How Indigenous-designed platforms improve learning
Exploring Indigenous LMS platforms and our Technology and Entrepreneurship Awards for Indigenous youth!
Boozhoo News River Readers,
It’s back to school season, and what better time to remind our community that applications are open for our annual Technology and Entrepreneurship Awards for Indigenous youth!
We understand that technology decisions are increasingly made by socially-conscious leaders. By supporting Indigenous youth in both technology and entrepreneurship, we're helping build a future where Indigenous innovations benefit the communities they come from.
Last year's recipients were pursuing IT certificates and BSc in Computer Science, as well as growing remote bookkeeping services and culturally informed horticulture businesses - all with serving their community in mind!
Applications are open until Oct 15!
Two (2) awards of $1000 CAD each are available to Indigenous youth ages 17-30
Open to applicants who are attending a post-secondary program with a focus on either technology or entrepreneurship - all academic levels are welcome.
People with an innovative business idea or a new business under two (2) years old are also eligible to apply - no education required.
Open to Canadian and American residents - yes, both are eligible to apply!
Submissions will be accepted until October 15. Applicants are notified of award selection within a few weeks of that date.
👉Apply here: animikii.com/impact/scholarship
👉👉 Forward this email to Indigenous youth in your family and community - encourage them to apply!
Feature:
When Indigenous LMS Technology Supports Indigenous Futures
The big picture: When Edmonton Public Schools needed a virtual school platform, they had every mainstream option available. They chose to build their entire virtual school on an Indigenous-designed platform rather than use Canvas, Blackboard, Google Classroom or Moodle. They chose our platform Niiwin, created by us here at Animikii.
Why it matters: Every learning management system encodes assumptions about how knowledge works. The new platform embodies what Dr. Jean Stiles, Edmonton's Virtual School Director, calls "Indigenous ways of knowing, blended community-based education, and online interdisciplinary curricula." Niiwin allows communities to host their data on traditional territories. Cultural protocols determine who can access different types of knowledge. Assessment focuses on collective growth and cultural continuity rather than individual competition.
Key points:
The First Nations Technology Council in British Columbia reports 35% higher completion rates when Indigenous students learn through Indigenous-designed platforms.
Te Wānanga o Raukawa achieved a 96% student satisfaction rate with their Indigenous-designed system. They maintain 70% program graduation rates—among the highest in New Zealand's tertiary sector.
Preston and Claypool's research identifies the core conflict: mainstream assessment practices embedded in mainstream platforms "fundamentally conflict with Indigenous evaluation methods that emphasize collective well-being and relational accountability."
What they’re saying: "We considered all of our technology options," the district explained. "We were very keen on the customization that developing custom software through the Niiwin platform provided us."
Learn more: Read the full article on Indigenous-designed learning management systems here
Curated Articles:
Engagement on Repatriation Policy Framework Co-Development - First Nations
The Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport and the Repatriation Steering Committee are pleased to invite the First Nations in B.C. to provide feedback on the co-development of a provincial Repatriation Policy Framework (the Policy Framework). The Policy Framework will guide how Indigenous Ancestors and Cultural Belongings are respectfully returned to First Nations in British Columbia. This initiative supports the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (Declaration Act), and the Declaration Act Action Plan Action 4.33: Co-develop a policy framework to support repatriation initiatives. Your input is vital in shaping standards, supports, and processes for respectful, accountable, and First Nations-led repatriation in B.C. We are offering various in person and virtual sessions. Each engagement session is designed to reflect and honour the voices, priorities, and protocols of First Nations in B.C.
For decades, zooarchaeology — the study of animal remains in archaeological contexts — has operated within a Western framework that categorizes animals as either "wild" or "domestic." This binary reflects a nature-culture divide that does not align with Indigenous worldviews, where animals often hold relational, spiritual, and reciprocal roles within communities. Montgomery's study directly addresses this divide by placing Indigenous oral traditions and ecological knowledge at the center of archaeological interpretation. Working in partnership with Picuris Pueblo tribal members, she and her co-author Melanie Cootsona developed a "gifting framework" that highlights principles of care, reciprocity, and respect in understanding human-animal interactions. "Decolonizing archaeology requires listening carefully and to allow community knowledge to guide how we interpret the past," said Montgomery. "By centering oral histories, we move away from extractive practices and toward collaborative models that reflect Indigenous priorities."
70 leading Canadians, civil society groups ask Carney to protect Canada's 'digital sovereignty'
Dozens of experts, academics and organizations have released an open letter urging Prime Minister Mark Carney to swiftly "defend Canada's digital sovereignty" and protect the country from the whims of the Trump administration. The letter says Carney has argued Canada must become an energy superpower and get big projects built, but not spent enough time talking about the need to secure Canada's digital economy. "Empires once built railways. Now they build algorithms," said Barry Appleton, a Toronto-based international trade lawyer and one of the letter's signatories. The signatories also want the Liberal government to "withdraw entirely the deeply flawed, anti-privacy Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act." The legislation was introduced in June and currently sits at second reading. The letter says Bill C-2 "opens the door to unprecedented surveillance and cross-border data sharing with the U.S. that, under President Trump, has become increasingly unreliable, authoritarian and out of step with liberal democracies around the world."
Brookings and SCAG Report Exposes Failures in Native Data Collection
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration has quietly removed many federal datasets and research reports from the public domain — some of which included vital information on Tribal communities. Now more than ever, access to accurate and representative data on Native communities is essential. Even before these datasets were scrubbed, data collection in Indian Country was already a significant challenge. To explore this issue further, Brookings Metro and the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) collaborated to examine just how difficult data collection is among tribes in Southern California. Earlier this week, they released a report on the challenges of data collection among tribes in San Diego County. The report has national implications and includes recommendations to address the problem.
