Name(s): Sofia Paredes and Marisela F. Nyoka

Institution: Lewis and Clark College

Language area: Spanish

PROJECT TYPE: Curriculum Enhancement: Cultural material development

PROJECT TITLES: Completion of summer project (1998-2000)

a. Introduction to Indigenous cultures in Mexico and Ecuador.
b. Interviews and speeches of Indigenous leaders and community members.
c. Indigenous and Indianist literature.

DURATION: Three summers.
a. First summer (1998): Material preparation and initial project development.
b. Second summer (1999): Designing project and presentation in Digital Chisel format.
c. Third summer (2000): Transferring project into Authorware for cross-platform delivery.

GENERAL OBJECTIVE: The main objective is to show the students the diversity of cultures in Latin America and how, in recent years, these cultures have changed the idea of homogenous Hispanic culture. Although Spanish is the official language of many Latin American countries, it is not culturally nor linguistically homogenous. Recently, many indigenous nations -voices never before heard- have come to the forefront all throughout Latin America.
This project will include two countries - Mexico and Ecuador- whose indigenous people are presently fighting for empowerment. We believe they are representative of this re-indigenization movement in Latin America.
In the summers of 1998 and 1999, we developed a comprehensive set of multimedia resources for beginning and advanced levels in Digital Chisel format. In the summer of 2000, we propose to complete this project. The final product will be cross-platform to be delivered over the Internet using Authorware. Instructors will be able to use this project independently. It can also enhance a variety of texts currently in use. All the material included (video, audio, texts and graphics) is up-to-date realia.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF PROJECTS:
Introduction to Indigenous cultures in Mexico and Ecuador. The overall objective is to acquaint students with the different Indigenous groups and their struggle through the presentation of videos, audio, text, and graphic material. We have developed an introduction to our project for better understanding of the topic. It includes the following:
a) Mexico: General description of Indigenous groups in Mexico and specifically in Oaxaca.
b) Ecuador: General description of Indigenous groups in Ecuador.

2. Interviews and speeches of Indigenous leaders and community members. We have created a set of exercises from two different videos using an authoring program called Digital Chisel. These exercises consist of multiple choice, picture pick, true and false, and completion of sentence The first video is an interview with Luis Macas, one of the leaders ofthe Indigenous organization in Ecuador which represents many Indigenous groups in this country. The second one is an interview with Dr. Ignacio Bernal, who has worked in the Mixe Region in Oaxaca. These videos have been digitized and subtitled.

We have tested the material created in Digital Chisel. Copyright for material from Ecuador has been obtained and, for the most part, the Copyright for the material from Mexico has been received. There are few still in process.

3. Indigenous literature. Indigenous texts will be introduced to students. We will develop a comparative guided reading to contrast literature written by Indigenous authors and texts dealing with Indigenous people written by non-Indigenous writers. Some of this material comes in the original Indigenous language and Spanish. There will be some multimedia development in this packet, which will include audio and video recorded by the authorsreading their own works.

BRIEF TIME LINE:

Summers of 1998-99

1. Research and gathering of material.
2. Multimedia selection of audio and video material.
3. Development of computerized questionnaires for audio.
4. Development of computerized written and graphic material.
5. Copyright permission for part of the material.
6. Field-testing.
7. Completion of project in Digital Chisel.

Summer of 2000 (to be completed by end of June)

a. Design of project in Authorware.
b. Cross-platform development and delivery over the Internet of the entire project.

AMOUNT REQUESTED: $6,000.00

$3,000 - Sofa Paredes; $3,000 - Marisela Nyoka

Summer 2000 under a Summer Fellowship.

EXPENSES: MATERIAL AND PROCESS FOR COPYRIGHT AUTHORIZATION

SUMMER 1998
Money transfers, long distance phone calls & materials $379.50

SUMMER 1999
Money transfers, long distance phone calls & materials $379.50

TECHNICAL SUPPORT: Access to Multimedia lab; support of technical staff and equipment such as computer with digitizing software for sound and video and scanner, Authorware, possibly, CleanPro, a software to compress and decompress files. A course on Authorware will be taken in April to learn about project design for cross-platform delivery.