“We hope you enjoy 'We Are Alaska' as much as we all enjoyed creating it!”
Dr. Robert Whicker and Steve Nelson, AASB Consortium for Digital Learning
“Working with Kiwa and digital learning is a means to promote indigenous Cup’ik culture and language. As a result of this engagement with Kiwa we received a 2014 Contributions to Literacy in Alaska award from the Alaska Center for the Book.”
Kashunamiut School District, Alaska
We Are Alaska
Traditional
In November 2012 15 high school students and 7 adult advisors from four school districts gathered in Anchorage, Alaska to participate in the first KIWA SLAM™ project. Students were tasked with creating an entire 20 page illustrated book in just 48 hours.
With an overall theme of “We Are Alaska”, each district team worked collaboratively to create a storyline representative of their communities through telling a local story or myth. Teams were allotted five pages to present their story, illustrate, and record the story narration; the books were then assembled and published to the world on the iTunes App Store.
For more on the revitalization of language in Alaska, view this movie, made by Katie Reeves, that tells the story of an Alaskan village striving to revitalize its native culture and language. It describes the efforts of the Kashunamiut School District in Chevak, Alaska and the Association of Alaska School Boards to revitalize the Cup’ik language, Chevak Story
Features
- Swipe-to-Read™
- Touch-to-Hear™
- Touch-to-Spell™
- Record your narration
- Colour in the illustrations
- Character animation
