Waraku Education

Ideas, experiments and observations as they occur [and I have time] relating to teaching and learning in a secondary school - special focus on ICT.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Outback Aborigines in no rush to log on

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/outback-aborigines-in-no-rush-to-log-on/story-fn59niix-1226098609732

"Only about one-third of the 48 people involved in the research had been online -- despite the potential for the internet to help people live on remote traditional lands while still having access to information and services."

From 2012 I will be teaching in Ernabella and one of my roles is ICT. Seems that there might be some work to be done but first I have some questions.

  1. Are there cultural issues or other issues with older people learning from younger people?
  2. What sort of bandwidth and access is there currently in the APY Lands?
  3. How is this current capacity being utilised?
  4. What is the potential for growth (eg. dual ISP)?
  5. What are other agencies currently doing (eg TAFE)?
  6. How much and what sort of collaboration exists between DECS and TAFE?
  7. What is the driver for people accessing the internet? To what extent is curiosity the driver for indigenous people currently accessing the internet in these remote areas?
  8. Would some sort of variation of my recycle scheme work or be helpful?

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1 Comments:

  • At 11:58 pm, Blogger Bill Kerr said…

    The students at wiltja seem to have quite reasonable computer skills when they arrive. eg. ability to navigate the interface, use google maps to view their homeland, game playing. I haven't explored this in depth but was a bit surprised at their skill level in this regard.

    I also noticed that some of the students were quite skilled (better than me in some cases) at playing educational games on the cool maths site. eg. Bloxorz. This of course is a spacial game so that might have something to do with it. I think it's educationally significant even though it won't help them much with NAPLAN.

     

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