The Four Directions Teachings website in an interactive, educational flash website that provides indigenous perspective from five First Nations across Canada: the Blackfoot, Cree, Ojibwe, Mohawk and Mi’kmaq.  It was developed, with support of the Canadian Culture Online Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage, and produced by the National Indigenous Literacy Association and Invert Media and cites a respectable list of advisors on their about page.

This resource does not fit as well with my own research topic as my previous posts in this module; however, I do believe there is a great deal of educational value in this site as a teaching resource that I wanted to share it.  Under each Nation are a number of narrated short stories based around elders’ teachings.  Typically these stories focus on elements of the medicine wheel and sacred symbols, including the tipi, drum, bundles, song and dance that relate aboriginal identity to place and story.  Suplemental to the narrated stories is a teachers’ resource guide that is divided into three levels (junior, intermediate and senior) to support the use of the website in the classroom.

Regrettably, the site only works with these five First Nations and seems incomplete without inclusion of the Metis, Inuit and Coast Salish peoples. None-the-less, the site has a great deal of information that can be brought into the classroom.

On a side note, this site is an interesting example of indigenous peoples embracing technology for the preservation and sharing of cultural teachings.  It lacks a sense of protectionism described in the readings for this unit, and I originally had concerns about its authenticity, but I was (ironically) assured by the Government of Canada support behind the project.  Still, it remains to be seen how teachers will implement such an obvious product of colonialism in classes that are likely searching to decolonize and reinhabitate the local environment.