CyberCircles is a paper written by Canadian researcher, Mike Patterson of Carleton University.  Patterson’s focuses the paper around many of his personal accounts of the positives that “cyberspace” and social media tools have had within the Aboriginal communities.  One of the biggest concerns is what Patterson calls “Institutional Interference: academic, Aboriginal, and other organizations have varied degrees of acceptance of these tools.”  Fear and reluctance of using such tools are real elements that the Aboriginal communities face, and it can be linked to the potential lack of training. “Cyber networks and communities have to develop their own technical expertise. There is an ongoing need for community capacity building to address these challenges and use video communications to its full potential.”  If education isn’t available to provide assistance to successfully implement cyber/social media tools, than the value and meaning of them becomes lost.  It doesn’t just stop with a “one-time” training session, the tools that are currently being used within cyberspace, are active and useable for the now but like everything, change occurs, and with these changes, retraining is necessary.

It does seem to be a vicious circle of how the in-and-outs of technologies are, but if we don’t focus on the “how” we can change the ways, the circle will remain broken, and the divide left unattended.

Patterson, Michael. CyberCircles: InternetWorking for Aboriginal Community Research.  Retrieved July 20, 2011.

Killick Centre for E-Learning Research

To continue focusing on Bridging the Gap of the Digital Divide, repeated concerns have been made in regards to the culturally relevancy of what students are learning in Aboriginal communities.  The Killick Centre for E-Learning Research (2011), observed the experiences of a sample high school group from Coastal Labrador.  The course facilitators and participants of the study raised the concern about the content not being culturally relevant. Educators understand the importance of engaging the learner.  When course content is relevant and engaging, the learner is apt to be motivated towards success.  Educators demonstrated this, when adaptations to the core content of a English Grade 12 course within a pilot program were made, “We’re in the process of piloting a new course here, an English First-Peoples 12 course which is basically English 12, which every student needs to have, written exclusively with Aboriginal content for the resources. So the plays, instead of doing Shakespeare, they’ll do an Aboriginal play. The poetry is all from Aboriginal authors; the short stories are the same. The first cohort that went through here, their provincial exam results were 10% higher than Aboriginal students taking [the regular] English 12.”

(Sharpe, Phillpott, Bourgeois 2011: p.61)

Sharpe, Philpott, Bourgeois. (April, 2011). A Pan-Canadian Survey of E-Learning for Aboriginal High School Students.

When perusing the web, I came across this article “Aboriginal Youth Waiting for their Superman” around aboriginal youth in Canada and what the lack of funding for education is doing for the youth in schools.  This seems pretty common and relevant for all students in the education system as of late.  The article brings to attention the lack of funding for basic accessibility of the Internet, computers and other technology which are not readily available within communities.  Why does it seem to still exist, this dual education modality?  Regular students vs. aboriginal? It is frustrating to read especially from an educators stand-point, If I have been given the opportunity to teach students of all race, colour, gender etc, and provide them with the best education that I can deliver, why isn’t the government supporting this with the necessary funding to do so?  If we as teachers don’t have the resources or means to provide an acceptable education, than yes, we will be struggling and the trickle down effect occurs right to the students.

Waiting for Superman is a 2010 documentary that provides a glimpse into what is happening in the American education system, and relates to the above article.