Media.Knet.Ca

Wawatay News is celebrating thirty years of publication with the launch of their electronic archives. One issue from each year of publishing since 1974 when Wawatay News was first published under the Keesis banner is now available on-line. Click here to read about all the history, the work and the changes that have happened across Nishnawbe Aski Nation over the the past thirty years.

These archives were made possible by a grant from FedNor in partnership with Keewaytinook Okimakanak's K-Net team. The Wawatay newspaper team now has the tools and the capacity to begin moving all their material on-line. Additional resources are being sought to continue the development of this on-line resource.

Another initiative in partnership with Keewaytinook Okimakanak and Industry Canada's First Nations SchoolNet program will expand and develop these on-line resources to be used in the First Nation schools across the region.

At the Lac Seul First Nation Christmas gathering on December 19 in Sioux Lookout, Charles Fox confirmed his intentions to seek the Liberal nomination for the Kenora-Rainy River riding. Rumours of his career shift from First Nations politics to the federal political system were circulating since the Liberal party convention where Charles was invited to speak to the convention members.

Charles will be competing against Bob Nault, the current Member of Parliament and former minister of Indian and Northern Affairs for this riding's Liberal nomination. Bob announced his intentions to once again be the Liberal candidate for the riding earlier in December.

The December 29 issue of Wawatay News contained three funding competitions from Nishnawbe Aski Nation to support local youth and recreation projects.

NAN RECREATION SUBCOMMITTEE ANNOUNCEMENTS
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

The Nishnawbe Aski Nation Recreation Subcommittee and the Decade for Youth Development Office is seeking proposals form community-based programs to fund recreation activities this fall and winter. A maximum of $2,000 is available to youth programs and youth councils seeking support for programming in the areas of recreation / sport / leisure / leadership development. Contact Melanie Goodchild, Decade for Youth Development Coordinator at Nishnawbe Aski Nation at 1-800-465-9952 or by email at mgoodchi@nan.on.ca. Please call for an application package. A total of 15 grants are available. The deadline for application is 5pm EST on Friday, January 16, 2004. Youth Councils are particularly encouraged to apply.

ARTWORK CONTEST

The Recreation Subcommittee is seeking original artwork submissions from NAN artists. The committee will be using the chosen artwork as a cover design for a soon to be published Recreation Resource Manual. Artists must submit their design by Friday, January 16, 2004. Please send in your original design to Nishnawbe Aski Nation Recreation Subcommittee, 100 Backstreet Road, Unit #200, Thunder Bay, Ontario, P7J 1L2. The winning artist will receive a $500 fee for their design. This contest is open to all ages and professional artists are invitied to submit a design. Runner up designs may be used as artwork throughout the manual.

Request for Proposals

Nishnawbe Aski Nation is pleased to announce that we are now requesting that communities and/or Tribal Councils submit an application for a funding opportunity towards Athletic Development. A maximum amount of $3,000.00 will be given to the successful applicants that meet the criteria.

Special consideration will be given to the applicants that successfully display interest in development towards the following sports: Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Canoeing, Golf, Field Lacrosse, Rifle Shooting, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Tae Kwon Do, Volleyball, and Wrestling.

Deadline for submissions will be January 23, 2004 and all projects must be completed by March 31, 2004. To receive an application or for more information please contact Carol Rowland, Special Projects Coordinator, at 1-800-465-9952 or 807-623-8228.

NEW WEB SITE LAUNCHED

The Northern Ontario Indigenous Sports Network has launched a web site to promote recreation and sport in the North. If you are looking for information on sporting events, recreation activities, or looking to connect with other athletes this is the home page to visit. The web site can be viewed at www.noisn.on.ca. See you online!

Personal web pages at MyKnet.org continue to be the most popular on-line space for the Nishnawbe Aski to browse. In December there were over 21 million hits on this K-Net server (over 5.5 million more hits from the previous month)! The average daily hits on this server rose to nearly 700,000 hits each day!

All together there were over 29 MILLION hits occurring on the six most popular monitored K-Net servers throughout December. Specifically, on these six servers with traffic graphs, there were a total of 29,020,325 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 (just click on the server to see the traffic monitoring chart for each server). There were 469,682 visits made during this period to these six servers, indicating that people are exploring these sites more and more.

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 more than 5.5 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;
• server traffic monitoring information is located at http://tech.knet.ca/~tech/monitoring/webalizer.
  

