LaToya Benally
REU Undergraduate Fellow
American Distance Education Consortium

Biography

LaToya Benally is an enrolled member of the Navajo Tribe in Arizona. This is LaToya's first year at ADEC. She was born and raised in North Platte, Nebraska and graduated from North Platte High School. She is now attending University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a major in Criminal Justice.

LaToya works with and is co-supervised by Craig Campbell, Project Coordinator for Tribal Colleges and Indian Affairs at ADEC. She also works with and is co-supervised by Helen Long Solider, Education Specialists for Native American Students Multi-Cultural Affairs - Minority Assistance Program. Helen currently works a portion of her time at the ADEC offices.

Helen and LaToya are currently working on a research project (see description below) at Little Priest Tribal College (LPTC). LPTC is one of the sites involved in ADEC's Advanced Internet Satellite Education Project (AISEP) funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Project Description: The Impact of Technology on Native American Female Interest and Participation in Math and Science

Participants will learn different possibilities of how technology can impact the learning process of unique populations. Native American women who reside on a small reservation in northeast Nebraska are often isolated from educational opportunities. This project researches their interest, participation and success with technological learning methods: computers, the internet, and distance education.

Personal qualitative interviews will provide insight into the cultural background of the participants and how culture can be incorporated into the learning process. Some of the interviews will be shared with the audience to help them understand how certain aspects of the culture, such as the oral tradition can be enhanced by technology. In addition the audience will learn how through outreach and technological advances resources and opportunities can be made accessible to persons on the reservation who do not have the means to come to the institution. We will present how Native American communities can utilize technology. Special attention will be given to identifying appropriate technology solutions in reservation communities.

Through technology we can identify ways to increase the number of women experiencing success in learning math and science and then entering into career fields that require knowledge of those areas. It is often these fields that are most lacking in these communities. Native American people and communities have many unmet needs in the area of higher education. Native American women in particular have not had the educational opportunities that other people take for granted. All too often she is the single head of household and must be the breadwinner for the entire family.

We will explore the interviews done with women attending Little Priest Tribal College on the Winnebago Indian Reservation in northeast Nebraska. Students were asked about their educational experiences and their reaction to distance education technology. They were asked to describe their educational needs and the kind of support they would need to be academically successful, particularly in the fields of mathematics and sciences.

The role of distance education is reaching remote areas is of great value to these populations. We will discuss some new advances in this area. Interactive two-way education can assist in preserving the culture of the community. This technique is also valuable in reaching out to individuals who do not have access to the classroom.