Media.Knet.Ca

Robert Hunter, KO’s Data Warehouse Coordinator and Cal Kenny, K-Net’s Graphic Design Technician joined Fort Severn elders and community leaders this week as they travelled throughout their traditional territory. The group are travelling by freighter canoes from one of Fort Severn members’ original communities of Rocksand back to Fort Severn. Along the way, they will be visiting grave sites and other significant sites to identify and document their traditional trap lines, camps, hunting and fishing sites.

Robert is working with Cal and other members of the team to identify these sites using a GPS so the points can be mapped onto a regional map. At the different sites, the elders will share their memories and stories about each of these significant locations. Cal will be recording this information and the trip using the KO video camera. Traditional activities such as hunting and fishing are also being recorded as much as possible.

Plans to use the information gathered throughout the trip include creating digital maps of Fort Severn’s traditional territory that contain testimonials and other documents clearly detailing Fort Severn historical rights to access and manage the resources and lands across this vast region of Northern Ontario. Video material will be produced to support ongoing efforts to preserve and protect the traditional languages and cultures of the people across this region.

Snowfall and other weather conditions have challenged everyone to get this trip underway. Matt Mitchell flew his Caravan to Fort Severn to transport the canoes, supplies and people to the starting point of this adventure. Here on the first scheduled day of the trip, the charter sits idle in Sioux Lookout waiting for the snow to stop. The team did get to fly to Fort Severn on Wednesday but had to stop the shuttle of equipment when another snowfall hit the region on Thursday. Everyone hopes that by the weekend, the entire team will be out on the land starting this challenging journey that is supported in part by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and Industry Canada’s Smart Communities Demonstration project.

George Ferreira, a PhD candidate from the University of Guelph, and Les Meekis, KO’s Community Manager travelled to Fort Severn to continue their data collection and video production training with the local Smart team and community members. The week is filled with the video taping of interviews with community leaders, students, teachers and residents who are utilizing ICTs as part of their work and daily lives. Along with the video taping of individuals, the local Smart team are involved in the planning and development of a short video production that will be posted on-line. The new video production and editing equipment has been acquired as part of Fort Severn’s Community Access Program.

For more stories and pictures of the training and production work, check out the Fort Severn First Nation portal.

Nathan Taylor, Project Officer with HRDC’s Office of Learning Technologies’ Community Learning Networks (OLT / CLN) program arrived in Red Lake on Oct 1 to meet with members of the Smart project team. As part of the visit, Nathan met with the KO Finance team (Penny Carpenter and Kevin Houghton) to complete an audit of the OLT / CLN reports submitted to their office. Today, Nathan and Brian Beaton are flying to Deer Lake to meet with community members and the local Smart team in that community.

In the fall of 1999, KO received a grant from OLT/CLN to assist in the preparation of a business case to develop the "Centre of Expertise for Indigenous Learning Communities". One component of this initial grant was the planning and consultation workshop held in Red Lake in November 1999. KO engaged four resource people from the Telecommons Development Group (Drs. Don Richardson and Ricardo Ramirez) along with Florence Woolner and John Rowlandson to work with KO in the development of this business case.

During the November Red Lake Workshop, KO was contacted by Industry Canada that they were one of five selected from 19 other Aboriginal applications, to prepare a comprehensive business case to become Industry Canada’s Aboriginal Smart Communities demonstration project. A second part of the community consultations into how the KO First Nations wished to utilize Information and Communication Technologies included one community workshop in Fort Severn First Nation in December 1999. These early consultation and planning workshops assisted in the preparation of the winning submission to make Keewaytinook Okimakanak Industry Canada’s Smart Communities Demonstration Project (announced in May 2000). Be sure to check out the "rich pictures" prepared during the Fort Severn Workshop describing how Fort Severn community members wanted to utilize ICTs in their community in the development of better local government, improve their education system and their local health services.

With the successful Smart Communities designation, KO then worked the different government agencies and programs to secure the necessary matching funds to complete the work as present in the business case. In August 2001, a three year contract was signed with HRDC’s OLT/CLN program to develop the "Centre of Expertise for Indigenous Learning Communities" as an integral component of the Smart Communities Demonstration project.

From the proposal ...

