Dine College Trip Report

1. Richard Anderson Dine College Trip Report

2. Dine College • 2 year Tribal College • Established 1968 as Navajo Community College • 7 sites, • Main campuses • Tsaile, AZ • Shiprock, NM • Current enrollment 1,830 students

4. Navajo Nation • 26,000 square miles • Population (2000), 175,000 • Long walk, 1863 • Indian Removal Act

5. Navajo Nation

6. Tsaile, AZ

7. Canyon de Chelly

8. Spider Rock

9. Computer Science Program • One Computer Science Instructor • BA Math, MS CS, PhD Philosophy • Lots of experience teaching at Tribal Colleges • Courses • CS1, CS2 • Reges and Stepp text • Hardware • Networking • Operating Systems • Web Design • Discrete Math

10. Hardware Course

11. MIT Summer Course • 5-week course on refurbishing computers • Rebuilt computers and made them available to the community • Visiting instructor from MIT

12. Dine Multimedia Project

13. Talking books

14. UW ICTD Pitch • Met with students from CS courses • Presented a short overview of UW Developing World Projects • Used CAM as an example • Showed the CAM video from website • Mentioned medical protocols and digital study hall

15. Senior Capstone Model (CSE 477) • Previous years – intensive quarter long project course • This year – Developing World Technology • Three quarter sequence • Background seminar • Design studio • Intensive quarter long project course • Goal – partner with student project groups at Heritage University

16. Project Ideas (from students) • Animal identification and tracing • Erosion control • Plant identification • Artisan • Provenance • Connection of supplier to consumer • Recycling • Land records • Diet monitoring

17. Animal Tracing • Cows, Horses, Sheep • Problems of keeping track of ownership • Identification of brands • Reporting of locations • Determining ownership of unbranded locations

18. Erosion • Water is the critical resource • Student comment on “fence in the air”

19. Recycling • Student comment on the need for the reservation to set up recycling • Issue identified of illegal dumping • Identifying • Recording • Publicizing

20. Land records • “Everyone is involved in a land dispute” • Mention of existing services based on GPS

21. Artists • Traditional arts • High value • High mark up • Competition with Mexican, Thai, Belgian, Pakistani imports • Opportunities • Connect consumers/producers • Support authenticity • Establish value • Issues • Artists often traditional, Navajo speaking • Cultural concerns • Business instructor found lack of interests in using eBay for marketing

22. Plant identification • One student had worked on a summer project doing a census of invasive species • Data recording/identification done by hand

23. Diet monitoring • Diabetes problem mentioned

24. Indian cultural/language projects • These did not come up from the students • Very sensitive area

25. Engineering Deployment Kits • Computing technologies widely applicable in developing world • Successful deployment requires deep understanding of local context • Basic technologies applicable in many different contexts • Design technology to support local modification / deployment

26. Potential EDK’s • CAM • Digital StudyHall • DigitalStar • PDA support for decision trees

27. Partnerships with Tribal Colleges • Strong interest in having technology applied • “We are a developing nation” • Problem areas are highly relevant to ICTD • Likely benefits to UW and TCs • But not likely to yield a large number of transfer students to UW • Partnerships • Need administrative support and faculty / student connections • Possible approach to work with AIHEC

28. Possible next steps with Dine • Link to student project groups • Teach an Introductory Programming Class over the summer (aimed at transfer students) • Teach a Developing World Technology seminar at Dine over the summer