This website was developed by the Native Languages of the Americas, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and promoting American Indian languages, especially through the use of the Internet. It includes a collection of Native American folktales and traditional stories that can be read online. These tribal stories are indexed by the name of Native American tribes.
The site is "a compendium of online materials about more than 800 indigenous languages of the Western Hemisphere and the people that speak them." There are stories about tribes, links to other resources, links to Amazon to books about tribes, facts about the history, people and languages of the natives.
Type of Material:
Collection
Recommended Uses:
The site is recommended for anyone interested in learning about indigenous languages in the Western Hemisphere and about the people. There are many stories on the site, this would make it a good resource for anyone interested in researching the native languages and the tribes.
Technical Requirements:
There are no technical requirements other than Internet access.
Identify Major Learning Goals:
Visitors to the website would explore and gain knowledge of Native American Indian legends.
Target Student Population:
Elementary, Middle, and secondary level students with teacher guidance.
Higher education students and faculty.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
There are not pre-requisites required for this site. The reading level for the site is about 4th grade (age 10).
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
This website includes numerous links to Native American Indian legends and folklore. Many of the connecting links take you to another website with information of that particular tribe. There are also several pages of archived legends and folklore that were developed by the Native Languages of the Americas Organization. It was stated that the organization has archived some legends that may have been lost otherwise.
Concerns:
As noted by the Native Languages of the Americas Organization, the legends should be used with discretion when they are shared with young children. It should be noted that many of the links connect to other websites and not under the control of the Native Languages of the Americas Organization.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
This website provides a special resource with the collection of Native American Indian legends. Many of these legends are retold by Native American Indians.
This resource could be used during the study of Native American Indians. With teacher guidance, the legends could be used in history classes at all grade levels from kindergarten to 12th grade.
This website could also be used as a resource for higher education in American History courses and history/social studies methods methods courses. Since the resources are legends and folklore, it could be used in the American literature courses at all grade levels and at the college level.
Concerns:
As noted, this is not a website that should be open to young students, but a site for young students to use with teacher guidance.
A tutorial would help to enhance this site. The learning material cannot be readily integrated into the curriculum. The site is intended to inform the reader. A teacher would need to read through the material and design a lesson plan to teach this material to a class.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
This website is well organized by the names of the Native American Indian tribes with links to their tribal legends. This make it easy to navigate and select the resources needed.
In addition to the links to the legends, there are many links to websites about other aspects of Native American Indian resources, such as their culture and languages.
Concerns:
The concern is that this site is the 1998 format and is strictly text based. Compared to newer and revised sites, this is hard on the eyes. The site would be enhanced through a new design and the addition of multimedia.
Since many of the websites are linked to other servers, then these links are dependent on outside sources.
Creative Commons:
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