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This Introductory Course should be a mandatory part of the Canadian Curriculum. While I personally found some units dry, yet undoubtedly important, ie. Units on Treaties, other units were extremely interesting. Of course, this depends on where your interests lay. If you enjoy politics and history, these units will be stimulating for you.

Many emotions are evoked throughout the course as there is learning on residential schools and the mistreatment of Indigenous women. Personally, I struggle with reconciliation, as I am not sure how Indigenous Folks will forgive and move on from the atrocities they have suffered at the hands of the "settlers".

I thoroughly enjoyed units on Storytelling and Unit 12 about Indigenous Art. I love everything about Indigenous Art: each individual piece presents a visual of an entire storybook on a single page, with a multitude of intertwined messages. It's bright and colourful and the artist, whom we get the pleasure of listening to at the end of each unit, is gentle, passionate, expressive and creative. The anticipation of the artist's commentary at the end of each module was like a treat for me, dessert.

The three presenters are flawless. Neither of them bobbled a single word! I wonder how many "takes" it took to perfect each presentation. Fabulous work! I enjoyed the numerous interviews, the real-life photos shared throughout and the subtle music (drumming & humming) at the introduction and conclusion of each module. In fact, I would have loved an addition of one more unit on Indigenous music and celebration, inclusive of ceremonial dress. Indigenous craft was touched upon; I would have enjoyed further elaboration. I am so glad I opted to enrol in this course; it has already opened dialogue for me with my brother (who asked me to send him the link!) my eldest son of three, my partner (who is a Status Indian), and at least three of my dear friends, all of whom have close connections to Indigenous people. Thank-you for building on my limited knowledge on First Nations Peoples.

it is very good introductory program providing an overview of the history of the colonization of First Nations people. I'm interested if there are additional courses that includes other Nations and the impact and their history. I was saddened to find that some of the politicians from the 60's and on have continued in a variety of way to decimate First Nations with legislation that would take continue land, rights and "life" away from First Nations. I am so thrilled to see and witness the trajectory of First Nations getting their education that allows them to FIGHT and WIN within the Canadian Judicial and Gov't. It was something I said along time ago. The course could used additional vetting of information and how it flows..but it works .as an introduction. I especially enjoyed the Professors and speakers.. I remembered those the best. I do wish you could have shown some examples of the ART of the artists you highlighted... Also how, where, who have been able to retieve some of the art back to First Nations. Many thanks, I have soooo much to learn and look forward to additional opportunities to do so.

I will share that I always wondered how the German people who survived under the Nazi regime owned and dealt with the shame of what their gov't did to millions of Jews... I assume Shame guilt disbelief...I now have similar feelings... I can't believe so much happened in my lifetime. My deepest apologies !!! Whatever I can do, I will.. to enlighten my peers of what we've done and now witnessed to draw a blind eye to and need to acknowledge, take responsibility and hope to gawd, I don't keep doing it!

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Thank you for this brilliant opportunity for an authentic and professionally presented education of our country's untold history and my personal untold ancestry. I have known for some time that I come from Metis lineage but had no teaching or reliable source of information of what that actually meant. The information presented in this course resonated on so many levels. It was truly a learning and healing exercise.

The course content was deep, concise and presented in a consistent relatable manner. Not having a formal post secondary education I was concerned that the content would be too academic to follow but that was not the case. Some of the material did stray that way but after a couple of reviews it became clear.

I appreciated the artistic depictions of the lesson at the end of each module...very, very effective and beautifully done. It was like an instant hit of community coming together to tell the story. I imagine this would be similar to the effect of how ancestral stories were passed on. It felt good to experience that first hand.

The Canadian education system would be wise to incorporate this, or portions therein, of this content in existing school programs. Or at the very least inform students of it's existence and let them decide if they want to explore it further. I believe many non-indigenous students would be interested to understand the accurate history of Canada...and by extension similar indigenous stories worldwide.

Again, thank you to everyone involved for making this course available.

My evaluation does not fully show how I feel about the content of this course as I feel the content was excellent. As as European, French Canadian living in Nelson, BC, and raised in the southern Alberta plains near Medicine Hat, I grew up in a system of racism towards my fellow Aboriginal citizens. As a young child and teenager, I played sports with my Aboriginal classmates and liked them very much and I was horrified one day in class when our control freak, white principal, strapped an Aboriginal student in our class and I was horrified. I remember crying all of the way home and knew that what I had witnessed was wrong but none of us had the courage to speak up against it. That picture of Wendell, who was such a kind and fun person in class has haunted me to this day. As an interculturalization specialist, I realized a while back that I needed to learn the true histories of our First Nations communities and people and then work to be a supporter and ally. This course was excellent. My issue is with the single, archaic assessment strategy as it seems it would have been so much more meaningful to have people write their reactions to situations of abuse and injustice to really internalize how they will accept this no further as white privilege and go beyond a social media post to show support. All in all - a very good course. I shall share it far and wide. Thank you presenters - you did an excellent job in waking me up to the truthful history that I and all Canadian need to know.

