Volume X Spring 1999 Issue #3

Forward into the past: Blending Native wisdom with technology for distance education

by Jim Ereaux

When I try to see a faint star, I don't look directly at the star. I look off to the side. I started looking for faint stars early in life, after time spent in "education" at the hands of ruler-wielding nuns. I like learning, but the classroom experiences I endured made me believe there must be a different way. In the 1960s I worked through "TM Grolier" programmed learning machines followed by programmed instructional books. In the 1970s I tried correspondence schools and early distance education programs. In the 1980s I moved on to computer-based training (CBT). All of these programs were interesting, but I felt none of them were designed well enough to inspire me or lead to anything more than certificates or scattered credits. In the 1990s I participated in distance-education degree programs with The Evergreen State College and Gonzaga University.

I began working for Salish Kootenai College in 1978 and became the director of technology services in 1988. Since that time SKC has taken many long looks at technology and tried to understand and come to grips with the good and bad effects of using technology for both classroom education and distance education, especially with sensitive areas such as language or culture. My thesis looked at the impacts of technology on SKC. Although there was no strong consensus, most of the people I interviewed and talked with felt that technology is a tool that - if used wisely - will help Native American students with their education.

Salish Kootenai College has written a number of distance education grants over the years. Our most recent project is our most ambitious, not because of the technology hurdles, but because we're trying to reinvent education in a way that works better for Native American students. When I sat down to start writing the grant, I thought back to SKC's earlier projects and all that I witnessed over the years about alternative and distance education. I looked at other distance programs, and it seemed to me that many educators were missing the mark. They were merely recreating traditional "factory-models" to deliver at-distance classes.

Inspiration came from my life/education mentors: Jerry Slater, vice president of Salish Kootenai College; Dr. Carol Minugh, Native American Studies professor The Evergreen State College; and Dr. Raymond Reyes, associate vice president for Diversity Studies at Gonzaga University. I thought back to our many conversations and books we discussed and found that the answers were not necessarily in treatise about distance education but in ideas and books about ourselves.

Our project will try to be different. Much of this resource guide is focused around what SKC has found is important as we try to take a larger look at what distance education should be for Native American students.

BOOKS:

The Dance of Life: The other dimension of time by Edward T. Hall (1983). I believe this is one of the best books to help understand problems with distance education and cultural differences with communication. Hall explains that many Western societies are high in content and low in context, as opposed to many Native cultures where communication is low in content and high in context. In many Western cultures, activities are based upon a time-centric agenda where people are managed in an efficient, lock-step method of calendars and structured, one-hour appointments. In many Native cultures activities are not strictly time-based and often are handled simultaneously and in a community surroundings. It is no wonder that many of our students, when faced with either a one-foot stack of knowledge that needs to be read by next Thursday or a "talking head" video conference, have difficulty adapting and dealing with our current systems of education.

War of the worlds:Ccyberspace and the high-tech assault on reality by Mark Slouka (1995). If you've ever wondered why you or your students have trouble using "educational" software, this a good book to read. Slouka writes about our future, which is currently being built by "cyber-geeks" with their own, particular ideas about the way that humanity should function. Slouka believes that technology is not benign or neutral. He believes technology "orders our behavior, redefines our values, reconstitutes our lives in ways we can't always predict."

In the absence of the sacred: The failure of technology and the survival of the Indian nations by Jerry Mander (1991). At some point in time you have to sort out how you feel about using technology to teach, especially when it comes to topics such as language or culture. This book may help you define how and when you can use technology for distance education.

The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier by Howard Rheingold (1995). If you've thought about the effects of homesteading on the "Western frontier," then you should probably read this book to understand how people are, or are talking about, using technology to settle the electronic frontier. I believe there are parallels that are important for Native Americans to consider.

Silicon snake oil: Second thoughts on the information superhighway by Clifford Stoll (1995). This is the opposite of the preceding book, The Virtual Community. Stoll is unabashedly critical of the promises of virtual communities on the Internet. Many would have us believe people can develop healthy and productive social structures in the electronic fabric of the Internet, but Stoll explains there is no replacement for the reality of the natural world.

Year 2000 Readiness Kit: A compilation of Y2K resources for schools, colleges & universities. U.S. Department of Education (1998). Will you be able to register students, process financial aid, pay employees, or turn on your furnace on January 3, 2000? If you don't know, then you need to read this document, which is being sent to all postsecondary institutions in the U.S. SKC is one of three institutions that contributed materials for this publication. For additional copies, call (877) 433-7827. Their web site is www.ed.gov/y2k, or you can send email to y2k@ed.gov.

Dancing with the devil: Information technology and the new competition in higher education. A Publication of EduCause by Richard N. Katz and Associates. The technology genie is out of the bottle, and we've misplaced the cork. As technology rapidly becomes a primary vehicle for supporting education, tribal colleges will have to learn new ways to adapt and survive while competing with the Western Governors' Virtual University, Microsoft University, or Britain's Open University. This important book is a wakeup call for all tribal college administrators and faculty before the wolves of competition come knocking at our doors.

