My grandfather is dead: narratives of culture and curriculum

Curriculum, the term used to denote a course of study, has been understood in recent years as a documented program developed by experts and managed by an education authority. In many cases this has resulted in a focus on the experience and the goals of dominant cultures, so that minority groups do not feel well-represented in the curriculum. In this paper we explore the possibility of young people using mobile devices to enrich their curriculum by contributing content that encapsulates aspects of their lives. In a short project, we provided indigenous secondary school students from both urban and isolated communities in the Northern Territory of Australia with camera phones, and, in conjunction with their teachers, encouraged them to freely record and reflect on aspects of their lives. We found that they created artefacts of personal and cultural identity, and in some cases, extended digital narratives, of which they were clearly proud.