Things are looking up...

Well, things are better this week. Solved one of my three problems with Skyping: the DVI connection to the projector. Next I must decide on upgrading the operating system so I can use the latest Skype features, or going with a legacy version. Maybe buy the Mac I plan on for the library sooner.

Things are also progressing on the Social Networking aspects of the Intergenerational Digital Storytelling Project. I have set up a blog for it and updated it again today. Will add more information tomorrow.

Along with that I have created a new gmail account for the team members to share. Wish I had done that prior to setting up the blog. Oh well. Still have not been able to set up a Facebook account separate from my own. I thought the new gmail would fix that.

Spent some wonderful "quality time" with Todd. He is a wealth of info and ideas. I always leave his office full of hope and excitement. He helped with some basic problems with blogs, wikis, Facebook and more. The going is far less muddy now.

For the class, I also worked by my wiki, adding more resources than I had in previous years.

It has been a busy and exciting week at Yavapai-Apache... first the Pageant last Saturday where this years royalty was chosen. And yesterday was the Exodus Commoration, where the tribe celebrates the return home from 25 years of incarceration at San Carlos at the turn of the century. At the end of the day we raffled off a bronze sculpture to help fund a nine-foot monument at our Cultural Resource Center (where I work).

A few more things....

Well, the projects are slow going, but I forgot to mention I am tip-toeing through the 100 best online apps slideshow. I was most intrigued by the idea of putting all my bookmark links onto a page. So I play all day with delicious... then today looking at Diigo. Still want to look again at igoogle and maybe glogster.

While it does put all my bookmarks, I am a little dissapointed with delicious. I can organize by tags, but can't put important things at the top, etc. Will have to explore further. Perhaps Diigo has more control.

I did find (finally!) how/where to put my tabs on my project blog. Then was dissapointed to learn it is a static page. Oh well, I can adapt. Did a couple of posts for tests.... can't figure out where/how to delete them.

I also revisited by Wiki for indigenous storytelling. It was a little rough last time, so I plan to revamp it... maybe Friday.

Well, nough playing for now. I need to do some work today.

Slow going....

Not so happy with my progress....

Inter-tribal Skyping...
Well, promised to outline my projects for you. I began with one and expanded it to two new projects: Setting up a Skype network between several Yavapai speaking tribes and building a social networking system for a digital storytelling grant project.

First the Skype Project. In many American Indian nations, language loss is at a critical juncture. Here in Camp Verde, Yavapai language loss is serious, with few fluent speakers. Apache is in a slightly better condition, but speakers are diminishing. In both culture areas, there are advisory committees, study groups, and coalitions intended to moderate the problem. Yavapai Culture belongs to a coalition that included Camp Verde, Prescott Yavapai, and Fort McDowell Yavapai.

While at a conference in November, the culture managers were impressed with speakers who were Skyped in from various countries. They want to do it. In this way they could have study groups without the extensive travel they now exercise.

I began to set it up and immediately encountered some problems.
* Low bandwidth in the immediate area of our offices
* Skype for the MAC only works on the latest operating system (don't have it)
* While I planned to operate from an iMac, it has no VGA or DVI output.

While I worried about tribal computer policies disallowing Skyping, this turned out to be OK. Still working on the problems.


Second Project...

I am currently working on a National Endowment for the Humanities grant project with NAU. In this project we will be working with eight Indian Nations in Arizona: Navajo, Hope, Yavapai-Apache, Zuni, and two others. The project will work with youth and elders to create digital stories related to oral history, and share them between Nations.

The grant proposal was close last year and has recently been resubmitted. One suggestion from the reviewers was to disseminate the stories through social networking. Thus, we will likely be using uTube, Facebook and other systems of communication. The first stage of this will be a blog... see link at right for "A Basketful of Stories. My intent is for tabbed pages, like our course blog (Havn't figured that out yet) with an over view of project (its there), comments from the project manager, project director George Gummerman, and myself, the storytelling facilitator.

As Todd and Thatcher are laboring their way out of the Grand Canyon, I will just have to wait to figure out about those tabs.

Another year... Another set of projects.

Greeting to my fellow students
As you will learn, this is my third time taking this course. It works great for me, I dedicate a project to it each time. That sort of gives me the impetus to "get it done." Along the way, I get to "play" with the others students, learn lots more tricks, contribute when I can, and "enjoy" the ride.

As you will learn, I am sort of a Jack of all Trades. I am an adjunct instructor for Yavapai College and teach art classes and occasionally anthropology. I work for the Yavapai-Apache Nation and have a wonderful job administering a department known as Preservation & Technology, part of the Cultural Resource Center. There, I record and archive events, activities, oral histories, digital stories and more.

Each time I take the course, I dedicate the semester to a project. More about projects next time. This is just to say Hello.

