Institute of Social & Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage
Participants: Paul Ongtooguk, Katie Eberhart, Priscilla Hensley, Jim Kerr, Suzanne Sharp,
Sharing Alaska Native Information Online: Developing and Maintaining the Alaskool Website
Session presentation will revolve around the course of development of the Alaskool website ("Site" www.Alaskool.org) sharing developers’ experience and participation in a unique project creating one of the richest repositories online for Alaska Native history, language, and cultural resources. We share this information with hopes that others will utilize them in efforts to preserve and enhance their own communities.
Presentation focal points include: 1) continuing ethical, technological, and practical issues the project has faced and how they’ve been handled or approached; 2) strengths and weaknesses of using the Internet as a medium for presenting educational material that is about, by, and for Alaska Native people; 3) sharing different roles staff members have played in creating the site and individual insights into how we each envision and interact with the site and; 4) discussion of specific features and tools we have had continuing success with.
Special Equipment
Internet access with outlet required; preference for a large screen to display Alaskool website during presentation.
Outcomes and Transferability
We have found, to our surprise, there is no other site on the Web that can rival Alaskool for the volume, quality, and diversity of material available about Alaska history, language and cultures. Tools created in the course of this project are original and exclusive to Alaskool. Our vision for this compilation of material is that it will continue to serve the Alaska Native community for many years to come. We believe resources such as the language tools will become vital to sustaining and increasing the current community of speakers of different languages, as well as increase and extend opportunities for others who wish to learn more of their Native language. We foresee participants coming away from the presentation with practical insight into how they can actively participate in enhancing, sharing, and perpetuating the rich cultures and histories of their communities. Examples are tools for creating local literacy materials distinct and useful for their own community needs. We look forward to discussing how during the progression of Alaskool, the majority of core staff members have developed professional technical skills and important knowledge about their own indigenous history and language.
Relation to Conference Theme: Briefly describe how your proposal relates to the conference theme.
We are actively partaking in recapturing crucial research, essential curricular material and other indispensable publications that are no longer easily obtainable and making these available for communities to be utilized. These efforts to make Alaska Native history and material accessible for students, teachers and communities across Alaska represents an active role in reclaiming information and research vital to those communities.
Alaskool has also been involved in bringing together and partaking in significant Alaska Native education programs and major events while providing distinguished online resources to fill a gap. We would like to convey realities of using technology as a tool in preserving information, and share anecdotes of how we have dealt with some voices from the indigenous communities' response to documents on Alaskool. Ultimately, we wish to show how Alaskool has ultimately become a resource not merely for the Alaska Native community within Alaska but for anyone anywhere who wants to learn more about Alaska Native people from "the old days" to today.