Indigenous Knowledge and Practices contributing to new approaches in learning/educational technologies

Abstract

The objective of this special issue was to bring together a number of high-quality articles from people from across the globe, belonging to or working in close partnership with indigenous communities meanwhile orbiting topics of learning and digital technologies. This special issue has truly resonated globally among peers, thus enabling the publication of insightful, broad and open access research articles written by individuals and research groups. Common to the range of articles is the fact that they embrace practices, theories and reflections rooted in indigenous knowledge systems, are critical of existing tensions and trends while contributing to technology design ventures in formal and informal learning contexts. This special issue is initiated by ”Only Connect: Indigenous Digital Learning” by Traxler, which is an excellent entry equipping readers to better engage with the complicated, promising and at the same time daring landscape representing the many intersections of learning, digitality, indigeneity, policy and community. The article ”Preserving Indigenous voices: Web archiving in Aotearoa/New Zealand” by Ka‘ai-Mahuta provides an insight into the opportunities for sharing, learning and preserving there is for indigenous communities using digital means, but also adeptly illustrates the challenges and embedded consequences of using those digital means in terms of how this stored knowledge is organized, protected and accessed by those who are the rightful owners of it. The article ”A Participatory Approach for Digital Documentation of Egyptian Bedouins Intangible Cultural Heritage“ by Giglitto, Lazem and Preston demonstrates a participatory approach of protecting and disseminating the intangible heritage of Beduins in Egypt through four digital prototypes. The article is highly insightful from both the community engagement perspective, but also from a didactic vantage point, as the work illuminates the benefits of bringing students into the lifeworld and nondigital domain of the Beduin. In the article “the Pedagogical Usage of Digital Technologies in an Indigenous Village in Brazil: Reflections and Challenges,” the authors Ribeiro, Kaminski, Lübeck and Boscarioli provide a case study of the use of digital technologies in a Brazilian village community and how it concurs with the preservation, cultural dissemination and the appropriation of indigenous and non-indigenous knowledge. Yet, the authors also demonstrate how digital tools albeit useful in learning contexts have embedded challenges, such as connectivity, which is not the only obstacle for indigenous digital learning to fully come to fruition. In ” Using ICT in designs for learning among indigenous children in Peru” by Salas-Pilco, brings the reader into seeing how ICT in indigenous learning contexts does not only showcase the use of predefined technologies but illustrates how ICT has been appropriated by indigenous children. The article not only demonstrates three inspiring prototypes but also enables the reader to keep track of the learning opportunities associated with these prototypes. In “Game-based learning to teach Higher Order thinking in Rural Schools: Case studies in Sarawak Borneo” Mohamad, Morini, Minoi and Arnab explore and report on games as a tool for learning in rural schools in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The authors used game-based learning principles as a way of guiding teachers on how to address Higher Order thinking skills in subjects instructed. Their findings indicate that design thinking, when integrated with game-based learning, can initiate interest and engagement toward higher-order thinking. Moreover, the authors argue for the development of a CreativeCulture model that can serve as an instructional Interaction Design and Architecture(s) Journal IxD&A, N.41, 2019, pp. 5 6