PERIODICALS:

T.H.E. (Technological Horizons in Education) Journal (www.thejournal.com). A monthly, traditional, industrial strength journal with both technology and education articles by educators for educators. Although the articles may not be groundbreaking in scope for tribal colleges, they spark the imagination in many ways. It's available free in the United States, and back-issues are available at their web site. (Need help? Email Web@thejournal.com)

Syllabus (www.syllabus.com). A more "free-wheeling," monthly publication that approaches the subject of technology education and distance education in interesting ways. It's available free in the United States, and back-issues are available at their web site. (Need help? Email info@syllabus.com)

EduCause Bulletin (www.educause.edu). If you're not a member of EduCause, then you should strongly consider joining. Annual dues for tribal colleges only cost several hundred dollars (depending upon size), and the resources you get are well worth the expense. The quarterly bulletin has many valuable articles about distance education, educational technology, and technology management for higher education. (Need help? Email info@educause.edu)

NewMedia (www.newmedia.com). A monthly look at multimedia and using technology for education from a business perspective. This perspective is very important for small colleges because businesses are "chomping-at-the-bit" to begin delivering distance education to compete with traditional education institutions. (Need help? Email webmaster@newmedia.com)

DISTANCE EDUCATION:

http://www.evanscraig.com/resources/general.htm A good compilation of pointers to a variety of distance-education resources, from online courses to techniques for developing course materials.

http://ccism.pc.athabascau.ca/html/ccism/deresrce/de.htm Comprehensive listing of distance education resources from the University of Athabasca's Resources in Distance Education (RIDE) project.

http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/tabs/learnspace An interesting white paper that talks about creating distributed learning curriculum with Lotus' LearningSpace. It's one of the tools SKC uses for distance education.

http://www.uidaho.edu/evo/distglan.html Distance Education at a Glance--a series of guides prepared by Engineering Outreach at the University of Idaho, Moscow ID.

http://dir.yahoo.com/Education/Usenet/ You can use the Yahoo, Lycos, InfoSeek, Excite, Altavista or any of a number of search engines to find the latest newsgroups or listservs for communicating with others about distance education. But beware of using your personal email address on listservs. It is common for email "spammers" to cull email addresses from listservs and begin flooding the addressee with unwanted email advertisements.

http://www.usdla.org/ (U.S. Distance Learning Association).

http://www.wested.org/tie/dlrn/ (The Distance Learning Research Network).

http://www.hoyle.com/distance.htm (Learning on web guide).

http://webpages.marshall.edu/~jmullens/edlinks.html (Links to distance learning).

http://www.petersons.com/dlearn/ (Peterson's index to distance learning).

http://www.caso.com/ (Caso's Internet University).

http://www.DETC.org/ (The Distance Education Clearinghouse).

http://www-icdl.open.ac.uk/ (The International Center for Distance Learning).

http://www.angelfire.com/mo/EmirMohammed/index.html (Distance Education for Dummies).

http://www.hol.edu/ (Heritage Online).

http://www.tgdlc.org/ (Global Distance Learning Channel).

http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture (Links to worldwide programs).

SOME INTERESTING TECHNOLOGIES:

LearningSpace by Lotus, Inc. (http://www.lotus.com). Until we find the next insanely great product, this will do. It's a jack-of-all-trades, database environment that has all the whiz-bang tools to deliver classes via the Internet. It can help surround the content with context.

Authorware Professional by Macromedia, Inc. (http://www.macromedia.com) or call (415) 252.2000. Authorware let's you track a student's progress through every aspect of a computer-based training program. It is a more traditional way of assessing student competence, and it works on the web.

FirstClass by SoftArc, Inc. (http://www.softarc.com). This is a popular conferencing tool. It's easy to configure, manage, and install and is used by many institutions to support distance education.

RealAudio/RealVideo (http://www.real.com). This is a "streaming" technology for delivering voice and video via the Internet.

QuickTime VR (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtvr/index.html). QTVR is an "immersive" technology that allows you to create "virtual field-trips" for your distance education students. It offers panoramic sight and interactive sound along with the ability to manipulate objects in the scene.

I hope these resources will pique your curiosity. Distance education is not for everyone, and it's not a cure-all for education. However, with distance education we have a unique opportunity to reinvent education in a way that will work for many Native American students. We just have to dare to be great.

Jim Ereaux has been the director of computer systems/telecommunications at Salish Kootenai College since 1987. He has a bachelor's degree from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and a master's degree in education from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. He grew up in Ronan, Montana, and currently lives in Polson with his wife, Becky. Jim has recently written an article for the journal Wicazo Sa Review (University of Minnesota Press) which looks at the impacts of technology on Salish Kootenai College. If you'd like to know more about SKC's distance education projects contact: Dr. Mike O'Donnell, Dr. Lori Colomeda, or Michelle Mitchell at (406) 675.4800 or email Lori_Colomeda@skc.edu. If you have trouble finding any of the websites above, contact the author at jereaux@skc.edu