Media.Knet.Ca

Adam Fiser and Karina Griffith drove from Toronto to spend the long weekend meeting with K-Net staff to learn about the community networking work being completed in this region. Adam is a PhD candidate student at the University of Toronto working with Dr. Andrew Clement in the Faculty of Information Services. They are collecting information and conducting research as one component of the Canadian Research Alliance For Community Innovation And Networking (CRACIN) initiative in which K-Net is one of the case studies being proposed.

Karina is a video producer who is worked with a video cooperative in Ottawa (http://www.sawvideo.com). Both Karina and Adam are interested in supporting the production of video material that can be used on-line to support the archiving, the maintenance and development of Native language resource material.

Over the three days meetings were held with Brian Beaton (K-Net Coordinator), Dan Pellerin (Network Manager), Les Meekis (Community Manager who was in Keewaywin working on some video production training), Adi Linden (K-Net Systems Analyst), Jesse Fiddler (K-Net Multi-media producer), Cal Kenny (K-Net Graphics Design), Darrin Potter (KiHS Principal), Marlene McKay (KiHS teacher in Frenchman's Head), Florence Woolner (working on the First Nation SchoolNet initiative), Lorraine Kenny (producing on-line Native Parenting resource material) and Tom Terry (supporting the KO GIS initiative). Visits were made to Lac Seul First Nation (to see the KiHS sites in Kejick Bay and Frenchman's Head) and Wabigoon First Nation (to see the 2-way satellite install at the local school, the local wild rice production plant and the traditional pow-wow). Tom and Carol Terry supported the visit with the use of their cabin (and sauna).

On the final day of the visit, discussions focussed on putting together a presentation about the work that KO is doing as the Ontario Regional Management Organization for Industry Canada's First Nation SchoolNet Program. Adam, working with K-Net staff, is now exploring ways to collect more information and supporting our work in introducing broadband and high speed connectivity in the different First Nation schools across Ontario. He will be joining K-Net staff on-line as we work with school staff and First Nations to bring new ICT tools and applications into these environments.

Over 13 MILLION hits occurred on the K-Net servers during the month of August. Specifically, on the seven servers with traffic graphs, there were a total of 13,075,607 hits made to these on-line services provided by Keewaytinook Okimakanak.

Several of the K-Net servers that are being monitored for hits, visits and usage statistics using the webalizer program again showed an increase. In particular, the http://myknet.org server rose again to over 7.3 million hits during this month.

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.

Over the labour day weekend (Saturday and Sunday), K-Net staff took down the K-Net mail service for a 24 hour period to upgrade the storage devices. As well, staff are beginning the process of planning a strategy to filter virus from the mail attachments to prevent the mail service from being swamped with all the viruses and worms that are attacking on-line mail services around the worm.

We appreciate your patience and support in our efforts to improve these on-line services for all K-Net users. We expect that the mail service will be back up and running again by 5 pm on Sunday afternoon.

Les Meekis, KO's Community Manager with the Smart Communities project, is coordinating the introduction and delivery of video production workshops in each of the five KO First Nations. He is working with George Ferreira, a professional film-maker and a PhD candidate at the University of Guelph who providing the training and many of the resources as well as the members of the local Smart team in each of the KO First Nations.

The series of workshops began in North Spirit Lake on August 19 with the team flying over Keewaywin on August 26. Check out the stories and photos on the community portals at http://nsl.firstnation.ca and http://keewaywin.firstnation.ca. Each session is 7 days in length with the local participants receiving instructions and practical production applications in filming, lighting, audio and editing. Interviews and different community shots are gathered throughout the week resulting in a short video being produced and shown to the community.

The local Smart teams will be equipped to continue producing additional video material which will then be archived and made available on-line for everyone to use. The stories gathered will become part of the multi-media reports and productions that will be used to produce additional training and development tools and resources.

As people become comfortable in the use of these tools, the Native language content will be transcribed and archived for use in the schools and for language development and protection.