Ahhh... Progress

It may be Spring Break for you guys, but I am hard at work. All the activities and travel are past for a few days and I am taking advantage of a free weekend.

One of my worries (regarding my Moodle course) was that the language instructors would not take it seriously or would lag in getting me materials. But this week I received more materials than I could get adapted to appropriate lessons, activities and get uploaded to Moodle.

So here it is so far:
five topics covered in Southwest Indians (no discussions, assignments or quizes yet).
One complete lesson in Yavapai Language (no games, flash cards, or quizes yet).
One Complete lesson in Apache Language (no games, flash cards, or quizes yet).

Check it out and see what you think: http://yavapai-apachenation.moodlehub.com/ Login as a Guest and use the Enrollment Key YANonline.

Checking in...

Checking in... letting you know I am not ignoring/relaxing on the course. Other things are in the way it seems. Busy month at work.

February is Exodus month. That is the time when Yavapai and Apache people celebrate the return of their ancestors to Verde Valley after 25 years of incarceration at San Carlos. Its a busy time... planning all of the events. This last week was the culmination of all that planning. Monday was a fashion show, neat event! Tuesday and Wednesday were storytelling days. Thursday was movie night and on Friday we played a Jeopardy game devised with topics in Traditions, language and culture. All of this finishes off with a 6am blessing on Saturday at Boynton Canyon, a location sacred to the People. Then a lunch (open to all) and a full days entertainment. I am either attending, part of, or documenting each event.

Today... well, I am vegging. There is no energy left for much!

Next week we will be on the road. We will travel to Tucson to examine museum materials and collect documents and images. Later in the week there I will be at a GIS training session for cultural mapping.

I did put up two additional sections of Indians of the Southwest. We also began developing content for Apache language. I need to digitize lessons, as the original files have been lost. We have recorded sound for four of those lessons. Once I have the word lists for the five beginning lessons, I will make Study Mate games of them.

Yavapai language is on hold for two week due the personal problems of the instructor. Then we will begin that one also. Once we have the initial course offerings, we will announce the project to the newspaper and further.

Meanwhile, I had better go pack.

New Beginnings in Moodle

Here we go on the second week. Want to do as much as I can over this three-day weekend, as there are activities at work over the next two weekends. This coming Saturday is the Royalty Pageant, where they choose the royalty who will reign over the coming year. The following Saturday is Exodus/Return Commemoration, where the tribe celebrates their return to the Verde Valley from their internment at San Carlos 1875-1900+/-.

Last semester, creating my “test” shell to show the culture managers what is possible, I really muddled through Moodle. Even though I have worked in three CMS (course management systems) environments (Vista, Desire2Learn, and mostly Blackboard) I struggled with Moodle. The main reason was that Moodle is available for institutions… downloadable for their servers. I just wanted to “use” it. More about that in a moment.

Moodle is an “open source” application, meaning that users have access to the source code. Also that is free. This is important because it is aligned with the academic community’s values of freedom, peer review, and knowledge sharing. It was designed by Martin Dougiamus whose background is in social constructionism. Many DMS systems are tool-centered, not learning centered. Lastly, Moodle is community oriented. There are over 300,000 people registered on Moodle.org and over 30,000 Moodle sites in 195 countries. The global community has translated Moodle into over 70 languages.

Well, as I said, at first I muddled around with Moodle. This time I hope to engage the Moodle community. As a matter of fact, I have a past student using it and expect to tap her knowledge. I also now have two Moodle texts: Using Moodle by Jason Cole and Helen Foster. It is published by O’Reilly, but is also available as a PDF download. The second is Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching.

Back to me… and my Yavapai-Apache Moodle. The first thing I learned was that point about needing a server, etc. Way to bigtime for me. After a day of frustration I discovered Moodlehub.com or Key to School. It is a Moodle hosting site (also free) where you can set up your course. They then become the server for you.
Setup was relatively easy, although I made some mistakes in naming, etc. I set up four basic courses as shown below.


Then set about using some old course material to populate the “Indians of the Southwest” segment. I have a lot to learn yet about setting up the language courses.


There were various settings to make regarding access and passwords. This is the main area I have to work out. I don’t know how people enroll and how I control that. For now I have a Guest Login
Here is what I think you do to visit:
Go to http://yavapai-apachenation.moodlehub.com/
The course is Indians of the Southwest – YAN-HC-101 – Click on it
You will come to a page to enroll in the course -- The enrollment key is: YANonline

At this point you see the actual setup of the Southwest Indians course. It goes by the week and you can show or hide each week. In the weeks activities you place all of your work.

Want to explore additional possibilities? Click the links on the sidebar >>>
http://moodle.org/
http://www.keytoschool.com/

and oh yes, supposed to cite wordle.com for the background of the header.