Meeting the Earthworks Builders: A flash-based video game

We propose to create a video game about Earthwork Builder Culture for school-age children in grades 4 through 8. In the past, the Earthwork Builder Culture has been poorly addressed in student learning materials. Current understanding and portrayal of American Indians remains largely stereotypical. This game will be developed using content generated by scientists, academics, educators, and American Indians. This approach will ensure that the native voice will be incorporated into the subject content areas, interface, game mechanics and artwork. Educational video games are a multimodal form of student engagement using visual images, animation, sound, text, and navigation/ interface design elements that engage students and allow them to make decisions and choices, developing problem solving skills and systems thinking. This medium will allow us to communicate profound aspects of American Indian thought through player interaction and the juxtaposition of graphical information

Paulo Freire: Community Based Arts Education

This paper is about Paulo Freire and his influence on the perspective and application of literacy programming and interdisciplinary education through the arts. Portraiture, as used in this paper, is a collection of stories that illuminate historical, social, and cultural influences that connect Freire to a community and to the world. Freire’s pedagogical theory requires educators and students to examine self, culture, and community. It also addresses issues of power, voice, conflict, class, gender, and race. Freire’s philosophy and application illustrates the value he placed on education through life experiences/knowledge, the arts, and cultures of the people. In this paper, I present excerpts from Freire’s 1996 conference presentation at Diaderma interviews with Freire, Francisco Brennand, a Brazil artist and co-worker of Freire, and Ana Mae Barbosa, past president of International Society of Education through Art, a professor at The University of São Paulo, and a student of Freire

Games, Pedagogy and Art Education

In 1848, under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, Squier and Davis documented what is now referred to as the Newark Earthworks, Ohio (USA). Built over two thousand years ago by indigenous peoples, understanding the earthworks has been ongoing. The Octagon Earthwork in Newark, Ohio was named one of the seventy wonders of the ancient world (Scarre, 1999), and yet this American Indian spiritual space is occupied by a private country club whose golf course winds around the mound. This article provides an introduction to earthworks, the approach to designing interactive curricula, including games and a pedagogy of educational games, which can virtually bring an important site such as the Octagon Earthwork into the classroom

Decolonizing Development Through Indigenous Artist-Led Inquiry

In this article four university art educators explore theories of self-determination and describe decolonizing, approaches to research that are built on mutual trust. As researchers we recognize that (re)presenting the stories of others—especially across international and transcultural boundaries—is both problematic and an ethical challenge. We acknowledge the risks that participants assume when sharing their stories, and follow the culturally sensitive strategy of having collaborating indigenous artists lead the research