Technology and Culture

Volume 23, No. 3 – Spring 2012

Features

Crossing the Digital Divide: College of Menominee Nation uses technology to restore language

Sherrole Benton

At the College of Menominee Nation, instructors, students, and elders are using technology to restore language.
Accessing History from Home

Mary Annette Pember

Partnering with museums and Indiana University, AIHEC has helped create e-Humanity, an online cultural portal.
Lakota Documentaries: The Legacy of Don Moccasin

Jurgita Antoine

For 11 years, a project at Sinte Gleska University has been recording, transcribing, and translating the Lakota language.
Diné Find Harmony in Technology

Daniel Vandever

At Navajo Technical College, students are using technology to ensure the Diné’s cultural survival.
Online Teaching: Navigating its advantages, disadvantages and best practices

Ahmed Al-Asfour

Oglala Lakota College instructor describes the advantages, disadvantages, and best practices for online teaching at tribal colleges.

Forging Ji-Mino-Bimaadiziwan (The good life for us all)

Laura Paskus

Technology has changed the ways in which we work and live, even how we communicate with one another. The articles in this issue reinforce the importance of technology as a tool to preserve, restore, and protect culture. Students at tribal colleges nationwide are engaged in scientific research that benefits their homelands; restores their Native languages; and connects them in new ways with their elders, families, and tribal communities.

To speak in a clear voice

Jerry Worley

“When I was in elementary school the kids made fun of me because of my long braids. But I said nothing. I waited to speak. Because when I spoke, I knew it must be in a clear voice,” says Sean Chandler. Chandler (A’aniinen) has waited more than 20 years to speak about such struggles, about such thoughts.

‘Accidental’ president helped forge a movement

Paul Boyer

Growing up on the Fort Peck Reservation in the 1960s, Jim Shanley knew he wanted to go to college, but career options were limited. He majored in education only because his sister was a teacher, and “teaching was just about the only ‘white collar’ profession available to Indians living on the rural Montana reservation,” he says.

Through Woksape Oyate, we share Our People’s Wisdom

Cheryl Crazy Bull

Recently, I witnessed many Native people of all ages and tribes sharing Native intellectual knowledge of generosity, talent, leadership, and spirituality at the gathering of the Woksape Oyate. Lakota for “Wisdom of the People,” Woksape Oyate is a project of the American Indian College Fund meant to build intellectual capital at tribal colleges.