Now you maybe thinking, woah woah woah Jayda. I really hope you know how to count to ten… you’re in university. I do know how to count to ten, I was just away for week 9 of class.
This week in class we talked about Indigenous Ed and how we can embed these topics authentically into our practice. This conversation is important not just to aide in the decolonizing of our education system, but to make indigenous student feel seen in the classroom. As a white passing Metis woman, I know how it feels to be recognized and considered in a space I am not usually represented in. Us teachers should aim to do this for all out students. I believe that doing this will further create a safe space in the classroom for your students on a personal level.
With this in mind, how can we incorporate technology into this subject area? Websites such as ‘As Remember It” and SD61 an SD63 Indigenous resource website are amazing places to start. The school district websites have a plethora of digital resource like video links, language apps, and digital storytelling.
A piece of indigenous centered technology I will share is an array of apps created by First Peoples’ Heritage and Language Council. This council has released apps with indigenous language dictionaries. I personally have downloaded the SENĆOŦEN language app, as this is the language that is spoken on the land I live on. This is an amazing tool to incorporate indigenous language into the classroom, the app even includes audio recording of how the words and phrases are pronounced.
Mentioned Resources:
https://apps.apple.com/app/sencoten/id467922659
https://sites.google.com/sd63.bc.ca/sd63indigenoused/home
Hour of Code
In addition to all of the learning above, we also learned about hour of code. Hour of code is a free website that aim to teach kids/students how to code through various games and puzzles. I know that this is an super engaging resource for students at the elementary level because the following wednesday in my Link2Practice. The students in my class were doing hour of code puzzles in STEM. The student in my Link2Practice are in grades 3/4 and below is a video of the ‘de-bugging’ puzzle they working on in STEM.