Tag: aboriginal literacy

Module 2 Weblog #4 (A. Davidson)

Vanishing Voices

Description and Relevancy

This is a link to the digital version of the Calgary Herald which is currently featuring a 3 part series on the struggle to protect vanishing and extinct First Nations languages in Southern Alberta.  I thought it quite timely for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the first article examines the perspective of technology and language for these endangered languages at several points. Secondly considering the Robert Harding article in our current module, that examines constructed stereotypes of Aboriginal people in newsprint media, I examined the article closely to detect any of the stereotypes that Harding and previous studies identified.

Links

Part 1

Part 2


Part 3 (Will Update)

Digital technologies and Aboriginal education (M1-3)

In my research I came across a 2009 article that explores digital technologies and their impact on Aboriginal learning in Canada.  Written by Fatima Pirbhai-Illich, K.C. Nat Turner and Theresa Y. Austin and titled Using digital technologies to address Aboriginal adolescents’ education: An alternative school intervention the article is a good read.

The link to the article can be found here, if you click on this RSVPN link it should take you right to the paper after logging in with your UBC credentials.

This article is a very interesting and timely piece that researches how digital technologies can support the learning of Aboriginal students.  More specifically the ethnographic project examines the impact of digital technologies on academic and technological literacy of one class through a number of projects.  The technology-focused and multi-modal activities were capped by a student written and produced public service announcement and some images and parts of the script are included.

The paper provides an interesting snapshot of one group of teacher`s efforts to reach out to Aboriginal students using technology in a Canadian classroom.  Although no astounding conclusions are recommended or made it is encouraging that groups of teachers are taking it upon themselves to take a closer look at how technology can be used to foster and support Aboriginal youth in their classrooms.

Module 2: weblog 2 (Chantal Drolet)

Canadian Education Association: Aboriginal Peoples

An “Expected Outcome” of the United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012) is to increase the literacy levels in communities or groups that are excluded from the mainstream, namely indigenous groups, where literacy is “inextricably linked to cultural survival.”

Resources available:

In Canada, […] the achievement levels and graduation rates for Aboriginal students are significantly lower than those of non-Aboriginal students. The majority of Aboriginal youth do not complete high school; leave the school system without skills for employment; without adequate language and cultural knowledge of their own people; and feel that schooling experiences erode their identity and self-worth.

Links to other sites:

Usefulness for research on Indigenous knowledge, media, and community reality:

In the context of the struggle for cultural survival and self-determination faced by many indigenous groups, raising literacy levels in the dominant language of the larger community can be a tool for indigenous political action.

Address: http://www.cea-ace.ca/foo.cfm?subsection=lit&page=pol&subpage=lan&subsubpage=abo

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