Keewaytinook Okimakanak participated in the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva that took place on December 8 to 11, within several venues. These included:

• Jesse Fiddler travelled to Geneva to attend the different sessions and do several presentations about the work being completed by K-Net in partnership with First Nations (see the Wawatay story and other K-News stories);
• Keewaytinook Okimakanak team members connected with other First Nation groups and the folks in Geneva via video conference on two occasions during the Smart Fair in Winnipeg;
• the multi-media presentation and case studies about the work being completed by K-Net were distributed and posted on-line.

The Report from the Global Forum of Indigenous Peoples and the Information Society gathering was released on December 23 by the Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous
Issues. Click here to read the report.

The December 29 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:

• New satellite dish to offer more opportunities: Keewaytinook Okimakanak is working with Industry Canada’s FedNor program to construct a new 7.3m satellite earth station in Sioux Lookout. This dish will expand the capabilities for remote and rural, satellite-served communities to develop, deliver and access broadband applications and services. Across Northern Ontario, there are presently 12 satellite served First Nations. K-Net is also working in partnership with the Kativik Regional Government in Northern Quebec to bring these services into their 14 member communities. (read the entire story)
• Resiliency stories & workbook online @ knews.knet.ca: Lorraine Kenny, while working with the Sunset Women’s Aboriginal Circle, created a workbook intended to assist residential school survivors to create their own personnal story that highlights their resiliency in dealing with their past experiences and recognizing their special gifts and strengths to survive today. (read the entire story)
• K-Net Showcase - contains photos from the different photo galleries located on the K-Net servers. This week’s pictures are from the Fort Severn, Deer Lake and Sandy Lake web sites describing some of the history that is being documented on-line about these communities. These partnerships with K-Net are creating innovative applications as well as deliver new services for all the communities across Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

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.

Workshop instructors Jesse Fiddler and Cal Kenny worked with First Nation reps this week to develop First Nation school web sites using the open source Post Nuke document management platform. Several First Nation schools in the North sent local community members to this workshop that is sponsored by Industry Canada's First Nations SchoolNet program. The Sioux Lookout workshop provided participants with all of the knowledge necessary to create free web sites for their schools on the First Nations SchoolNet web portal at http://firstnationschools.ca. The Sioux Lookout Aboriginal Area Management Board once again supported the delivery of this workshop by providing the use of their boardroom.

If your First Nation school would like more information about these free workshops,  email brianwalmark@knet.ca (Special Projects Coordinator for the Ontario RMO project). These workshops are coming to a community near you in the new year!

The First Nations SchooNet Helpdesk (staffed by John Moreau - jmoreau@knet.ca and Jamie Ray - jamieray@knet.ca) prepared and supports a training lab for these workshops. Technical support for hardware and software issues is available by calling these two at 877-737-KNET (5638). Barb Wong (barbwong@knet.ca) is working with Brian as the SchoolNet project administrator out of her Sioux Lookout office.

Participants at the Sioux Lookout workshop included Simon McKay, Chairman of the Michikan Education Authority, Pauline Beardy (Bearskin), Michael Rashleigh and Rosemary Erb (Wapekeka), William Mekanak (Kingfisher), Robert Semple (Kasabonika), Shawn Kakegamic and Stan Beardy (Muskrat Dam) and Margaret Angeconeb (Windigo Education Authority).

Click here to view the photos from the workshop.

Rob Wesley
Network Administrator / Instructor
Oshki-Pimache-O-Win Education and Training Institute
107 Johnson Avenue, 2nd Floor
Thunder Bay, ON P7A 2V9
(807) 346-2776 rwesley@oshki.ca

Thursday, December 18, 2003

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Dear Sir or Madam,

Oshki-Pimache-O-Win Education and Training Institute is pleased to announce the start date for our A+ Certification Preparation Program.  This 12-week full-time course, based in Thunder Bay, is scheduled to commence on January 19, 2004 and conclude on April 16, 2004.  Seating is limited to a maximum of 12 students, so early registration is highly recommended.

There is no academic prerequisite for the A+ Certification Preparation Program but basic computer knowledge would be considered an asset.  The cost for A+ Certification Preparation Program is $2420.00 and includes tuition, books, tools, and testing.  For those students travelling to Thunder Bay, we have a Student Support Worker on staff who is available to provide assistance, advice, and support to help them successfully complete the requirements of the program.

