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- Athabascan Videoconferencing
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- Ben Markus
In an effort to help revitalize dying native culture, the Yukon-Koyukuk School District began teaching the Athabascan language to remote villages through videoconferencing. How else does a tiny school district teach a native language to nine different schools separated by hundreds of miles?
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Piece Description
In an effort to help revitalize dying native culture, the Yukon-Koyukuk School District began teaching the Athabascan language to remote villages through videoconferencing. How else does a tiny school district teach a native language to nine different schools separated by hundreds of miles?
Broadcast History
AK - on November 17, 2007
Transcript
Several years ago when the Yukon-Kuyukuk School District wanted to help revive the Athabascan language in their village schools, native language teacher Susan Paskvan had a high-tech idea. Today she stands in front of a videoconferencing system even a big multinational corporation would envy. She?s connecting to similar systems in village elementary schools all along the Koyukuk River from her district headquarters in Fairbanks.
Bite1 (:16) We have nine villages within Yukon-Koyukuk School District, and what?s coming on the screen now are pictures from the different sites. Right here with the lockers in the back are students from Allakaket.
One by one, video feeds from each village school pop up on the touch-screen monitor. Allakaket?s first, then Huslia, Koyukuk, Kaltag and Ruby follow. This morning she?s teaching her language class: it?s not Spanish or French or Russian?but...
Read the full transcript
Timing and Cues
Native Alaska Languages are rapidly fading away. But some are fighting back. KUAC?s Ben Markus tells of how technology is breathing life into a key piece of native culture
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