Camp teaches students through art and technology

At about 9:30 a.m. Thursday, 12 tribal teenagers settled into a conference room in the library at Salish Kottenai College in Pablo, on their last day of summer camp, to listen to a speaker in the gaming industry.

The students were part of the inaugural Flathead Tech4Good summer camp, held 9-4 p.m. July 10-13.

During the camp, the students worked together to identify problems and then learned ways to create solutions using art and technology.

The challenges students work on are determined by the community, Jonathon Richter, chair of media deisgn, film and television at SKC said.

Students learned skills related to various technologies, allowing them to gain perspective on potential career opportunities in technology-related fields.

“You can do something as simple as” a series of posters around a community to raise awareness for a topic, Richter said. Board games can be utilized to be interactive with each other, he added.

The program was free to students and was founded by private and anonymous donations.

Rebecca Goff, founder and co-owner of Native Teaching Aids of St. Ignatius, was brought on board to help organize ways for students to communicate and learn through games.

Her company, started four years ago, works with tribes, communities and schools to create materials that teach language, culture and history focusing on indigenous communities.

“We started off being very tech-y doing websites and trying to do (application) development,” Goff said, but soon the company ventured into integrating games into its curriculum. “There’s something about the interaction between people when they sit down at a table” together, she said.

Richter approached her, she said, about being part of the Tech4Good summer camp.

The board game aspect of the camp, she said, keeps the students from spending excess time on the internet, and it promotes bonding with one another.

“It’s really great to see (the students) take on their own roles,” Goff said.

Throughout the program, students were able to discover their interests and “latch on to them.”

Elizabeth LaPensée, an assistant professor of Media and Information and writing, rhetoric and American Cultures at Michigan State University, spoke to the students about her background in gaming, comics and transmedia.

LaPensée, who is of Anishinaabe, Métis, and Irish acenstry, shared average salaries of those who enter various fields within the industry, which held students’ interest when she said that someone working in the audio field of video games can make more than $90,000 a year. She also shared her own experiences with the students, explaining that while she doesn’t make what others in the various fields make, she is all right with her salary.

Organizers of the Tech4Good camp are hoping to make the summer camp annual, with activities throughout the year.