Elders play a vital role in teaching the generations after them how to continue telling important stories of their heritage; culture and traditions; spiritual connections and rituals; language; community relationships and relationships and connections to nature and the land.  The idea of traditional wisdom being appropriated by technology is reality and cause for concern for elders today.

My weblog will focus on analyzing treatment of elders now that technology is infiltrating their communities and how technology has affected elders’ lives and their roles in their communities, including the traditional cultural transmission of knowledge, language and spiritual connections and relationships with the land & nature, and relationships in the community.  I’m curious as to how the relationships (between elders, their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren) have evolved due to the intrusion of technology, including how they interact and communicate.  The sites visited will include international and local sites.

There are many questions to consider including the following:  Has technology, social network sites and peer groups taken the place of elders’ direct influence on the younger generations?  Do elders feel marginalized due to technological invasion?  Do they or would they be interested in participating in the creation of educational resources to educate their youth about their traditions, history, spiritual life (somewhat), language and cultural values?

I plan to create a resource for Indigenous cultures as well as the staff at my school and in my school division, as due to our location we tend to have a number of Indigenous students in our schools that have moved to town from one of the nearby reservations.