Using a high-speed satellite connection, and spurred-on by local initiatives on the part of its teachers, Kangiqsualujjuaq’s Ulluriaq School has once again set the stage for other schools to follow, but this time the stage is unlike any other.

From the point of view of their violin teacher the stage appears as a large screen projected onto a wall in Buckingham, Quebec. From there some Ulluriaq School students a thousand kilometers away can be seen tuning up, poising themselves in front of their music stands, lifting their bows to strike their first notes. The teacher gives them the cue to begin, and the sound and images travel halfway around the world and back again to finally meet her attentive ears. A second later, equally large and on the wall in Kangiqsualujjuaq, a bit of worldly advice streams into the room, as the teacher voices her comments and then gives her own demonstration of how things should sound, of the new direction they are taking that day. The satellite connection is provided by Telesat's Satellite Multimedia Trials for Schools project.

The Music Grid Project is a wide-reaching collaborative effort that attempts to surmount two specific problems in music education, namely the “inequity of student music programs across Canada, and the lack of music teacher access to peers, mentors and professional development.” In other words, videoconference connectivity between small groups in distant locations offers an opportunity for students to take classes not otherwise available to them, and now teachers in isolated areas can develop continue to develop professionally by working together with other professionals worldwide.

As part of a greater goal, the project will also be evaluated from both a technical as well as a pedagogical perspective. Economic and social benefits will be considered, as will the “ways in which the project provides support for the development and sharing of cultural heritage.” In short, the Ulluriaq School experiment will help to pave the way for a new vision of how education, and the delivery and communication of all information might evolve in a Nunavik of the future, a Nunavik not so very far north after all.

For more information:
A news article in the newspaper Nunatsiaq News

You can contact our teacher Chris by email (chris_macpherson@kativik.qc.ca)