First Nations Pedagogy for Online Learning: March 3-31, 2008

In one of our online courses the instructor has a conference call each week with his students.  They discuss the week's activities and he provides explanations on topics that students consider confusing.  It is a course in business law so having that place to "hash out ideas" is very helpful given the course is very heavy. 

Using the phone is quick and easy and students have an opportunity to hear "real" voices.  I think it has worked well in this context and is something to keep in mind as an option.

I get the impression that the students feel re-connected and refreshed after each Thursday session.

Thank-you,

Monica

As you've mentioned in another thread, text is dominant in tools such as moodle. Images are coming along, with photo books and so on, and video is making an appearance with plug-ins that simulate the YouTube experience.

I think it is important to remember that YouTube is not just about posting videos but a lot of those videos are *responses* to other videos. In this way it is dialogic and conversational. Still it doesn't quite capture the quaternity (is that the word?) that you have described elsewhere.

Another approach is the one found in voicethread. If you haven't seen it, check out http://voicethread.com. There the initial object sits in the middle (which could be something started by the teacher or a student) but then it gets surrounded by comments, which can take the form of audio, video, or text.

It might be a useful tool, or if not a tool to use perhaps a model for other tools.

...r

I always find this concept interesting because in my 30 some years of teaching aboriginal adults, I didn't find them particularly auditory or interested in discussion. When tested with VARK, they were most likely to be kinesthetic or visual than auditory. When examined closely, so called oral traditions are full of visual and physical information. Given I taught primarily Cree, Dene and Anishinabe and there may be cultural diversity issues between regions, I still think we need to be careful about confusing discourse with oral in the way that Western culture experiences auditory experiences.