Author Archives: glynnm

Module 2 – Post #5 – Through the Eyes of Youth

In her video interview for ETEC521 Module 2, Amy Parent mentions the deep insights that she felt were captured through the film projects undertaken by youth, at the Centre where she was working, in collaboration with an exceptional organization called Reel Youth.

After some searching, I tracked down three film projects (Residential Truth: Unified Future, Bandaid, and Decolonization) that had been produced with Reel Youth, expressing the thoughts and feelings of First Nations youth regarding residential schools and the concept of decolonization. The longest of these three films conveys how raw the feelings are and how much of the hurt from the residential school system endures in the current generation. This project includes footage of video interviews with young people and their parents, sharing their thoughts and emotions in a frank and very moving way. The two shorter films are both claymation projects, which employ simple and beautiful imagery that evokes just as powerful a reaction as the video interviews.

This site and these film projects served as good reminders to me of the range of ways, (music, image, voice) in which messages can be conveyed when there is an important and compelling story to be told.

Module 2 – Post #4 – Second Chances

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The digital storytelling project for First Nations women, which I described in my previous post, led me to the corresponding project posted by the Oral History Centre, which is known as ININIWAG DIBAAJIMOWAG: FIRST NATIONS MEN AND THE INTER-GENERATIONAL EXPERIENCES OF RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS. The men’s digital stories associated with this project are equally poignant to those of the women mentioned in my previous post. However, the one that I found most impactful was the story called Second Chance, by Dan Highway. He is a residential school survivor, who shares in simple and clear terms how the theft of the opportunity to be with his own parents impacted his abilities as a father and how his process of healing has resulted in a second chance to be a parent to his children and grandchildren.

Numerous other stories emerging from this project can be found on the Oral History Centre’s YouTube Playlist.

Module 2 – Post #3 – Generational Journeys

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As part of my research into digital storytelling as a means of expression for indigenous culture and knowledge, I have been seeking out digital stories that are shared online for public review and consideration.

Six such stories have been made available through the Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence, and their project kiskino mâto tapanâsk: Intergenerational Effects on Professional First Nations Women Whose Mothers are Residential School Survivors . Each storyteller, in this project, has a unique perspective on the long term effects of the residential school system on her family and relationships. However, as Lisa Forbes states in the opening of her video story, there is a great value in viewing all of these pieces together, to understand the collective strength of their message. Each woman has the opportunity to introduce her digital story, providing insight into her choices and her motivation for the piece. While much of the material has a sombre tone, there is also a common thread of strength and resilience passed along from one generation to the next. The journeys of these storytellers provide snapshots of the ongoing legacy of the residential schools, but also reflect the plans and hopes of these women for the generations that follow them.

Module 2 – Post #2 – “Return of Treasures”

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While contemplating the ideas of culture and commodification in this Module, I discovered a website that has been compiled by the U’Mista Cultural Society. The website associates the meaning of U’Mista with the return home of captives who may have been abducted in raids. It then identifies the return of artifacts or treasures of the Kwakwaka’wakw people from foreign institutions and collections as a form of U’Mista.

A wonderful link from this site is the Story of the Masks. This site uses text, images, video and simple games/quizzes to introduce and share the stories of the Kwak’wala speaking people of the Northwest Coast of B.C. The site includes many personal accounts of how masks and/or regalia, along with their stories, have been passed along through generations.

This site is also part of a much larger, quite interesting institution known as the Virtual Museum of Canada. This initiative seems to me to be a wonderful way to allow a diverse range of communities and groups to share their stories and educate others about their culture while at the same time protecting the things most sacred to those cultures and ensuring that they are physically located in the places where they belong.

The Story of the Masks has given me much food for thought as I pursue my research regarding digital stories and indigenous knowledge and culture.

Module 2 – Post #1 – Right in Front of Me

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It is true that when searching for ideas and resources, it is sometimes easy to overlook the things that are right in front of you. The Ryerson Image Centre is directly beside my office, and every day I walk past a large, glass enclosed area of the building that houses a rotating display of images from current exhibits. I realized recently that, as I rushed to grab coffee each day, some of the images that were catching my eye brought to mind many of the themes of ETEC521. Sure enough, I soon discovered that one of the exhibits that is currently running at the Centre is Ghost Dance, a show which includes 99 journalistic photographs, capturing elements of aboriginal life and activism in North America.

While the images themselves are beautiful and intriguing, something that I found equally interesting about this exhibit is the blog associated with it. The blog is designed to serve as a forum for visitors to share any memories or associations they might have with the people, events or locations captured in the photos. Unfortunately, so far, no comments have been posted to the blog to provide deeper insights into these images.

I hope to return to the exhibit and to the blog again over the next few weeks. While the curator of the exhibit has chosen an engaging selection of images, how much more engaging and informative might the show be if the true stories behind the images, or even parts of these stories, were to be shared by those involved?

