One of the things we did last year in Lutsel K’e was get funding for a major curriculum development project (2-3 years)  from TNC. This will involve staff, students and community members in generating some teaching and learning reesources in some digital format… Bella Bella started their project two years ago… so this site talks about some of the multimedia things they have done and links to TNC resources…. good stuff. Sheila

http://www.qqsprojects.org/multimedia/index.html

Researching other Indigenous media organizations in Canada – came across: The Aboriginal Multi-Media Society  (incorp. 1983) AMMSA publishes Windspeaker, which I do read occasionally up north, is a good mag and a good example of how aboriginal media have built broad based communication and political awareness; good archives. They also help train communities to get their own media going:

http://www.ammsa.com/home

Sheila

With the still-fresh wounds from residential schooling in particular, and effects of colonization in general, there is a barrier that exists between school and community. However, if the goal of formalized education is prepare students for a productive life, then the school system must be a fully functioning part of the community. There should be fluid movement between school-based activities and community relevance and engagement. In the context of the Tlicho region, attempts have been made to bring together school and community through such programs as culture-based education being integrated into the school programming, teachers leaving the school to go into community homes for home visits at several points throughout the year, the presence of elders in the school, and the use of school-community counsellors whose role it is to help build bridges between the two. With all of these initiatives, the disconnect remains. There are ongoing consultations and questions over how to effectively bring the two together.

The goal of this analysis is to examine if there is a role for the use of multimedia in making inroads on this issue. Through engaging with community issues, gaining input from community members, and publishing work for community consumption, can the student learning process and output become engaging and accessible to parents, relatives and community members outside of the formal school building? My research weblog will focus on projects and initiatives that arise out of the junction of school-based learning and community knowledge or issues.

Emily

The College of the Rockies (COTR) serves the communities of the East Kootenays and is located in the traditional territory of the Ktunaxa Nation and the Kinbasket people. Five Bands are located within the College region, four Ktunaxa Bands and one Shuswap – Kinbasket Band.

I teach in the Child, Youth, and Family Studies program at COTR, and while there is a strong Aboriginal presence in our institution, it is strangely absent in my department.  Last year the Aboriginal Strategic Support and Education Team (a team of faculty members whose goal is to “work collaboratively with the College community to promote the integration and use of Aboriginal scholarship in programs and courses offered by College of the Rockies”) approached our department requesting we include more Aboriginal content in our courses.  The request was denied, as my department felt we were very multi-cultural in our approach, and that it was not necessary to single out any one specific culture or group of people.  Although very early in this course, I’m already realizing that there are deeper issues that we never considered.  There are distinctions to be made and questions to be asked.

Why do we have almost no First Nations students enrolled in our program?  Many of the courses I teach are online courses.   What can I do, as an instructor, to meet the needs of Aboriginal students in my online classes?  What are those needs?  How are the goals and needs of Aboriginal students taking online courses different and/or similar to non-Aboriginals’? These are the questions I will use as the basis for my weblog research.

References:

A.S.S.E.T.  (2011).  College of the Rockies.  Retrieved September 20, 2011 from http://www.cotr.bc.ca/aboriginal/cotr_web.asp?IDNumber=175

Who We Are. (n.d.) Ktunaxa Nation.  Retrieved September 20, 2011 from http://www.ktunaxa.org/who/index.html