Media.Knet.Ca

Keewaytinook Okimakanak recently received this thank you message from one of our partners (Ricardo Ramírez) working with us in the development and evaluation of K-Net.

Dear ISG members:

Thanks to the generosity of our friends at KNet in northern Ontario, Canada (www.knet.ca) the ISG website is now hosted at the Knet server. I would like to make sure that the savings we are incurring become an investment for KNet. How this happens is something that I have no doubt will emerge. Just think:

• ISG is a decentralized organization with members in Peru (Maria and Edith), Hawaii (Hal), the Netherlands (Carine and Annemarie), France (Clive), Kenya (Isaac), Canada (Reg and Ricardo) and the Philippines (Annie and Caloy).
• What brings us together is innovation and learning to work with local communities and multiple partners. Much of what we have done has shaped the work that Don Richardson and I did with the KNet workshops in Red Lake and Fort Severn back in 1998.
• We reported on this in the Tune meetings in Denmark and we wrote about it in the Linked Local Learning book (I will send a copy of the book to KNet right away).

Our new website host is Keewaytinook Okimakanak's K-Net Services (www.knet.ca) who are working in partnership with First Nations, the public and the private sectors to develop and sustain a Wide Area Broadband Network. The Kuh-ke-nah Broadband Network in Northern Ontario provides support for band office programs, health and education services in each participating First Nation. The network supports the development of broadband applications that combine video, voice and data services requiring high speed connectivity solutions. The long term objective is to establish local community networks linked across the country to other networks that share and distribute broadband services and programs that benefit the local community. 

One day Maria and Edith in Peru, and Caloy and Annie in the Philippines may find local groups that will want to learn from KNet, and KNet from them. I invite you all to have a look at the KNet website; and KNet to peek at ours.

Thank-you KNet!

Ricardo Ramírez Phd
Chair of ISG
The International Support Group
44 Caledonia St.
Guelph, Ontario N1G 2C9 Canada
tel/fax +1 (519) 824-5519
email: rramirez@uoguelph.ca
www.isglink.org

On Tuesday November 4, Dryden High School came down to Sioux Lookout and took on Pelican Falls. It was a really disapointing game. Pelican Falls lost to Dryden by a score of 17-0. Rodney Kejick made a lot of key saves in the game. Dryden recored 78 shots on net. Rodney made 61 saves out of the 78 shots.

Six members of the NORTH Network team traveled to Balmertown on Tuesday, November 4 for two days of meetings with Keewaytinook Okimakanak staff members. Discussions addressed the issues around the partnership and work that has taken place over the past three years in the development of telehealth and related services. As well, time was spent examining how the new regional telehealth development project that will include all the First Nations in the Sioux Lookout Health Zone can best be supported by our partnership.

Click here to view the pictures.

On November 5, representatives from across the country met to discuss current issues involving the First Nations SchoolNet program. The monthly meeting is facilitated by the Ottawa office and uses the bridging resources available at K-Net. We reached the maximum capacity of the bridge with the number of video conferencing and audio sites involved in this meeting.

The October 30 issue of Wawatay News contains three more news stories about the work being completed within the Kuh-ke-nah Network of Smart First Nations demonstration project.

This week's issue of the

Kuh-ke-nah page in Wawatay News include the following articles:

• Fort Severn knowledge videotaped and mapped
: Keewaytinook Okimakanak staff (Robert Hunter and Cal Kenny) traveled with Fort Severn elders and community members to collect video and other digital material that can be used to create and post archive data about their traditional territories and history.
• First Nations SchoolNet conference nets new RMO ideas
: Darlene Rae, Jesse Fiddler and Dan Pellerin traveled to the SchoolNet meeting in Cape Breton while the rest of the team participated in this national Industry Canada program meeting via video conference.
• K-Net Showcase
- contains photos from the K-Net photo gallery at

http://photos.knet.ca with images of the some of the partners involved in working with K-Net to make the network Industry Canada’s Aboriginal Smart Communities Demonstration project.

Rick Garrick is researching additional stories for future articles. If you have a story that you want to share about this project and the work that is happening in your community to get connected, please send us an e-mail.

Various newspaper articles are being scanned and stored for reference purposes

in this photo gallery.

AFTER A TWO YEAR HIATUS, THE COMMUNITY OF PIKANGIKUM IS PLEASED TO BRING BACK THE PIKANGIKUM YOUTH CHALLENGE. IT WILL BE HELD DURING THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS.

THIS YEAR'S TOURNAMENT WILL CONSIST OF TWO EVENTS: HOCKEY AND BROOMBALL

THE PARTICIPATING AGES FOR THIS TOURNAMENT ARE AS FOLLOWS:

HOCKEY (MALE YOUTH BETWEEN THE AGES OF 13 AND 25)

BROOMBALL (FEMALE YOUTH BETWEEN THE AGES OF 13 AND 25)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION YOU CAN CONTACT SAMSON KEEPER OR ENOS KING

(807) 773 5561
(807)773 5241
(807) 773 1138

DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION WILL BE DECEMBER 6TH AT 4:00 PM

ALL MEALS AND ACCOMODATIONS WILL BE PROVIDED

On November 2-4, 2003, HRDC's Learning Policy Directorate hosted a small gathering of invited guests to discuss their "lifelong learning policy framework". Participants were provided with a number of documents before the sessions and asked to discuss a set of questions at the session. These questions included:

• What do we mean by Learning Communities?
• What are the emerging Learning Community models and do any hold particular relevance for the Canadian context?
• What are the critical enabling factors for learning at the community level?
• What happens when you introduce learning as an organizing principle in the community?
• How does learning need to be positioned to ensure sustainable economic and social development?
• What are the elements of a national framework to enable the development of learning communities?

The event was held in Cranbrook BC and participants stayed at the Delta St Eugene Mission School, a completely renovated and modern hotel complex owned by the Ktunaxa/Kinbasket Tribal Council. From Chief Sophie Pierre we learned that this former residential school was opened 9 months ago by the people from Ktunaxa/Kinbasket Tribal Council. Nestled in the Rocky Mountain Valley surrounded by the mountains this very special site hosts a world famous golf course, a casino, meeting rooms and the interpretative centre. Click here to visit the interpretative centre web site and meet Isaac Birdstone for a tour of the old mission school and learn about the heritage of the people from this region.

Click here to check out the pictures from this trip.

Personal web pages at MyKnet.org continue to be the most popular on-line space for the Nishnawbe Aski to browse. In October there were over 13 millions hits on this K-Net server (an additional 2 million hits from the previous month)!

All together there were over 20 MILLION hits occurring on the six most popular monitored K-Net servers throughout October. Specifically, on these six servers with traffic graphs, there were a total of 20,619,828 hits made to these on-line services provided by Keewaytinook Okimakanak. The six servers include myknet.org, knet.ca, webmail.knet.ca, hosting.knet.ca, highschool.knet.ca and photos.knet.ca.

Most of the K-Net servers that are being monitored for hits, visits and usage statistics using the webalizer program again showed an increase during the month. But http://myknet.org rose by another 2 million hits to demonstrate the rapid take up of these communication tools among users across the north.

Please note:

• other on-line K-Net services, such as K-Net chat and the video streamer are not included in these numbers;
• the numbers for myknet.org are located on two charts (http://myknet.org/webalizer/old and http://myknet.org/webalizer);
• server traffic monitoring information is located at http://tech.knet.ca/~tech/monitoring.