Patricia Search Will Work With International Team To Develop Courseware for Aboriginals

Troy, N.Y. - Patricia Search, multimedia artist and professor of communication at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has won a Fulbright Senior Specialists Grant in Communications and Journalism. She will use the grant to travel to Sydney, Australia, to work on Web-based, higher-education courses geared toward Aboriginal students.

Search will incorporate multimedia communications strategies and interactive digital artwork in online indigenous studies programs that are being developed at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, and at the School of Computing and Information Technology at the University of Western Sydney.

The online courses are being developed to improve higher-education accessibility for indigenous Australians, and as an empowerment tool to enhance economic, social, and political opportunities in their communities, according to Search.

"Indigenous learners in Australia who undertake formal education achieve the lowest academic score levels of any group in Australia," Search said. "The goal of this international collaboration is to facilitate learning for the indigenous Australians by developing courses that reflect their ways of thinking, and to give Western-thinking students a heightened awareness of indigenous perspectives, culture, and heritage."

Oral and visual communications, as opposed to the written word, play an important role in indigenous cultures. Oral storytelling, ceremony, and art, for example, are still central to how indigenous people interact, learn, and become productive in society. Search said that she will work to incorporate storytelling traditions into the designs of the Web-based courses, which will be based primarily in the humanities and social sciences.

Search teaches courses at Rensselaer in interactive electronic design that combine text, images, and music. Her digital artwork has been shown worldwide. She has published articles on interactive multimedia computing in numerous international publications.

Contact: Jodi Ackerman
Phone: (518) 276-6531
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