The goal of this project is to demonstrate how Keewaytinook Okimakanak First Nations can collaboratively use ICTs to re-determine their relationship with Canada and the world. This goal is embedded in meeting three primary objectives. New learning and information technologies must facilitate new opportunities for lifelong learning and community well-being; they must support community autonomy, self-determination and governance; and, ICTs must enhance local capacity for sustainable cultural and economic development.

Work on this project has progressed over the past two years, with the successful completion of all the deliverables outlined in the original proposal. These include:

Project Goal:

Empower Keewaytinook Okimakanak First Nations to take control of the ways that electronic information and communication technologies are used in their lives.

Primary Objectives:

Identify and train six First Nation facilitators to work with Indigenous communities in Canada and worldwide to plan and track implementation of ICTs.

Use Learning Workshop methodologies to determine local priorities for ICTs and to develop community-based action plans, benchmarks, tracking mechanisms and indicators.

Identify and acknowledge exemplary practices, techniques and approaches to the use of learning technologies in Keewaytinook Okimakanak First Nations.

Enhance access to learning opportunities that effectively meet local learning styles and challenges and engage culturally appropriate resources and forms of interaction.

Develop an on-line database that captures community experiences, issues, and innovations related to the implementation and use of learning technologies and network strategies to support, modify and manage applications.

Share lessons learned, identify challenges and opportunities and formulate standards of improved practice for broadband network applications in First Nations settings.

Health Sciences North is offering the following Education Opportunities by videoconference using the North Network;

Oct 2, 11:00-12:00 noon CST "Power Searching with Google: Strategies & Techniques"

Oct 9, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm CST "Cool Tools:The Best of the Web"

Oct 23 11:00 - 12:00 noon CST "Uncovering the Invisible Web"

If you are interested in these educational opportunities or would like further information please contact;

Cheryl Klassen

cherylklassen@knet.ca

Telehealth Informatics Educator

Keewaytinook Okimakanak Telehealth Services.

CERTIFICATE IN WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT

Adobe PDF Brochure

Dates: October 20, 2003 to January 30, 2004

Deadline for Registration: October 10, 2003

Location: Oshki-Pimache-O-Win
Education and Training Institute
107 Johnson Avenue, 2nd Floor
Thunder Bay, Ontario  P7B 2V9

Tuition:
(includes books and
course materials)

In Class:              $1,425
Online:                 $975

Course Description:

The Certificate in Web Development is a 12 week full-time certificate program.  The students in the program will learn to design, build and manage multimedia websites and internet applications using the latest software from Macromedia.

Macromedia Studio MX contains a suite of integrated tools that provides all you need to build everything from simple web pages to Rich Internet Applications.  Studio MX is the most widely used software in the industry and is the software of choice for professional Web designers.  Our program will focus on three software packages, and upon successful completion of the program you will be able to:

• Create web sites using Macromedia Dreamweaver MX
• Create web graphics using Fireworks MX
• Deliver cross-platform, low-bandwidth animations, presentations, and Web applications using Macromedia Flash MX.

Online Class:

Students will be given assignments to be completed by a certain date, THIS IS NOT A SELF-PACED COURSE.  Assignments are given and accepted through our Oshki Online Training website (www.oshki.ca/training), and correspondence with the instructor will take place through message boards and live chat during the afternoons (1:00 – 5:00 pm EST).

In-Class:

Students will receive in-class instruction with the course instructor during the morning (9:00 to 12:00).  During the afternoon, students will complete assignments.  The instructor will assist the students with any problems concerning the assignments, course material, or computer issues in general (course-related questions will be given priority).  

The In-Class students will take advantage of one of Oshki’s new computer labs, T-1 connected Internet (faster than “high-speed” Internet), local area network and in-house Linux Web server.

System Requirements (for Online Class):

Windows:
200 MHz Intel Pentium processor (or equivalent)
Windows 98 SE, ME, NT4, 2000, or XP
64 MB RAM (128 MB recommended)
300 MB free hard drive disk space
1024 x 768, 16-bit (thousands of colours) colour display or better
CD-ROM drive

Macintosh:
Mac OS 9.1 and higher, or OS X 10.1 and higher
64 MB RAM (128 recommended)
300 MB free hard drive space
1024 x 768, 16-bit (thousands of colours) colour display or better
CD-ROM drive

CONTACT FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

Devon Meekis (Instructor) or Rob Wesley
807-346-2776

Or

To Register, Contact:
Front Desk: 807-346-2770
Toll Free: 1-866-63 OSHKI
Fax: 807-345-2924

Sign up online for this course, or any course that
Oshki-Pimache-O-Win Education and Training Institute offers at
www.oshki.ca

Personal web pages at MyKnet.org are a popular on-line space for people to browse. In September there were over 11 millions hits on this K-Net server with over 200,000 visits throughout the month (an average of 6,671 per day)!

