Powerpoint is a cool tool - but not without it's issues!

While studying the ICT for Learning Design coursework recently I decided to prepare a Power Point (PPT) on Aboriginal Art. I spent 2-3 hours on this presentation and - not to blow my own trumpet or anything - but it looked pretty good. I had incorporated some animation, I had used some bullet points, but not too many, my slides were interesting but not too detailed, and I had links to websites and on-line quizzes. I was pretty happy with it and felt I had incorporated all the tips I had learned about creating an effective PowerPoint.

I then hesitated when it came to publish my PowerPoint on my Blog and post it to the forum. Why was I hesitating...?

I realised I felt uneasy about it as I had copied images from several websites; and although I had referenced them throughout my PPT, and also at the end, I hadn't yet received a response to my emailed request for permission to use these images.

I hesitated a bit more...? Should I, shouldn't I? I looked up the copyright details on these websites, I considered that my PPT had been prepared for educational purposes, I had referenced it throughout and I wasn't making money from it, so surely it would be OK - wouldn't it? I talked to my husband about it (he's a lawyer and knows about this stuff)! He was quite keen that I not be sued over breach of copyright, so I decided to run it all past our trusty lecturer Scot Aldred.

To cut a long story short, I have decided not to use my beautiful PowerPoint and most definately not to post it to a public forum as there are just way too many issues to consider and too many grey areas for my comfort. At first I was annoyed over my wasted effort and the fact I would have to prepare another PPT, using up precious time I don't have! I was then given a different way to look at it.

Scot, our trusty lecturer, told me about Nulloo Yumbah, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander network attached to CQ University. Nulloo Yumbah states that one of it's goals is to "establish and maintain appropriately focused engagements with relevant communities and organisations in the promotion of CQUniversity and the services the university can provide to address community and organisational interests".

In light of this, Scot suggested that rather than a white fella teaching black fella culture and artwork, why not contact members of the local aboriginal communities and ask someone to come along and explain it all first hand? Not a bad idea I thought to myself, and so much more engaging for my students to hear it and experience it first hand.

Scot also pointed out that Aboriginal cultures around Australia are very diverse and the people and tribes who live here in Mackay have very different art and culture to those who live, for example, in Alice Springs. Anything I may teach my students about artwork from Alice Springs, on which my PowerPoint was based, may be completely irrelevant to Mackay.

This whole issue has got me thinking about Aboriginal people, the copyright associated with their artworks and their sensitivity to white fellas teaching others about Aboriginal art and culture.

On the one hand its very frustrating to think that many teachers will be put off teaching aboriginal art and culture in their classrooms because of copyright and related issues and simply put it in the too hard basket. I have also thought that these very issues will hinder the integration of aboriginal and white culture, if white teachers are not able to teach aboriginal culture in schools.

I then thought about the Queensland Government's Department of Education, Training and the Arts (DETA) and their guidelines for 'Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives in Schools'. The guidelines talk about personal and professional accountabilities for teachers (page 14) and state that, "Education Queensland employees are professionally accountable for providing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives within their curriculum and pedagogical practices for both Indigenous and non-indigenous students, .... and that these Indigenous perspectives are woven into the fabric of the school environment".

In terms of my Aboriginal Art lesson - what should I therefore be considering in order to properly embed this aboriginal perspective?. Some of the issues are:

• Aboriginal people attach their sense of identity to their art and culture and are therefore sensitive about white Australians teaching it.
• White Australian's don't know or understand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and art on an intimate, first-hand basis, and only know what they have read or learned second-hand.
• We white Australians are arguably ill-equipped to properly teach in these areas.

Following Scot Aldred's advice to contact Nulloo Yumbah I decided to also find out answers to the following questions:

1. Are there any local people or parents of the school who could help my students learn about local Aboriginal Art, their symbols and their meanings?
2. What help is available through local aboriginal groups and communities like Nulloo Yumba?
3. Are there any aboriginal staff members at my school or staff who have connections with the local aboriginal communities that I can tap into?
4. Can my timetable be flexible to take advantage of local aboriginal people, based on their availability?
5. Do any local aboriginal communities have resources available for use in my classroom?
6. Can a partnership with local aboriginal people be established for teaching Aboriginal Art and Culture at my school, across all year levels and on an ongoing basis?
7. Is there a partnership already in place at my school that I may be unaware of?

Re-reading these guidelines, in light of my recent PowerPoint debacle, has given me a new perspective. For a start, I can see that community partnerships with individual learning sites is really key to successfully embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives.

My initial thoughts were that issues and sensitivities surrounding white people teaching aboriginal art and culture, as descried to me by Scot, are just more barriers to overcome on the road to integration and that the situation is truly hopeless. I can now see however, that to teach Aboriginal Art and Culture and to do it justice, it needs to be taught by local people, and therefore local people need to be involved in schools either as direct employees or by way of a partnership within the school.

This in turn will bring great benefits, as the increased involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the education of our students will help to improve relationships between our cultures, build partnerships, create understanding and increase community involvement, which will ultimately aid integration. Like an exponential curve, the pace of integration may then gain momentum.

I think page 24 of the article summarizes this issue quite well. "Teachers can gain confidence to teach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives by recognising that their role is more one of facilitator, as opposed to being the experts".

So, over the coming weeks, I may not be showing my beautiful PowerPoint presentation, but I am hoping to do something far more interesting. That is, to facilitate my students learning by making contact with, and establishing a relationship with, a local aboriginal person who can teach my students about aboriginal art and it's symbols from a first hand, authentic and engaging point of view.


References:

'Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives', Qld Government, DETA, extracted from http://education.qld.gov.au/schools/indigenous/docs/indig-persp.pdf

Conversation with Scot Aldred, 20 April 2010, CQ University Lecturer, ICT's for Learning Design.

Deta web site: http://deta.qld.gov.au/