Students embrace technology

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What started out as a place for First Nations schools in Atlantic Canada to get help with their computer and Internet problems has grown into an organization that helps students develop the skills they need in an increasingly technological world.

Atlantic Canada's First Nation Help Desk started up in 1999 when Industry Canada set up DirecPC systems across the region, where First Nations schools would be linked to the Internet via satellite. The help desk assisted in installing the computers in the schools and helped set up the system, but according to Kevin Burton, the help desk manager, he and his staff saw a bigger role for the organization than just computer troubleshooting.

"We became a help desk to support that DirecPC satellite system, but we didn't want to just sort of sit around and wait for someone to have a problem and call us." Burton said the help desk also wanted to encourage the use of the technology.

Burton saw a potential problem with getting computer and Internet technology integrated into some classrooms, where a teacher's lack of computer knowledge and comfort might keep students from using the new tool to its full potential.

To try to get around that roadblock, the help desk staff decided to appeal directly to the students by running a number of contests. Some contests were for classes or groups of students, some for individuals, and all were open to First Nations students and organizations in Atlantic Canada.

One of the contests asked students to design, build, decorate and fly a kite, and to share stories of their successes and failures through pictures, videos or the written word.

Another contest asked students to submit an original photograph, drawing or painting that depicted Native culture and its people. One contest provided participants free software to help them trace their roots and create a family tree. An Internet scavenger hunt tested the students' Web search skills as they hunted for Web sites containing information on Native culture, heritage, governance and history.

One contest, which invited students to submit tapes of themselves performing Native language songs, became Wli-nuelewi: Mi'kmaw Christmas Music, a CD that can be purchased through the help desk and which has already sold more than 2,000 copies. The words of all the songs are also posted on the help desk Web site at www.firstnationhelp.com, along with their English translations. The songs can be downloaded in MP3 format.

For each contest, entries are posted on the help desk Web site with no information identifying their creators. Then people on the help desk mailing list are invited to vote for their favorites. Once the winners are selected, their names are posted on the site alongside their winning creations.

Cash prizes ranging from $50 for elementary students to $100 for high school students are given out to the winners in contests for individuals, while the winners in the group contests win prizes that further expand the technology available to them.

In the past, the group prizes have included scanners and digital cameras. For one contest, sponsored by Industry Canada, several computers and digital video cameras were given out as prizes.

"We also make sure that everybody who enters wins. They get a nice certificate and some sort of prize with every entry," Burton said.

Interest in the contests has grown steadily, with now more than 200 entries coming in each time a new challenge is posted on the help desk site.

"It's kind of neat, because it does a couple of things. It creates a bridge from the school to the home that was never there before. The young people can click on the Internet and say, 'Look, Auntie, what I did." It creates almost sort of a published author or published artist. It gives people pride in what they do," Burton said. "Really, it's all about empowerment. It's about giving young people a vehicle to become part of."

The work of the help desk has been aided recently by a new patnership in Industry Canada's SchoolNet GrassRoots program, which works to support teachers to integrate information and communication technology within their classrooms. Through the partnership, the help desk can design contests that fit within the GrassRoots program guidelines, meaning participating First Nations school can receive additional funding for the Internet-related projects they take on.

"So now we can do a contest, like we did one for example on role models. Now we could combine that with information and knowledge about how to participate in the Generations CanConnect program. So in that fashion everybody who would participate, each class, would also be a winner because that Generations CanConnect program offers $300 per class that creates some profiles and pictures of Elders or that kind of thing. So it's kind of good that we have some of those extra resources to tie into now," Burton said.

The help desk has also recently been named as a regional management organization (RMO) for the First Nation's SchoolNet program. The designation now gives the help desk the mandate to help all First Nations schools in Atlantic Canada access the necessary computer hardware and software, with about $2,000 in funding available to each school.

The help desk will be working to address the disparities in connectivity of First Nations schools.

"Connectivity is one of the biggest challenges. There are a lot of schools that, basically, as the DirecPC has become outdated and oversubscribed, the alternatives weren't great. We have several schools that basically have a 56 K dial-up to share."

Some First Nations schools located closer to a city have DSL connections, which use telephone lines to carry the signals, and three schools are wired for broadband connectivity, where cables allow several channels of signal to be carried at the same time.

The help desk's first goal is to bring all the First Nations schools in the Maritimes up to the same standard for connectivity thatis enjoyed by schools run by the provinces, Burton said.

"For example, in New Brunswick, there are only seven schools that aren't part of the provincial-wide area network, and all of those are First Nations schools because nobody ever funded it."

Once First Nation schools are on par with their provincial counterparts as far as the quality of their Internet connections is concerned, the help desk will be turning its attentions to setting up a video conferencing network so that all schools in the region can share their teaching resources. The goal is to not only create a link between First Nations schools, but also to link First Nation schools into the existing provincial school networks to gain access to the teaching and learning resources available in the provincial system.

"Because so many schools are small, the funding resource is small. So if you would like to offer language and culture at the same time you offer physics and chemistry, then you probably have to have a smart way of sharing teaching resources," Burton said.

The video conference system would make that happen by allowing a teacher located in one school to teach a class comprised of students from a number of other schools, all at the same time.

The technology could also be used to benefit other members of the community, allowing them access to training that otherwise wouldn't be available to them.

"We have large portions of people on the mainland of Nova Scotia that no longer speak the language and have no access to learning it. So they're all excited about the capacity. To bring teachers in is so expensive and such. So they're really looking forward to the video conferencing capabilities that we're hoping to institute," Burton said.

The willingness of First Nations youth in the Maritimes to embrace computer technology can be seen in schools like Eel Ground First Nation elementary school in New Brunswick, which won a silver medal at an international cyberfair a few years back-the only Canadianschool to take home an award from the competition.

"Even though they haven't had bandwidth going in and out, inside their school, they've had a lot of emphasis on doing digital video and creating movies and such, and there's some absolute magic that happens there. They've got their EGTV, which is Eel Ground TV, and they've got sort of a news format program. And its such a rich learning environment that the technology just speaks to those young people," Burton said.

"I think one of the things that has made the help desk a success is that when most people connect to the Internet, they're more of less in a consumer mentality, and we allow the young people to be producers of information as well as consumers. So that whole thrust to have Web space and content that's produced by the young people and so on, that's part of the empowerment."