We plan to video stream from the Wapekeka SOS Conference from 6:00 to 9:00 pm today (Friday).  The performance will be by Moccasin Joe (Comedian) and Wilma Pelly (Elsie Tsa Che) from North of 60.

Also, we may have a special appreance by someone who snuck into the community. SO listen on Wawatay starting 7:00 and watch video stream starting 6:00 pm,

Also, listen to CBC Radio today at 4:45 - 5:00 pm for special interviews.

Visit http://wapekeka.firstnation.ca for pictures from the conference and to leave your comments in our guestbook.

Keewaytinook Internet High School (KiHS) started preparation for the 2003/2004 school year last week with a training session for Classroom Assistants(CAs) from 13 of our partner communities. Lyle Johnson from Weagamow and Aaron Hardy from Fort William facilitated the workshop at the Northern Chief’s office in Balmertown along with KiHS administration.

The Classroom Assistants are an integral part in the functioning and success of the KiHS program in each of the communities. At the training sessions they took part in cooperative sessions on how to set up and maintain the classroom network, how to trouble shoot software and hardware problems, as well as how to assist the students and teachers to ensure a successful year. Part of the training involved a video conference connection with k-net, the technical partner of KiHS. The week was very exciting as the CA staff prepared for the new school year and became better acquainted with the KiHS program, the equipment, and each other.

This week the CAs are back in their respective communities ensuring that the computer networks are in place and preparing the local classrooms for the arrival of the community teachers and the students.  There were 13 classroom assistants from different communities. The classroom assistants are:

• Rita Wesley - Cat Lake;
• James Rae - Deer Lake;
• Rick Allen - Fort Hope;
• Clara Crowe - Fort Severn;
• Aaron Hardy - Fort William;
• Andrea Ignace - Frenchman’s Head;
• Maxine Kakepetum - Keewaywin;
• Loretta Quoquat - Kejick Bay;
• Lyle Johnson - North Caribou;
• Maxine Kakegumick - North Spirit Lake;
• Howard Moose - Poplar Hill;
• Martha Tait - Sachigo Lake;
• Tracey Spence - Webequie.

KiHS will begin its fourth year in September, and is fast becoming a strong educational presence in the partner communities. We are anticipating a great year with the help of all involved.

If you are interested in becoming a student in one of the KiHS partner Communities to earn secondary credits, please contact the CA in your community. They will be eager to assist you in completing an application and choosing courses.

Darrin Potter (KiHS Principal)

We survived our first day of the 10th Annual SOS (Survivors of Suicide) Conference and it was an interesting day.

Wawatay will do a video documentary on this event at a later date. Wilma Pelly (Elsie from North of 60) came in and will be with us until Friday.

For detailed updates, check our site at http://wapekeka.firstnation.ca. I will post pictures every lunch hour and evening.

We tried to video stream the opening ceremonies over the internet but the audio was not working for those watching on the internet. I finally figured it out. If there is an interest ... I will see if I can arrange to do another live video stream Friday Evening for the Moccasin Joe performance.

Check out the photos. Also, register for our site and submit items.

Next week, we have Youth Day and Dakota House will be here for that day (September 5). We also will have a Volleyball Tourney. Join us on-line, send your greetings and support to the conference participants. We look forward to hearing from you.

The August 21 issue of Wawatay News contains two 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:

• Bringing new courses and past history on-line - Keewaytinook Okimakanak received funding from FedNor to construct an on-line training and skill development environment for First Nations across the region. Working in partnership with Wawatay, the Sunset Women's Aboriginal Circle and Oshki-Pimache-O-Win several new on-line resources are being produced to support learners and community members to access training and historical reference material.
• Building economic initiatives and promoting tourism on-line - George Kakekaspan describes how Fort Severn First Nation is using their broadband infrastructure to create new socio-economic opportunities in his community.
• K-Net Showcase - contains photos and URL addresses of pictures of the lands and resources of the traditional territory of 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.

We are running an SOS Conference this week and the opening ceremonies are online.

Look at link to listen and watch the event. It's also on Wawatay Radio.

http://streaming.knet.ca/Stream1