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Welcome to the seasonal-calendar wiki!

Stephanie - will use this to list some of the feedback that get from users

David (remote school context & also using BioCollect):

I spent time in class with students looking at the Biocollect portal and the ALA. The school's network made it difficult to load pages and for them to display correctly which was unfortunate. At times, the ALA displayed a text only version of the page which effectively made it unusable.

I need to discuss this with the school and look at ways that this can be improved. A colleague at CSIRO suggested a device that can cache large web pages that are accessed by many students, making it easier to load. Are you aware of anything that can reduce bandwidth issues? FYI both ALA and Biocollect worked fine using the Telstra 4G network available in the town. I used my iPad in the end as it was on 4G however there were difficulties displaying the map and entering data as discussed.

My learning when working with the students during this process is that there needs to be lots of background work done to prepare students to enter data. Students need to be familiar with animal and plant ID using field guides, understand the Linnaean classification system so that they can identify species names easily, and be familiar with searching the ALA database to locate species. I think that a bespoke basic field guide using commonly sighted animals/plants from the local area would reduce difficulty for students and allow easy and accurate species reference when searching in Biocollect. I know that this is possible with the ALA and it may be that students can support the development of a two-way local field guide based on ALA info with added Martu knowledge. I am hesitant to introduce the Biocollect portal without that background work and planning.

I am developing an exercise for Debbie to use in class with the students to start the process. It will be a hands on visual calendar design project using images of the mosaic tiles that Wiluna School is developing. They will lay it out as a circle in a similar way to the CSIRO Indigenous Calendars, add current seasonal calendar text that has been collated and work on it with Senior Martu until they have compiled information that they need.

In the meantime, we can prepare support material for the digital interface part of the project and try to resolve technical issues. Once the info for the calendar is complete, the data entry can take place and the mosaic tile images used to illustrate the different sections. Students will feedback on this process as discussed.

My feeling is that because kids in Wiluna have been working on Martu Seasons for a while they don't need to spend the full year in this case and could come up with a draft in a few weeks (depending on the time the teacher allocates each week).

As a generic program, the added science activities work really well. We have developed what we call an 'Active Calendar' which is developed over the year, collating (in Wiluna's case) Martu knowledge and Wangka, observations, pictures etc. Which fits in with this model nicely.

Yes is the answer to this from your email below: "From what you have been saying it is best (from an educational/schools context at least) to have some simpler/hands on exercises to develop up the calendar and seasonal information concepts first, before jumping into the digital interface, where really you need to have the information collated and structured beforehand"