Posts
Saratoga Native American Festival Curriculum Guide
This Curriculum Guide was published in conjunction with the 2007 Saratoga Native American Festival in Saratoga Springs, New York. Teachers will find that the lessons and activities introduced can be used broadly to support their own classroom curricula. The lessons and activities in this guide are aligned with the New York State Regents learning standards.
Cultural gaming: Iñupiat stories come alive in “Never Alone (Kisima Inŋitchuŋa)”
Young people of every generation pull away from the mores, ideals, and traditions of their elders and redefine, refuse, and remix the culture. On one hand, the young want to cut their own rug and establish their own identities, and on the other, traditional culture bearers want to sustain and stimulate pride in a rich cultural heritage.
Shiny Objects and Salvation: Navigating New Technologies for Intangible Cultural Heritage Preservation
Mark Oppenneer, Ethnos Project Director, presented this keynote address at El Primer Congresso Internacional Patrimonio Cultural y las Nuevas Tecnologias (The Primer Congress of International Cultural Heritage and New Technologies). The conference was held at El Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) in Mexico City, December 2014.
Oaxaca Workshops: Digital Tools for the Preservation and Dissemination of Traditional Knowledge
I am honored to be returning to Mexico next week to facilitate a workshop on “WordPress and Other Open Source Technologies for the Preservation and Dissemination of Traditional Knowledge.” The workshops will take place throughout the week in Oaxaca City.
Communication for Social Change
The participatory paradigm in development communication is fast replacing both the dominant modernization paradigm and the opposing theory of dependency becoming the preferred communication style of development managers. This essay explores the historical arc of communication for social change from its beginnings during WWII to the present and offers a critique of the emerging participatory paradigm.
A Value Sensitive Design Approach to Indigenous Knowledge Management Systems
A curious socio-technical problem space emerges when one considers how technology instead might serve to sustain and stimulate traditional indigenous ways. Specifically, this conceptual investigation will focus on technological solutions for storing Indigenous knowledge.
Saratoga Native American Festival Education Guide
I had the opportunity to serve as the organizer for the Saratoga Native American Festival for its first two years in operation (2006 and 2007) while working as the Education Director for the Ndakinna Education Center (I served on their board from 2017-2024 as well). For the 2019 Saratoga Native American Festival, one of my responsibilities was editing the new 32-page Education Guide.
Memory Technologies: Indigenous Knowledge and ICT Design
In many ways, the nature of digital technology is antithetical to Indigenous ways of knowing. This essay argues that the use of present ICTs to meet the needs of Indigenous communities will create persistent forms of “computer-mediated colonialism” and that a new way of approaching the design of memory technologies is necessary to avoid that outcome.
ICT4D: Seeking the spaces in-between
Should we chalk up the loss of traditional culture as a casualty of saving human lives? Should the moral dilemma of ICT implementation keep us from doing what we can to reduce poverty? Much has been written about development, globalization, the digital divide, and so on. However, much has also been written about the fact that much of what has been written comes from a Western perspective.
Stained Glass #10
Designed to hang offset so that the circle is complete.
Stained Glass #9
Scrap glass window. Bricolage, baby.
Stained Glass #8
Sisters to match the window in the transom above our front door.
Stained Glass #7
Small window a la Piet Mondrian (Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow).
Stained Glass #6
Made for Becca on Valentine’s Day 2022.