Statement Connecting Blog to Research

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In my early research for this course, I was very inspired by an Australian blog posting about Victorian Indigenous Communities and Digital Storytelling. Based on my response to this post, as well as the themes of our initial readings, I would like to focus my research on the use of digital storytelling as a strategy for indigenous education. This topic is of particular relevance for me, because in our work with Digital Education Strategies at Ryerson University, my colleagues and I promote digital storytelling as a useful strategy for teaching and learning. As such, I would like to deepen my understanding of this technique and its pedagogical value.

Some of the topics and questions that I would like to explore include:

The role of storytelling in Indigenous culture.
To what extent can Indigenous storytelling, which is anchored in strong oral tradition, be conveyed through digital tools?
The process of creating digital stories and the intrinsic value of this process.

In addition to our course readings and the sites which I have already shared through my Module 1 weblog, here is a preliminary list of references:

Hopkins, C. (2006) Making Things Our Own: The Indigenous Aesthetic in Digital Storytelling. Leonardo , Vol. 39, No. 4, Pacific Rim New Media Summit Companion, pp. 341-344

Wilcox A.C., Harper S.L., Edge V.L. (2013) Storytelling in a digital age: digital storytelling as an emerging narrative method for preserving and promoting indigenous oral wisdom. Qualitative Research, 2013; 13(2):127–147.

Module 1 – Post #5 – Sharing Insights

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Media Indigena is a multimedia magazine which began as a collective of 7 Aboriginal bloggers from Canada, but seeks to aggregate and debate Indigenous news and creative/interactive works from across the world.

The site offers multimedia content and commentary on current issues in Indigenous arts and culture, business and politics. Of all the sites I have visited so far in my research, this one has presented some of the most interesting snapshots of Aboriginal contributors exploring expressions of their cultures and the relative states of their traditions and knowledge. One of the posts from June of last year is titled Why there ain’t no such a-thing as “Aboriginal culture”. This post touches on the important distinctions between terms such as “nations”, “confederacy”, “bands”, etc. It also demonstrates the challenging balance of interests between uniting against colonialism and maintaining strong identities as individual and unique cultures. This is a theme that I’m sure we will return to throughout this course.

As I proceed through my research, I’m sure that the voices that come through in this online magazine will provide important benchmarks against which to check my assumptions.

Module 1 – Post #4 – The Value of Cooperation

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Collaboration and cooperation are key elements of Indigenous culture that have come up in our Module 1 readings. As I have continued my research into storytelling through rich media, I encountered a great posting from Australia about Victorian Indigenous Communities and Digital Storytelling .

The post is an entry on a site called “Screening the Past”, a site which is devoted to:

the history of photography, film, television and multimedia;
the representation of history on/in these media;
the role of these media in social history;
the history and development of critical and theoretical analysis in these areas

(Retrieved on 22nd September 2013 from http://www.screeningthepast.com/about-us/)

The post includes a great story about how a reluctant “Aunt” (term for female elders in Victorian Indigenous Communities) was supported and encouraged to participate in a digital storytelling workshop by two “Uncles” (term for male elders in Victorian Indigenous Communities), who offered up photos and stories of their own. As one of the writers of the post states, “…behind every one of these individual stories is another story about how the film was made, and that’s a story about being in the community.”

Module 1 – Post #3 – Elder Stories

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As we have progressed through Module 1, my attention has been drawn numerous times to the idea of film and rich media as vehicles for the sharing of indigenous knowledge and storytelling.

www.ourelderstories.com is the home site for Voices in the Wind Productions, by Dr. Judy Iseke (Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Knowledge and Research). Dr. Iseke’s work “…includes challenging appropriation and misrepresentation of Indigenous knowledges in mainstream art and media as well as sharing Indigenous pedagogies in educating communities and aiding in sustaining Indigenous cultures.” The site offers downloadable files for Dr. Iseke’s five short films, a number of her journal articles, and Cree and Michif language links.

Each of Dr. Iseke’s films tells a story of its own. One of the films, “Understanding What Life is About”,offers concrete messages about the use of storytelling in Indigenous communities.

I hope to delve further into the strengths and weaknesses of sharing traditional culture through digital media. However, right now, for me, these works stand as examples of how effectively a message can be communicated when simple words,sounds and images are combined.

Module 1 – Post #2 – “Modern” Education vs. Indigenous Knowledge

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Dr. Lee Brown’s video got me thinking about how Indigenous approaches to knowledge and learning could be of great benefit to our planet. As Indigenous knowledge has been sacrificed for the more abstract approaches of “formal” educational systems, our natural environment has paid a price. How can we honour and support a more indigenous style of education for all young learners in the interest of their futures?

Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainability is one module of a UNESCO supported education programme called Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future. The module supports a number of learning objectives including an understanding of the role of ‘modern’ education in undermining indigenous knowledge and ways of teaching and learning. It links out to a number of other sites and resources such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The module materials include a variety of engaging learning activities, templates and resources, including a helpful table comparing Indigenous Education and Formal Education. Case studies are provided to illustrate the integration of indigenous knowledge into classroom teaching.

This module echoes many of the arguments emerging from our Module 1 readings and provides additional food for thought re: thinking “locally” when identifying learning goals.