Heritage ‘Smoke’signals go digital (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Heritage ‘Smoke’ signals go digital

Native Culture

Posted By Jeff Tribe, Tillsonburg Independent

Quinn Donelan may not have been fully aware of the allegorical potential of
his question.

But the Pt. Burwell Public School student's inquiry if First Nations
education and communicator Dan Smoke had ever sent smoke signals was right
on the mark.

Smoke, along with wife Mary Lou and Kim Crawford's visit to the school
Thursday was facilitated by Carla Matos. The Native educators and
communicators opened with a school-wide assembly before visiting individual
classes, including Lisa Koivu's Grade 5/6 group, a session which produced
Donelan's query.

Dan Smoke has in fact physically created traditional smoke signals, which in
his response to Donelan, he compared to an early form of binary computer
communication. Computers use combinations of 'on or off' (binary switches)
in extremely complex functions. Smoke signals were similarly arranged into
regulated spaced 'puffs' to create understandable messages.

Access full article below:
http://www.tillsonburgnews.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2533839
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