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| Fortuna Ledge class portrait -- ASL-MS146-03-15B |
- How can educators use new media to better reach and teach Alaska's students?
- Why is an awareness of Place important?
- How can an awareness of Place create better learning for Alaska students?
ENGAGE
Let's begin our exploration of this geographically immense and culturally diverse state by reflecting on the very nature of this course; Though we are all different people in vastly different places at different times reading these words, we are also connected by them, even if only fleetingly.Throughout this course, we will make use of the power of this technological connection to illustrate, time and again, how everything is connected in nature and in history, and how we are all connected as Alaskan educators.
First Place
This first module is primarily designed to introduce you to the main digital resources for the course, as well as get you started on your own blog. But the beginning of this first module is also the right place to talk about Place. Place as a way of understanding. Place as a way of being. Place as a way of learning.
Whether you're an Alaskan Native, a native Alaskan or a Cheechako, most of us know what it means to come from a place or to know a place. Place provides context in our lives. Place provides identity. Place provides security and sustenance for many Alaskans.
As educators making our way into the classrooms across Alaska, effective teaching often means learning about the places and the people who live where we teach.
Whether you're an Alaskan Native, a native Alaskan or a Cheechako, most of us know what it means to come from a place or to know a place. Place provides context in our lives. Place provides identity. Place provides security and sustenance for many Alaskans.
As educators making our way into the classrooms across Alaska, effective teaching often means learning about the places and the people who live where we teach.
EXAMINE
Consider this quote taken from Alaskan anthropologist Thomas Thornton's book on people, place and cultural identity, Being and Place Among the Tlingit. These lands are vital not only to our subsistence, but also to our sense of being as Tlingit people - Gabriel George
- How does the connection between people and place appear in your community?
Now it's time to move on to the next segment of Module I - Place and Pedagogy.
