In my Topic 3 blog post, I reflected upon the article, Chapter 4 of Design Principles for Indigenous Learning Spaces and the ways in which open learning spaces, physical and digital, are transformed by culture and community by making connections to a local story about a young, indigenous knowledge keeper who used her knowledge of computer skills to document and share the Ktunaxa language to help create the First Voices Indigenous language database. Through this system, indigenous communities are able to collect and document language systems for the purpose of translating and sharing endangered languages with others. In effect, the First Voices system acts as an OER that users can use to document and preserve their culture.

In this post, I would like to take a more focussed look at into how this process unfolded as well as how educators can use this story as a framework to design open learning contexts that benefit whole communities.

To give some backstory and perspective on this issue, I feel it is beneficial to discuss the context behind the disappearance of the Ktunaxa language as well as its reemergence. As is it historically known, children in indigenous communities in Canada and the United States were forced to attend residential schools, where students were forbidden from speaking their native language and partaking in other culturally significant practices. As a result of the cultural devastation left in the wake of the introduction of residential schools in indigenous communities, generations of children were denied opportunities to speak and practice their native language, which contributed to the loss of unique perspectives and ways of seeing and relating to the world through a unique cultural lens. It should be known that the Ktunaxa language is a language isolate, meaning that it is unrelated to any other language in the world, and any efforts to revive the language without the guidance of living speakers would be immensely challenging. Although generations of Ktunaxa youth were denied access to their native language, there were still elders in the community who spoke the language fluently. However, since there were a small number of individuals who spoke the language fluently, and as many of them were at a vulnerable age, time was quickly running out to save the Ktunaxa language from extinction. This is when Marissa Philips, a young Ktunaxa woman living in the Aq’am community outside of Cranbrook, British Columbia, combined her love of technology with her love of her people’s language to create a Ktunaxa language podcast. Accessing taped recordings and converting them into MP3 format, she created a series of language lessons that could be used to introduce young children in her community to the language that was spoken in the land since time immemorial. In a video published by Al Jazeera on YouTube entitled, Living The Language – Canada: The Ktunaxa, Marissa mentions, “technology is a great way to preserve our elders because in the next several years we are going to be losing a lot of that knowledge and since the younger generation is so well adapted to using technology it only makes sense to me.” With access to hundreds of tapes featuring thousands of hours of recorded language from elders who have since passed on, Marissa and other Ktunaxa knowledge keepers continue to use technology to document and share the language in a format that is accessible to others, including the public. Through the use of innovative language programs, such as the First Voices online resource, a website created in 2001 by a team of teachers based out of Saanich BC, young students, community members, and the wider public have access to endangered language systems. However, these language programs are more than just learning tools, as they use the spoken voices of Ktunaxa elders past and present. As of 2012, the First Voices website featured languages of over 60 different indigenous communities, with community participants creating their own web porting and recording their own words and phrases to upload into the system. The website features games for children and a language dictionary for users to browse to find specific words and phrases. Another interesting feature of the website includes the ability for users to record their own voice as they say words aloud and play it back to compare their spoken word to recordings in the system. Since many of Ktunaxa words and phrases are verb-based, video clips are a necessary component of language acquisition. On the First Voices website, recorded videos show users how words and phrases are spoken in specific contexts and settings such as a birthday party, campouts, sports, and other daily situations and traditions. Since the First Voices site is only available online, the Ktunaxa council made the decision to invest in installing their own fibre wire network in order to provide their community access to these language resources. Through these efforts to literally and figuratively reconnect their community to their language, the Ktunaxa have taken steps to use technology in ways that reinforce the philosophy of open pedagogy.

So, what does this story mean for educators and members of our learning community? To start, I feel this story provides an opportunity to think about the ways in which open pedagogy can lead to positive changes in local and global communities as a result of putting the focus of projects and assignments on finding solutions. Just as the Ktunaxa people continue to use technology to revive a language that was stolen from them due to the effects of the residential school system, students can engage in projects that are meaningful to them and connect their experiences with others at a local and even global level to enact positive change. If we can find what students are passionate about and use technology to connect them with learning communities that also reflect these passions, we create a system whereby open pedagogy can have an enduring impact on our students and the communities in which we live.

References:

Al Jazeera English. (2012). Living The Language – Canada: The Ktunaxa. YouTube. https://youtu.be/EIPzR6_o4pI

First Voices. (2021). Ktunaxa. First People’s Cultural Council. https://www.firstvoices.com/explore/FV/sections/Data/Ktunaxa/Ktunaxa/Ktunaxa

Kral, I. & Schwab, R.G. (2012). Chapter 4: Design Principles for Indigenous Learning Spaces. Safe Learning Spaces. Youth, Literacy and New Media in Remote Indigenous Australia. ANU Press. http://doi.org/10.22459/LS.08.2012