Good resource to help you meet Alaska cultural standards

A great resource I stumbled across earlier this year is called Alaskool. It's a site chockfull of online materials about Alaska Native history, education, languages and cultures. Alaskool is actually a project developed by the Alaska Native Curriculum and Teacher Development Project (ANCTD). Teams of teachers, elders, and community members across Alaska came together with university-based specialists to develop this curriculum.

This is really in-depth curriculum, and as far as authentic - this is the real deal - not an Alaska curriculum developed by someone who doesn't really know Alaska. There are modules, projects, units, and individual lessons that address all grade levels, all Eskimo and Alaska Native tribes, and huge variety of cultural studies. Back in February I also blogged about another site for studying Alaska History. Alaskool ranks right up there in quality with that particular resource!

For those who think they really know Alaska studies, Alaskool is bound to give you something new. I cannot stress enough the depth and quality of these lessons and units - they are well thought out and just fantastic!

One of the aspects of the site I really like is the aide and support it gives to new teachers and teachers new to Alaska in terms of working in new cultures, and also using their vast resources to write their own custom units that are suited to their unique situations.

One downside is that it doesn't look like the site is being updated any longer, but it was built on a grant from the Department of Education and sometimes those lag a little between funding. However, the information is still very current and very relevant. There are many activities and discussion suggestions for classrooms regarding such issues as AFN, Molly Hootch, and a number of other topical issues. It would be easy to use these as a jumping off point to get into newer current events affecting rural Alaska, and Alaska Natives.

Some of the content areas on Alaskool with resources are land claims, education, languages, government, traditional life, subsistence, biographies. and literature. There are also supplemental modules such as regional studies, timelines, outposts, maps, and a great audio/visual library.
Alaskool is one of the top resource sites I have found with in-depth, authentic lessons and units on Alaska and Alaska cultural studies - I have been cherry picking from it quite a bit this year, and intend to do that and a lot more with it next year as well.

It's Iditarod time again!

Those of us here in Alaska Gateway know dog mushing season is here again. On Saturday, March 7, Tanacross had their big dog races, the Great North American is coming up next week, and the last weekend in March is Race of Champions - and that's just in our neck of the woods!

As most of you are well aware, the biggie, The Iditarod, had its official start this weekend in Anchorage and then the restart in Wasilla. I know there are many classrooms here in AGSD that follow the race and run lesson plans and learning activities to coincide with the race.

For the EdTech portion of your classroom Iditarod experience, here are a few extra resources.

Of course there is the Official Site of the Iditarod complete with history, photos, live broadcasts, and current race standings. For classrooms who are doing activities with mapping race progress or graphing distance and speed of certain racers, this is race central - check it daily or several times a day as the information is always current.

For some ready made lesson plans and their accompanying resources, check out the Alaska Educational Program's "Alaska: Learning Taken to Extremes". They have a great Mushing in Alaska Unit with some nice looking resources.

The Discovery Channel Site has a nice selection of video shorts on the Iditarod. Last time I checked, there were over 30 of them to choose from - checkpoint info, caring for the dogs, interviews with the mushers, trail conditions, etc.

One other nice online classroom resource I will list here is Idita-Read. I know several teachers in AGSD have used this over the last couple of years and reported that the kids really enjoyed the competitive reading activities and the tie-in with the race. Idita-Read students rely on reading minutes to travel the distance along the trail from Anchorage to Nome.

*Flickr photo of husky by ozczecho

Alaska History - anything you need to teach it!

For anyone teaching any portion of or any subject matter related to Alaska's cultures, geography, history, etc. - this is your site! Alaska History and Cultural Studies was a site Becky Gallen, the English and Social Studies teacher at Northway, recently told me about. She says she has been using it for her Alaska Studies/History class, and I can see why.

The site was created by the Alaska Humanaties Forum. It can be taught as a course - it has 6 specific units of study with plans and activities that cover geography, Alaska's cultures, Russian territory, the purchase and time as Alaska Territory, government and the state constitution, and modern Alaska.

Within each of those units is a wealth of resources that is easy to search. There are videos, interviews on mp3 files, maps, pictures, slideshows, virtual tours, you name it. Students will have no trouble finding scholarly research information for their studies and projects.

Environmental science teachers will also find many good resources and references here.
Although much of the material is for older students, kids as young as 5th grade could easily use and enjoy many of the interactive activities, as well as the informative videos and interviews.

Whenever I see a site that is put together this way, I think how cool it would be for students to create a site like this to show their learning - a web page with links to searched or created multimedia, good research accompanied by pictures and maps, and appropriate links to sites that give further information. This is an excellent example for our students of what they should be doing!

Anyone who is an Alaskan will find the Alaska History and Cultural Studies site a fascinating search to check out - Thanks Becky!