivers, and volunteers;
• To promote the development of techniques for evaluating the programs and services delivered to First Nations children, families and communities by the First Nations child welfare agencies and organizations in Canada (Bennett & Blackstock, 2006, p.283-284).

This site is a fantastic site to help those who do research for the government or even for independent researchers. It provides guidelines and suggestions on researching First Nations in Canada and offers a fantastic mandate. I highly recommend reading the current projects for examples of what this program does.

Memory Place

Memory Place is a project that proposes to house IK digitally for Indigenous communities and researchers. They have started a database for Groote Elandt but the database software is open source and is freely available from Sourceforge for use in other communities. The software is for storing and accessing all types of Indigenous media. It was developed (and funded) by the Anindilyakwz Lando Council as a way to pass on to Aboriginal youth the cultural and linguistic knowledge. It is designed to offer a safe deposit for IK allowing it be accessed in a culturally sensitive way. The project involved the community at every step and took into account Indigenous Knowledge systems and Indigenous Computing in the design.

Web site: http://memoryplace.sourceforge.net/index.html

A version of the software is available at http://sourceforge.net/project/platformdownload.php?group_id=161316&sel_platform=1607

I have downloaded the software but am having some technical issues with the installation. However, I am hopeful to resolve them soon as I have been in contact with the designers. The project is very professional and I think it could be an excellent option for use in Oaxaca.

Indigenous Knowledge and Resource Management in Northern Australia

Making Collective Memory with Computers

Web Site: http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/ikhome.html

The IKRMNA was a project that ran from 2003 to 2006 and aimed to support and develop databases that focused on the preservation of Indigenous languages and culture in Northern Australia. It was coordinated by the School of Australian Indigenous Knowledge Systems at Charles Darwin University and received funds from the Australian Research Council. The project developed solutions for institutions, Indigenous communities, published papers and developed software. Among other activities, the project developed a prototype digital systems that allows Indigenous communities to develop a collective memory. TAMI (Text, Audio, Movies and Images) is a database and file management system for IK developed specifically to take into consideration the needs of Australian Aboriginal communities. Interestingly they propose the use of Maps and navigation interfaces since IK is place based.

Links from this site:

There is a link to an animation of TAMI

http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/db_TAMI.html#

There are many interesting papers such as:

Digital Technologies and Aboriginal Knowledge Practices http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/pdf/DigTech_IndigPlaceAust.pdf

& Software for Educating Aboriginal Children about Place

http://www.cdu.edu.au/centres/ik/pdf/HRV_for_Kritt_WinegarFINAL4-06.pdf

There are several links to other sites.

Of interest is the link to the Aboriginal Mapping Network that helps Indigenous communities to protect and develop land based resources by using mapping tools. http://www.nativemaps.org/

The Indigenous Knowledge Project

This project is run by the Information Technology & Electrical Engineering of The University of Queensland Australia. The site is not current having been last updated in July, 2008 and the most recent publications are from 2006. However, it is an interesting site on IK management software. The stated objective of the site is to see how IT can be used to allow Indigenous communities to conserve their IK and culture in a sensitive way. The project aims to work with the custodians of IK to develop suitable software that preserves IK while respecting Indigenous protocols with respect to access. It also emphasizes the importance of maintaining ownership and control of  IK within the community.

Web site: http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~eresearch/projects/ikm/index.html

Web Site Links

The site offers some interesting papers such as “Software Tools for Indigenous Knowledge Management” http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~eresearch/papers/2003/IKM_software.pdf but of  most interest is the software that the project has developed for IK management.

There is the XML Metadata Editor/Generator Application (XMEG), which allows the user to record metadata onto an IK media file, not only to describe the content, but also to restrict access.

My particular interest is the demo they have created of an Indigenous Knowledge Web site: Indigenous Knowledge Web Demo http://maenad.itee.uq.edu.au/kweb/

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

Shared Stories is a collection of stories about survivors of the residential schools. Using technology, survivors are able to share and archive their stories. As the number of survivors diminishes, it is important to see and hear their painful stories in order to share a deeper understanding of the trauma that was inflicted on these people, helping to create empathy for them and reconciliation for them.

This site is part of a larger site called Where are the Children? Healing the legacy of residential schools.  The site features a virtual journey through the experiences of survivors of the residential schools operated in Canada.  It is hope that It is their hope that the website will provide healing and restoration to healthy First Nations communities.  The site encourages children to ask their parents and grandparents questions about their families histories.   This site is sponsored by The Legacy of Hope Foundation, Aboriginal Health Foundation, and the Library and Archives Canada.

A young student at the Old Anglican Mission School on the Blackfoot Reserve, Alberta, ca. 1900.

Photographer: Glenbow Archives, NC-5-53, Retrieved Nov. 7 from Where are the Children website. http://www.wherearethechildren.ca/en/assimilation.html

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.

The Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) is an Aboriginal managed, non-profit, national corporation based in Ottawa.  Funded by a one time government grant of $350 million dollars, their mandate was to encourage and support community based Aboriginal healing initiatives to deal with the legacy of physical and sexual abuse suffered in Canada’s Indian Residential School System and the multigenerational impacts. This organization is necessary due to the institutional abuses suffered  which has resulted in lateral violence, suicide, depression, poverty, alcoholism, lack of parenting skills, and difficulty maintaining healthy relationships.  They hope that in the future these effects  will have been meaningfully resolved and that Aboriginal people can return to healthy lifestyles for themselves and their future generations.

Links available include:

Aboriginal Canada Portal

Assembly of First Nations

Congress of Aboriginal Peoples

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada

AHF logo [Online Image]. (n.d.). Retrieved November 17, 2009, from AHF website. http://www.ahf.ca/announcements

White House Blog

Today was the White House Tribal Nations Conference. The link I have provided is actually the White House blog which includes transcripts of President Obama’s opening remarks at the conference. Today he signed a memorandum indicating that there would be stronger ties between 564 federally recognized tribes and the White House. I’m not sure if this is simply more lip service to the indigenous people of the US but I found it very interesting that President Obama has directed each and every government agency to have a detailed plan of how they intend to improve meaningful consultation and collaboration between the federal government and the Indian nations. I guess we wait and see.

Links include live streaming to interactive discussions with Obama, tribal leaders and agency officials.

MyTribeTV

A website I came across while researching The White House Tribal Nations Conference. This site is a 24-7 news and communication tools for First Nations people. Links include:

Rezreels : a link which allows people to share their story digitally. Their focus is on Indian youth and getting their story out using modern film making tools. This initiative is a joint effort between MyTribeTV and the US Interior’s Office of Indian Energy and Economic Development.

MyTribe Education:  a partnership again with US IOIEED to create opportunities for distance education fo Indian people