Tundra Teachers

Posted on by

[updated] 2008-03-20

At one point there were few teachers from the tundra regions writing blogs. Few enough I could put them all into one RSS feed mix in the sidebar as I came across them.

This year there are quite a few new teachers writing about their experience teaching in rural Alaska. All the blogs are different in their approach and frequency of posting. Some are interested in hearing from readers; others are not. Margaret Avugiak and Kendra Krenz have unique perspectives.

I haven’t run across anyone using blogs in the classroom, yet. The Shageluk school is using their website, instead.

I wish more schools would use a blogging, especially WordPress.com and Edublogs.org, platform as that enables more communication between classrooms and between writers and readers. Plus, all the blogging platforms offer RSS feeds for subscribing; some offer comment feeds such as WordPress and Edublogs. (Blogspot.com or Blogger has too many hoops for ordinary folks who wish to interact with the authors. However, just about all the major blogging hosts are represented. MSN Live tends to be used more by missionaries. Xanga has too few representatives and TypePad tends to have Alaska journalists.)

Take a look at all and suggest others. The community names are in brackets [ ]. To view information about the Alaska communities, simply put the village or city name where the Xxxx are (case sensitive) in your browser address bar when you get to this link

http://www.commerce.state.ak.us/dca/commdb/CIS.cfm?Comm_Boro_Name=Xxxx For example, information about Bethel is located here: http://www.commerce.state.ak.us/dca/commdb/CIS.cfm?Comm_Boro_Name=Bethel

And there is this school, not exactly of children, but definitely learning and interesting.

2008-11-01 Nushagak has finally become aware– and moved to WordPress.com, http://nushagakkennels.wordpress.com

2007-12-27 Bringing the work dog back into mushing APRN.org news story from Dillingham

[revised 2008-03-17]

For another idea of what life in a remote school is like check out this news story. Be sure to read the comments posted at APRN as well.

Teaching in small rural schools presents unique challenges (mp3)

The Lake & Penninsula Borough has 14 schools but only 370 students. The smallest school has 10 students K-12. The largest has 75 students. Small schools in secluded parts of the state resent unique challenges to teachers who have to teach multiple subjects to multiple grade levels. Anne Hillman, KDLG – Dillingham 3/14/2008 06:17

Site Search Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

54 thoughts on “Tundra Teachers”

  1. I am using blogging with my three student writing class. It has proven to motivate students who have not otherwise done much writing previously. Julian Garcia is also beginning to have his 10 or so students start to blog. My students have received comments from his class and they in turn are commenting back. It is a work in progress but should hopefully work out!

  2. Hi, Mekoryak students. They are a pretty sharp group.

    Just out of curiosity, are you using an Internet (public) web log or a wide-area network (internal only) like the First Class system (the old Tundra Net or Distance-Delivery)?

  9. Alaska Mentor Pat http://alaskamentorpat.blogspot.com/
    I work around the state of Alaska as a mentor teacher. I travel monthly to 8 different rural communities as well as working in Fairbanks. My job is to collaborate with first and second year teachers on their classroom practice.

  12. My daughter, Andrea Pokrzywinski, (Tom & Andrea Go to Bethel, AKA Postcards From Bethel) has created another blog recently. It focuses on her distance teaching of science. You can reach it by clicking on Andrea’s Class on the side bar of her original. I am already utilizing some of the resources she has linked for my training courses.

    John Pokrzywinski

  13. Thanks for mentioning that. I knew Andrea was the distance science teacher, but did not have the feed set up correctly to keep up to date on it until now.

    I’ve added that specific link above and have also corrected the title to the main blog.

  22. Pingback: More historical resources, Mr Peter Nick of Russian Mission « Grassroots Science

  27. Pingback: Todd Palin, Sarah Palin’s husband, and rural Alaska living « Grassroots Science

  29. Tales of the Arctic http://arcticteacher.blogspot.com/ [Baffin Island, Canada] Kennie

    Look, I-Quad
    They have water trucks just like ours.

    via–
    The high cost of northern living
    http://benmuse.typepad.com/arctic_economics/2008/09/the-high-cost-of-northern-living.html
    Kennie, a blogger (Tales from the Arctic) and a teacher in Arctic Bay on Baffin Island, went through the grocery store and photographed product prices to prove something to her incredulous friends down south: Believe me now? $37.89 for six cans of Minute Maid juice?

  33. North to Alaska – http://annbender.blogspot.com/
    Ann and Tom’s experiences in Chevak, Alaska

    Ann Bender
    Tom and I are both retired, sort of, and we are spending a couple of years in Chevak Alaska for the fun of it, for the challenge, and for a change. Hope we live through it. My former blog – the one that details our trip up here from Georgia and the first couple of months in Chevak is located at http://web.mac.com/annbender355/ I had load of trouble getting it to update, so finally gave up and joined Google.

  52. Pingback: Tundra Teachers « Grassroots Science