Detailed Description

A case study examining the creation, design and evolution of an internet-based Grade 8 program delivering the Ontario curriculum into remote First Nations communities.


Summary
The goal of this research project is to document the computer mediated communication of provincial curriculum into a remote learning environment. This will be achieved through interviews with the program's creator, the classroom teachers who administer the program, the students as well as the different community groups and administration levels that approve and fund the program. The result of this project will be useful for researchers and instructional designers interested in the use of e-learning technologies. The results will also be relevant for any educators interested in the transformative powers of end users in shaping local experience of communication technologies. The specific objectives of this research are:

  1. To document the different feedbacks responsible for changes in program goals and material.
  2. To model the feedback response evolutionary cycle.

 

Context
The history of compulsory education in Northern Canada is an embarrassment to current Canadian governments. The removal of children from their language and cultural environments for "re-socialization" (Milloy, 1999) is considered "the most disgraceful, harmful, racist experiment ever conducted in our history" (Assembly of First Nations, 2004) and has led to reparations and continued calls for an apology.

Today elementary education in First Nations communities is tied, through Indian and Northern Affairs Canada funding, to using provincially certified teachers who administer ministry-approved curriculum (Carr-Stewart, 2006). This link clearly continues the imposition of a Canadian value laden education system on First Nations cultures. In a political climate stirred by desire for self-rule (National Indian Brotherhood, 1972), these Canadian government directed "educational" efforts fail. My experience teaching in this situation left an image of children desiring something other and resisting what was on offer. The very low level of academic achievement measured by standardized provincial methods doesn't reflect the resistance of otherwise very capable children. The distance education program I propose to study is situated within this context.

In Northern Ontario's isolated First Nations communities, adolescents continue to leave home to attend high school. Distance learning is now an option for those who wish to remain in their home communities. The Cree and Oji-Cree communities served by the program I propose to study are small and isolated, spread out over 200, 000 square kilometres in northwestern Ontario; most are only accessible by air and seasonal roads and ports. The area has a history of community based distance education initiatives (Brant Castellano, Davis & Lahache, 2000). Ned.ca (formally called the G8 Program), the proposed case study, has provided online supplementary elementary school courses for the past six years to over a thousand students in 51 communities. This program is the initiative of one teacher. The initiative came out of his experience with the region's Keewaytinook Internet High School (KIHS).  KIHS is a project of Keewaytinook Okimakanak Education, an organization of Northern Chiefs, and Ned.ca has since been absorbed into their programs.

The educational initiatives of the Northern Chiefs use communication technologies, which are in turn modified by the First Nations self-government/self-education movement.  This research project intends through the study of one creative internet-based initiative to model the components of institutional evolution.  I agree with Marie Smallface Marule (2005) when she writes: "I am convinced that Indians can find in their traditional philosophies and ideologies better and more meaningful approaches than those offered by the Canadian government. We have something to offer that even other Canadians can look to as a better alternative to existing institutions."(as cited in Kulchyski, 2005, pg. 257) By documenting this evolving movement I will be diagramming a model for possible use by other movements, like Utopian Pedagogy with its "political commitment to experiment" (Coté, Day & de Peutal, 2007, pg. 13).

Methodology
The study will document Ned.ca, an internet-based program created for remote education delivery, developed in 2002 and still being run. My methodological approach will draw from ethnography, particularly interviews, as well as my own observations made while living and working as a teacher for two years in Fort Severn, Ontario. Over the last two decades, the Internet has broadened the range of possibilities for researchers conducting ethnographic research (Mann & Stewart, 2000). Internet-mediated research provides qualitative researchers with powerful tools to aid in the interview process, including email, instant messaging and online surveys. Further, an Internet-based method of data-collection affords greater speed, immediacy and accuracy, as well as ease of data storage and archiving (Clarke, 2000). I propose to conduct non-standardized interviews with students and teachers involved in Ned.ca, as well as with its developer, via email. I envision a semi-structured format, guided by an interview protocol which also allows participants control in the process (Mann & Stewart). I will follow-up with key informants through in-depth telephone interviews.

While interviews with students, teachers and the program developer will comprise the main source of my data, the framework for analysis will be an amalgam of Luhmann's (1984) social systems theory, Deleuze & Guattari's (1987) assemblage and strata theory, and Habermas' theory of communication and social evolution. Dewey (1916) brings the experimental scientific method, and the theory of evolution into play but is unable to apply the theories. Dewey's idea of the use of things as basic to social meaning and conformity could benefit from Feenberg's (1999) critical theory of technology. Feenberg's idea that the design and use of any artifact is but one of multiple possibilities could help apply evolutionary theory in education. Deleuze & Guattari's (1987) theory of assemblage as well as their critique of capitalism could also help free education of its oppressive ends. Finally, Luhmann's theory of social systems offers the possibility for social evolution in his concept of interaction, which will aid in studying the development of ned.ca as an experimental, interactive system.


References

Assembly of First Nations Report on Canada's dispute resolution plan to compensate for abuses in Indian residential schools. (2004). Retrieved 20 December, 2007 from http://www.afn.ca/cmslib/general/Indian-Residential-Schools-Report.pdf.
Brant Castellano, Marlene, Davis, Lynne & Lahache, Louise. (Eds.). (2000).
Aboriginal education: Fulfilling the promise. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Carr-Stewart, Sheila. (2006). First Nations education: Financial accountability and educational attainment. Canadian Journal of Education 29(4), pp. 998-1018.
Coté, Mark, & Day, Richard J.F., & de Peuter, Greig. (Eds.). (2007). Utopian pedagogy: Radical experiments against neoliberal globalization. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Clarke, Patsy. (2000, September). The Internet as a medium for qualitative research. Paper presented at Web 2000 Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Felix. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Trans Brian Massumi. Minneapolis; London: University of Minneapolis Press.
Dewey, John. (1916). Democracy and education. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
Feenberg, Andrew. (1999). Questioning technology. London: Routledge.
Habermas, Jurgen. (1987). The theory of communicative action, vols. 1 & 2. Trans. Thomas McCarthy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Kulchyski, Peter. (2005) Like the sound of a drum: Aboriginal and cultural politics in Denendeh and Nunavut. Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba Press.
Luhmann, Niklas. (1984). Social systems. Trans. John Bednarz, Jr. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Mann, Chris & Stewart, Fiona. (2000). Internet communication and qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Milloy, John. (1999) A national crime: The Canadian government and the residential school system – 1876 to 1986. Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba Press.
National Indian Brotherhood/Assembly of First Nations. (1972). Indian control of Indian education. Retrieved 2 January 2008 from http://web.uvic.ca/ablo/documents/IndianControlofIndianEducation.pdf.