Taking IT Global

Your Voice is Power is a national project for middle and high school students designed to learn the fundamentals of computer science, entrepreneurship, and social justice.

 

Using the free, online EarSketch platform, students get creative to remix songs from Indigenous artists, while learning about entrepreneurship and activism in order to create their own original songs.

 

Three nationally recognized Indigenous artists are taking part in this year’s competition. Students will remix songs from Dakota Bear, Jayli Wolf, and Samian while taking inspiration from the social justice themes demonstrated in the work of these artists.

 

If students choose, they may enter their creations into a competition.

 

No experience is necessary to participate.

Christine M’Lot is an Anishinaabe educator, curriculum developer and consultant from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has over ten years experience working with children and youth in multiple capacities including child welfare, children’s disAbility services family programming and teaching.  In addition to teaching high school, Christine has created curriculum for a number of organizations. Her most recent contract was re-writing the Grade 12 Essential Math curriculum from an Indigenous perspective for the Manitoba Institute of Trade and Technology’s Youth Build Program. Prior to that Christine created the curriculum for an Indigenous Teen Dating Violence Prevention Program through Ndinawe.

Peter Skillen is currently Curriculum & Project Leader for Code To Learn—a federally funded Taking IT Global project that introduces computational thinking and coding to educators and students Canada-wide. One particular passion is supporting a Lakehead Uniiversity project which focuses on Indigenous ways of knowing mathematics through loom beading and finger weaving and then coding their creations in Lynx. As part of the Lynx development team, Peter is proud to say that it is currently available in four Indigenous languages (with more to come).  As an Ontario educator, Peter has been involved in technology supported, project-based learning since the late 1970s and has co-developed courses for TeachOntario, has been a Global Ambassador with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), and has developed and supported both face-to-face and online learning for the Ontario Teachers’ Federation.  Peter is honoured to have co-authored the YourVoiceIsPower.ca curriculum with Christine.

• Website & Blog – peterskillen.org

• Twitter – @peterskillen