Walk With Us Blog

Walk With Us in Constance Lake First Nation Wrap-Up (June 4-7, 2019)

Mark and Melissa presented Walk With Us project at Mamawmatawa Holistic Education Centre's Student Showcase. Liam, one of the students we worked with in March, introduced us! Take a look:

Walk With Us in Constance Lake First Nation (March 26-28, 2019)

Below is a story map of Walk With Us in Constance Lake First Nation - it includes the process we went through with this wonderful school community. Scroll through and enjoy the journey with us!

OPG and Walk With Us - EV Road Trip to Taykwa Tagamou Nation (June 23, 2018)

Walk With Us partners with DGTL Creator Studio in Timmins (May 3, 2018)

Click below to take a look at a Walk With Us photo story!

Walk With Us Visits Moosonee May 10-11, 2017

Blog Post by Melissa Lavoie (click below for full post):

Mattagami First Nation, November 1st, 2016

The Walk With Us club traveled to Mattagami First Nation November 1st, 2016 to take our first panospheres for Google Street View. We were welcomed warmly by Mattagami's Chief Walter Naveau, his wife Cathy Naveau, who is the Education Director, and Jennifer Constant, a Councillor on the reserve. To open the day, we sat in a circle in their community centre on the floor of the gymnasium. We are more grounded that way, Chief Naveau relayed to us. They spoke about how encouraging it was to see these students come together in this way, and how important it is for young people's voices to be heard; how technology is a good thing, as it connects us all, and helps to create public awareness of issues our Indigenous communities are facing: one being the CN Rail oil spill last March. 18 months later, after much persistence, the community has secured a proper clean-up, although they don't yet know when this will be happening. Chief Naveau has met and spoken with Dr. David Suzuki, and Dr. Suzuki is scheduled to visit Mattagami FN on Friday, Nov. 18th. They also spoke about the fact that many people still believe that people on reserves live in teepees, and other common misconceptions, that we would be helping to dispel through our virtual tours. Chief Naveau stressed the impact of affirming the voices of the youth, and to allow them to tell the stories through their own eyes, ears and perceptions.

We've been invited back when the community's big teepee is set up at their powwow grounds by the end of this month. As well, the community will be holding a "viewing" of the students' 360' images when they are live on Google Street View! As soon as the students export their images to me, I will be uploading them into a shared Google Drive folder where one of our amazing partners, Neil Cariani of Creative Xistence 360, will be editing the photos to ensure they adhere to Google Street View's quality and privacy standards.

The skills our students are learning are valuable, relevant and current; and this project has brought us together for a common purpose. The amount of organic problem-solving that occurs when students are placed in the driver's seat was very thought-provoking for me as a teacher - students were demonstrating understanding, patience and resilience when issues arose with the cameras/technology, and together we attempted possible solutions, with the kids taking the lead in many instances. The pride they continue to demonstrate is incredible, and students were taking it upon themselves to interview community members to help with their storytelling projects down the road, when we create virtual tours of their home communities, with the backgrounds being the images they took after submitting to Google Street View. Each student received a folder containing items they would need for the day, including an agenda, pen and paper, step-by-step instructions on how to export 360' images taken via the Street View app (we do not want them to publish right away to Street View prior to our editing process) and Photo / Interview Release forms for when they engage in interviews with community members.

One of my highlights (and there were so many) was having the chance to interact with the students, and just learning and laughing with them. There was one instance where we wanted to take a picture overlooking the Mattagami River. We set up our tripod in front of a log, and we wanted to see if we could "hide" from the 360' capture by laying down behind the log. Nope! You could clearly see five of us laying down (it also didn't help that I was wearing a bright green jacket at the time, the kids pointed out), and we had a bit of a giggle fest afterwards since that definitely wasn't a natural pose to capture for Street View. :) We decided to casually walk down the street so that the student whose smartphone was connected to the camera could press the image capture button to take the picture. Much better, and definitely more natural.

Here are some pictures from our day together. It was cloudy unfortunately, but hopefully when we visit again the sun will be out. We made two cameras work between 16 students yesterday, but 1:1 cameras will really open up opportunities.

Watch out for us!