The affinities between Indigenous ways of knowing and the affordances of hyperlinked and multimedia digital resources are rich areas for exploration, suggesting a shared creative space for Western/mainstream and Aboriginal learning activities. As a researcher in Aboriginal pedagogies and language teaching states (Yunkaporta, 2009), “at low levels of knowledge there is only difference across cultures, but at high levels there is common ground. … Bring the deep knowledges from different cultures alongside each other and find that common ground for a true act of reconciliation.” Yunkaporta’s work is reflected in the brief factsheet 8 Aboriginal ways of learning.
Another researcher and educator, Lester-Irabinna Rigney, writing about ‘both-ways’ pedagogy, makes the knowledges–technologies link explicit (Rigney, 2011, p. 36):
One advantage of the digital age is that it provides us with a way to reaffirm and reconnect oral and cultural traditions tied to literacy in English and in our own Aboriginal languages (Rigney 2003, 2006). Technology also offers Indigenous communities modern options for mastering English literacy and numeracy, and greater communities than ever to work remotely. I maintain that being bicultural for tomorrow’s Indigenous students has moved beyond simply surviving in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous society. I rather think that Indigenous biculturalism means to be technological and global.
Both-ways pedagogy can be represented by Ganma: “the saltwater can be seen as non-Aboriginal knowledge and the freshwater can be seen as the Yolngu knowledge.” (quoted in Bat, Kilgariff, & Doe, 2014)
The reach of digital presentation raises the issue of the significance of protected knowledge when publishing Indigenous cultural materials.
ACU’s overarching approach to embedding Indigenous perspectives is now available here http://www.acu.edu.au/staff/our_university/learning_and_teaching/indigenous_curriculum_resources
In fact the discussion here between senior ACU staff points out how much the terminology of ‘perspective’ misses out in considering what Indigenous knowings are.
For a national overview of technology and Indigenous knowings, see:
Culturally inclusive learning for Indigenous students in a learning management system (LMS). (2016). Perth: National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE).
Sources:
Bat, M., Kilgariff, C. & Doe, T., (2014). Indigenous tertiary education – we are all learning: both-ways pedagogy in the Northern Territory of Australia. Higher Education Research & Development, 33:5, 871-886, doi: 10.1080/07294360.2014.890575
Rigney, L. (2011). ‘Indigenous education and tomorrow’s classroom: Three questions, three answers’. Chapter 3 in N. Purdie (Ed.), Two-way teaching and learning: toward culturally reflective and relevant education (pp. 34-47). Camberwell: ACER Press.
Yunkaporta, T. (2009). Aboriginal pedagogies at the cultural interface. PhD thesis, James Cook University.