This was a really well put together course, easy to follow, and was most importantly: current, relevant, and informative. Where this course loses points for me is that some of the videos are just not engaging. The content is heavy at times, and while I know it can't always be made 'exciting' there are ways to use technology in the service of pedagogy. Some of the visuals were great, and I could see that the designers were really trying, but it could be better. There are some really great examples of engaging educational video content (Youtube: Kurtzgesagt, CrashCourse Series) that course designers can take some inspiration from. I am not saying a direct copy is needed, but there are elements that can easily be replicated to increase the engagement factor. Often times it was just the host speaking, without any visuals / screen text. If creating a learning experience with videos, its important to keep the person visually engaged. Otherwise the learner can just listen, and has no reason to view the videos. I thouroughly enjoyed this course, and it was a good learning experience for me. This course definitely filled in the blanks for me that my Canadian primary/secondary schooling left, and I feel a responsibility to honor and recognize this land on which I have been allowed to create a life for myself. I highly recommend this course to others, as I think this is an important base knowledge to have for any Canadian. Great work!

I really enjoyed the course. Having the transcripts along with the videos is great to help with review. The course notes are what I used extensively to write blogs about each module (I'm up to Week 6 on that - I will continue with writing a blog for each module every few days until I write a blog for each of the 12) .

I feel that someone does need some knowledge about the Indigenous issues in Canada to properly grasp what is presented in this course. There is a lot of information and (obviously) the course cannot go too deep. Some of the information was completely unknown to me (ie: the layering of rules around what the Indigenous peoples can do with the resources when they became too successful). And the module on treaties was difficult to understand because of the legalize.

I really enjoyed the information about the "modernization" of Indigenous peoples (ie: art, activism, success within urban settings). I think people are too stuck in viewing Indigenous peoples in their traditional roles and don't acknowledge how Indigenous peoples are just as adaptable as anyone else in changing times. Just like any other culture, values don't change, but day-to-day life does. I can't wait to see what an incredible country we can have when we are all arm-in-arm, linked together, walking towards the future together.

Thanks for the final recommendation to pursue some of the artists mentioned. I intend to do just that!

I am very grateful for this course. I gained knowledge that I didn't have before but more importantly I have greater understanding of Indigeneity. Learning about Indigenous worldviews was very helpful. I specifically connected with the loss of identity, culture, histories, traditions and kinship ties as a result of the heteropatriarchal policies of colonialism and the intergenerational trauma caused by the Residential School system. Completing this course was an emotional experience for me but it will not be the end of my learning. It is my fervent hope that more Canadians and people around the globe learn about and learn to appreciate the first peoples of their countries. I believe that every school in Canada should have age appropriate primers on Indigenous peoples of Canada that will help us achieve reconciliation. Since I was a teenager I have believed in my core that the future belongs to the Indigenous peoples of Canada.

I have no issue at all with the content of the course. However, from a production editorial perspective, I found the sound of a toilet flushing or water draining in a pipe in the background in some of the videos distracting and unfortunate. Also, the course notes would benefit from some more editing. I found the odd sentence was incomplete or didn't make sense as if a partial phrase or sentence was copied from somewhere else and accidentally pasted in an entirely different spot.

This was an informative, sometimes quite moving and educational course on the history of indigenous people in Canada, and their ongoing perspectives and struggles. Having been educated in the French school system in Canada in the 70s, I knew that I had learned a distorted and slanted version of the indigenous people and their experience throughout colonization. I appreciated learning a new perspective, which helped challenge my existing knowledge and opinions, and encouraged me to change and grow. The three presenters were excellent speakers. Thank you!

I would like to offer a couple of suggestions to enhance the experience of the course. I believe that I might have retained more information, as a visual learner, if more interviews, pictures and videos of places and events, and more artwork had been integrated within the lectures. For example, the beautiful visual course artwork should have been integrated, rather than presented at the end of each lecture, in my opinion. "A picture is worth a thousand words". I understand and appreciate that you are academics, but sometimes the lecture style and detailed information became a little heavy for this type of introduction, I think.

In conclusion, I wish to thank all involved in presenting and offering this inspiring course.