What is A+ Certification

A+ certification is the industry standard for entry-level computer service technicians and it is a foundational certification that employers seek.  Every organization uses computers and the demand for skilled technicians is increasing.  An A+ certification opens the door to exciting possibilities in the field of Information Technology (IT).

Having the A+ certification provides graduates with proof that they have a broad base of knowledge and competency in core hardware and operating system technologies including installation, configuration, diagnosing, preventive maintenance, and basic networking.

A+ certification testing is administered by CompTIA and is backed by over 50 major computer hardware and software vendors, distributors, resellers and publications.

To become certified, students must successfully write two computer-based tests.  There are two certified testing centres located in Thunder Bay, one test is based on hardware, and the second is based on software.  The A+ Certification Preparation Program prepares students to successfully pass these tests through in-class instruction, hands-on labs, and various testing measures.

What A+ Certification can mean for graduates within your community.

• No longer would your community have to hire expensive technology firms for computer repairs, upgrades, or consultation.
• Based on advancements in information and communication technologies (ICTs), broadband (high-speed Internet) in all remote communities is imminent.  A+ certified technicians based within your community would have the knowledge to assist in the deployment and in management of ICT operations.
• Graduates would be asked by other community members for computer repair services, providing them with a potential source of income.

What A+ Certification can mean for graduates outside your community.

• Better job opportunities.
• More career options.
• A realistic career path
• Nationally recognized proof of professional achievement.
• Career advancement, pay raises, and promotions.
• Foundational knowledge for advanced certifications.

Employers Look for the A+ Certification

Major companies know the value of the A+ certification, companies like Dell, Sears, Radio Shack, and Futureshop all have A+ certification requirement for their IT employees.

A+ is a foundational certification that is usually a starting point for many people working in the field of Information Technology.  A+ is often an essential part of Information Technology curriculum at the college and university level.  The A+ credential can potentially lead to students attaining more advanced Information Technology certifications and currently can be applied as an elective towards the Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA).  Obtaining additional advanced certifications further solidifies a graduate’s background and knowledge in Information Technology and significantly enhances their career opportunities.

For further information about our program or CompTIA, please visit http://www.oshki.ca or http://www.comptia.org .

Sincerely,

Rob Wesley
A+, Certified Novell Administrator (CNA), Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)

Preparations for the much anticipated Pikangikum Youth Challenge are on their way. The tournament will be held during the last week of January and early February. So far there have been over ten communities interested but no one has confirmed yet.

Again, like every youth challenge all meals will be provided to visiting teams as well as accommodations but teams are encouraged to bring sleeping gear. The winter road to Pikangikum is now accessible. The first 8 outside teams to confirm with entry fee will be accepted on a first come first serve basis.

Tentative dates for the tournament are Jan. 29, 30, 31, Feb.1.

I am currently working on getting scouts up here from Southern Ontario. If you require additional information please feel free to contact me.

Entry fee for the tournament will be $800.00 / team and this takes care of meals, transportation to arena, discount to nitely entertainment, and tournament passes.

Entertainment has been planned to keep youth and visiting teams busy after hockey games.

A feast will be held to close the tournament with an awards show to follow.

ENTRY FEE FOR THE TOURNAMENT WILL BE $800.00 / TEAM AND THIS TAKES CARE OF MEALS, TRANSPORTATION TO ARENA, DISCOUNT TO NITELY ENTERTAINMENT, AND TOURNAMENT PASSES.

ENTERTAINMENT HAS BEEN PLANNED TO KEEP YOUTH AND VISITING TEAMS BUSY AFTER HOCKEY GAMES.

A FEAST WILL BE HELD TO CLOSE THE TOURNAMENT WITH AN AWARDS SHOW TO FOLLOW.

You are invited to attend our Annual New Year's Special Services which will be held on Dec 31, January 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Invited guests are:

Evangelist Carl Rushtion and

Perry Rushtion

Derrick and Myrtle Anderson

Guest singers (band):

Silas Woodhouse - Fairford, Manitoba

Murdo Woodhouse - Winnipeg, Manitoba

Wilfred Moar - Winnipeg, Manitoba

and others...

For more info you can contact Pastor Colin and Nora Kanate or Nora Brisket .

Or, you can out our new page at: http://www.freewebs.com/newlife_centre