Are you teaching the Lakota Language to a new generation of learners?
Teachers of Indigenous Languages often struggle to find suitable materials to assist them. When teaching a Native American language like Lakota, teachers do not have a wide choice of learning materials. That is why we developed Seedling. Now, students studying Lakota can benefit from the latest technologies and pedagogical practices, all tailored to their culture and heritage.
Indigenous Educators can create highly engaging learning materials in their own language using Seedling.
Have you created this platform just to teach Lakota?
It is not just Lakota, we are passionate about all Indigenous languages. We value the pivotal contribution to the retention of culture that language plays. For centuries indigenous cultures encouraged their people to live in close harmony with the land and its wildlife. We hope the revitalisation of minority and Indigenous languages will help revive cultures and values that put the planet first.
We want to help bring equality of opportunity to under-served learners. It has been proven that learners who grow up with a strong understanding of their language and cultural heritage are better engaged with education throughout their lives. We are committed to encouraging culturally mindful learning that is driven by the latest technology and pedagogical thinking.
Why Seedling for Lakota Language Learning?
Mainstream educational publishers broadly ignore the requirement of minority and Indigenous language learners. This is because the number of potential students (and therefore the amount of profit) is usually quite limited.
Indigenous educators, such as teachers of Lakota, face the daily challenge of being able to devise and publish learning materials for their pupils. This is time-consuming, often expensive and the end results can sometimes appear amateurish. Learning from low-quality materials can negatively reinforce the perception among young students that their language is somehow inferior. Modern learners prefer a “digital-first” approach and we believe this should include resources that help them learn their indigenous language.
Can we produce digital-first learning materials for Lakota?
Yes, you can easily produce digital-first interactive learning materials for Lakota. Seedling has devised a series of activities and games that can be tailored to any language. Our platform enables educators to produce high-quality digital learning materials quickly and at a low cost. Each of our educational games can be adjusted to use the written text, recorded audio and visual imagery of the Indigenous language being taught. Educators can build games that look and play as well as comparable off-the-shelf products designed to teach other modern languages.
Some of the advantages Seedling offers Lakota language educators include:
- Build your own library of games and learning activities that reference not only the Lakota language but also your culture, landscape, heritage, history, elders and even the pupils themselves.
- Every game built can be edited at any time or duplicated to create a new variation.
- Games are stored within our platform forever, never degrading, never being lost or forgotten.
- The Lakota educator’s collection of learning content is only limited by their own time, knowledge and enthusiasm.
Is this a solution for the long-term benefit of the Lakota Language?
Seedling is designed to grow with our customers’ needs. We understand the complex challenges that many indigenous language teachers have to overcome. Often they are tasked with devising modern teaching strategies for ancient languages that have been rarely documented before. Our game templates allow teachers to evolve their learning materials as successful strategies and themes emerge. The flexibility of Seedling means that if an indigenous community’s understanding of their language system changes, their teaching materials can be easily altered with no reprinting or distribution expense.
We can set up Seedling for your school in less than an hour and you can be creating learning materials in your own language immediately. Every school set-up comes with 10 pre-installed game templates, specifically designed for indigenous language learning. Seedling is so easy to use that most people are able to build their first game after just 10 minutes of video instruction. However, we love to get to know our customers personally and so our team will schedule a one-hour training session with your teachers as soon as is convenient.
If we want to create Lakota Learning materials – how much does it cost?
Seedling is offered to schools as an annual license, typically costing $5,000 (USD) per year. Pricing is dependent on a number of factors including the size of the overall language community, the number of teachers and learners who are likely to be using the system and the length of the license agreed (1, 2 or 3 years). Our team can also tailor the game templates to better work for your culture and location. So, if there are particular landmarks or animals that are important to your community, our team can adjust your game templates accordingly.
We would be delighted to demonstrate Seedling and offer you a short free trial of the platform for your school.
