Sandy McAuley (2011)

Multimedia, Relationality, and InuitQaujimajatuqangit in an Online Learning Environment (2011)

All technologies, including those involving multimedia, imply embedded cultural assumptions. This is particularly important in contexts such as that of the Nunavut MEd, the first graduate program to be offered in Nunavut, as the students are Inuit and speak Inuktitut as a first language, while lead instructors for their coursework are mostly non-Inuit and speak English as their first language. Creating an online learning environment to support the Nunavut MEd therefore requires establishing coherence between the multimedia technologies used and the language and culture of the students. Drawing on a framework developed for the 2009 HITS conference, this presentation will look at the relationship between Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit—traditional Inuit values—and the online environment supporting the MEd.

Sandy McAuley worked for seventeen years with online learning environments as supports for very small isolated secondary schools in Canada’s arctic. His work with educators and students to create and investigate online bilingual knowledge-building communities for Inuit students became the basis for his doctoral research at OISE/UToronto. A portion of this work was supported by the Canadian TeleLearning National Centres of Excellence and as a member of this team Sandy contributed to the development of Knowledge Forum, a powerful collaborative hypermedia environment. Sandy joined the UPEI Faculty of Education in 2003.

Sandy’s background in teaching English literature and creative drama has resulted in an interest in how digital media can use sound, graphics, and user-controllable virtual spaces to support the construction of meaning and the creation of knowledge and identity. His work in the far north has contributed to an awareness of the kinds of issues that cultural differences may bring to the use of these media to support learning.