All together there were over 18 MILLION hits occurring on the monitored K-Net servers throughout September. Specifically, on the seven servers with traffic graphs, there were a total of 18,267,458 hits made to these on-line services provided by Keewaytinook Okimakanak.

All 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 4 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.

The K-Net "shed" is getting a face lift. This is the space where the first MSAT / DirecPC connectivity solutions were tested, where the original K-Net Bulletin Board System was hosted for a number of years, where Peewee Linux and the K-Net router was hatched, where the multi-media team moved and entertained others from First Nations, where computers and servers were set up before being sent up north, where all these K-Net happenings and developments occurred over the past few years.

Now, while the snow flies at the end of September, the space is being doubled to accommodate additional office space along with the new server facility for Keewaytinook Okimakanak. The space is required to support the various broadband applications and on-line training and education services that are being developed under a FedNor funded project.

Dear Community Member:

The Sioux Lookout Substance Abuse Committee, would like to invite your members to attend a community meeting to discuss a substance-free SAFE GRAD. Ms. Kristin King is the coordinator for graduation and needs our help to disband the myth that graduating, celebrating, and having fun go hand in hand with getting drunk. Several other high schools in the Keewatin-Patricia District School Division have successfully promoted a fun and truly SAFE alcohol and drug free graduation event that the students work hard toward and look forward to. Together, as a community, we could do something similar. Janet Pilozow, who helped get SAFE GRAD organized in Dryden is eager to come to Sioux Lookout and share with us what they are doing in Dryden, how they got started, how they keep going, and how we could accomplish a memorable and enjoyable safe graduation night for our youth of this community.

This gathering will be about two hours long and will include a brief Power Point presentation, with discussion to follow, about SAFE GRAD. We hope to form a committee consisting of students, parents, staff, and community members who will work together for the safety of our youth in this community. Together we can accomplish more than we think!

Please join us at Queen Elizabeth District Highschool on Thursday, October 23, 2003 at 6:30 p.m., Room #19. Be a part of the first ever gala SAFE GRAD event in Sioux Lookout. We need you!

Yours truly,

The Sioux Lookout Substance Abuse Committee

2nd Annual Nish Women's Broomball Classic Tournament

Friday October 10th 2003 at Fort William First Nation Arena

• 1:00 pm  Big Trout Lake Blazers  vs  Fort William Wolverines
• 2:00 pm  Eabametoong Northern Lights  vs  Webequie Queens
• 3:00 pm  Team Mishkeegogamang  vs  Neskantaga Lady Hawks
• 4:00 pm  Team Webequie  vs  Eabametoong Charlie's Angels
• 5:00 pm  Wemindji Ice Stars  vs  Muskrat Dam Saints
• 6:00 pm  Waswanipi Northern Stars  vs  Michikan Lake Starz
• 7:00 pm  Neskantaga Lady Hawks  vs  Webequie Queens
• 8:00 pm  Fort William Wolverines  vs  Eabametoong Northern Lights
• 9:00 pm  Team Sandy Lake  vs  Chisasibi Stars

For the remainder of the schedule go to www.eteamz.com/7thgeneration

See you all in 2 weeks, good luck to all teams

All games will be played at the Fort William First Nation Arena

Hans Jansen, a consultant working with the provincial Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology's (MEST) Connect Ontario program and Industry Canada's BRAND program, spent Sunday and Monday (Sept 28 and 29) meeting with K-Net staff. He is examining the some of the "Best Practices" that have gone into developing the Kuh-ke-nah Network and the various broadband applications that are being delivered in the Keewaytinook Okimakanak First Nations.

On Monday afternoon, Hans and Carl Seibel flew to Fort Severn to meet with the community leaders and the local Smart team members to discuss how the network and broadband services are working for their community.

Here Hans is discussing some potential GIS applications with Robert Hunter, KO's Data Warehouse and GIS Coordinator.