Category: Module 3

Decolonization and Indigenous Property Rights

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Module 3

First Nations Pedagogy

http://firstnationspedagogy.com/index.html

This is a site maintained by June Kaminski, a Metis with degrees in Nursing and soon, a PhD in Curriculum Studies and Technology Education.

Just as we as students of ETEC521 are working through this course to better understand indigenous cultures and issues related to education and technology, this site helps teachers, health professionals, and anyone working with first nations to become more aware of issues related to first nations educational initiatives.

For anyone developing online courses for First Nations, this site has a wealth of helpful articles, references and guidelines, including a very helpful report on the Pedagogical considerations of using Moodle as a tool for course development.

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Module 3

Transient Languages and Cultures Blog

http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/elac/

This up to date blog, is authored collectively by the members of PARADISEC.  PARADISEC was reviewed in an earlier posting to this blog.  The blog provides a rich set of resources and ongoing commentary on current research efforts in language preservation and revitalization.  There are numerous links to related blogs and to sites maintained by linguistic researchers.

As with the parent PARADISEC site, it is hard to tell if there is a large amount of indigenous input into this site, but nevertheless, the site does provide useful tools to those working in indigenous  language linguistics.

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Module 3

12Canoes

http://www.12canoes.com.au/

We’ve spent a good deal of the course reading about or discussion have indigenous communities are appropriating technologies and media to create their own content/productions or to tell their own stories.  Here’s an incredibly rich interactive and immersive site that tells the stories of the Yolngu people of Arnhem land in Northern Australia. Each portion of the site provides an insight into an aspect of culture, place, or history and incorporates rich artwork, video clips, still images, music, sounds and often, narration by one of the Yolngo people. Importantly, all content is available in English and in the Yolngu language.

As the Yolngo people state on the site. They are proud of their community, history, children, artists, songmen and place, and are happy to share these with others who are interested in learning about them.

This is a great example of a project that embodies the concepts we have have been discussing, respect for intellectual property, self-determination, autonomy, and supporting native ways and traditions.

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Module 3

Word Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC)

http://www.win-hec.org/

WINHEC was established in 2002 during the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education. The founding state/country members present were Australia, the states of Hawai’i and Alaska and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium of the United States, Canada, the Wänanga of Aotearoa (New Zealand), and Saamiland (North Norway).  Module 3 of the ETE521 course is largely about de-colonization, especially in the areas of research, education, and property rights.

Acccording to the web site, WINHEC is working towards several goals:

WINHEC GOALS

  1. Accelerating the articulation of Indigenous epistemology (ways of knowing, education, philosophy, and research);
  2. Protecting and enhancing Indigenous spiritual beliefs, culture and languages through higher education;
  3. Advancing the social, economical, and political status of Indigenous Peoples that contribute to the well-being of indigenous communities through higher education;
  4. Creating an accreditation body for indigenous education initiatives and systems that identify common criteria, practices and principles by which Indigenous Peoples live;
  5. Recognizing the significance of Indigenous education;
  6. Creating a global network for sharing knowledge through exchange forums and state of the art technology ; and
  7. Recognizing the educational rights of Indigenous Peoples.

This organization serves as a model for the working with and empowering indigenous groups.  WINHEC sponsors an annual conference and publishes an annual summary of the proceedings.  Overall, an excellent resource for anyone working in or doing research in indigenous education.

Categories
Module 3

k-net

Keewaytinook Okimakanak (www.knet.ca) is an Aboriginal tribal council in northern Ontario (Canada) that uses Moodle to provide eLearning programs for primary, secondary and adult learners in remote First Nations communities.   I’m a huge proponent of open source learning technologies, so it is nice to see Moodle being adopted by indigenous community groups.  One of the limitations of
mainstream learning management systems and learning technologies is that they are limited to mainstream language groups.  It’s not cost effective for the large vendors to support indigenous language groups.  Moodle allows users to develop their own language packs.  It seems that an Oji-Cree language pack is being developed by the the Kwayaciiwin Resource Centre (http://www.kwayaciiwin.com) in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, with support from knet.

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