Destination LogWhere does the money go Payday loans Have a history of poor borrowing
Destination Log
All tasks within a block are assigned at the same time. New tasks are not assigned until the tasks in the block are completed. Bonus tasks are not required.
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You’re required to complete these two tasks before starting anything with your team. The application and MOU all need to be turned in to the Sister School Exchange office ASAP. If you have questions about any of these items, don’t hesitate to call a Sister School Exchange staff person.
The MOU requires that you and your principal read and agree to the Sister School Exchange Policies and Procedures.
Download the Policies and Procedures
For a little extra orientation on the program overall, here is a nice description of the whole thing.
Download Introduction to the Sister School Exchange
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We assign this task once you have been matched with your Sister School teacher and usually have you do it during the teacher orientation. If you don’t see it assigned to you, and you will be attending the orientation, you’ll see it then. You will sit down with your Sister School teacher and work together on planning your when you will be delivering key points of the curriculum, and when you will be doing the actual exchanging!
The program works best when your team and your Sister School team are working through the tasks at about the same time.
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Teacher Task: Teacher Bonus: Exceptional Profile
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The Personal Profile items are required so you can use your profile as an example for your students when you help them with their profiles. It’s also a great way to become familiar with the Flip camera if you’ve never used one before, and practice uploading things to the Destination Log. All of this practice will make it much easier for you to lead your students. If you’re having any technical difficulties, please contact the Sister School Exchange office and have them help you troubleshoot.
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Teacher Tasks: You’ll need to fill out all of these at least 3 weeks before you travel. |
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IF YOU WANT YOUR STUDENTS TO ACCOMPLISH THE FIRST TASK DURING YOUR FIRST SESSION TOGETHER -- READ THIS:
The first task of the whole program is for students to take the Challenge Quiz, and this must be completed by all students before your whole team can proceed to the next step. Tasks are assigned by the staff of the Alaska Humanities Forum. Tasks cannot be provided to individual students until they have been registered. If you are planning to have your students complete the quiz during your first session together, we recommend that1-2 days before your first session,YOU register every student who will be involved. Once they are registered, the AKHF staff will assign the quiz task to each student, and then you will be able to have everyone take the quiz right away. You will have to assign the username, but they can change their password later. If you watch the “Introduction to the Destination Log video” (which is the video that is part of the “Sign Up” task instructions), it will tell you how to log in and register your students. Make sure you know how to sign in to the Destination Log and how to help your students find the Challenge Quiz. If you have any questions about any of these steps, please contact a Sister School Exchange staff person.
Each individual student will need to do the Challenge Quiz on their own Personal Profile. You can lead the whole group through the introduction of the task together, but when it comes time for them to sign in and take the quiz, they’ll have to do it on individual computers. This is a critical piece of the evaluation portfolio. All students must complete this task before your team will be allowed to go on to the next tasks.
There may be words and concepts that the students do not know on the quiz - that is OK. It is not a test, but a survey to see what students already know (and what their attitudes and perceptions of other places are) prior to completing the other tasks and the exchange. If a student does not know what to answer, there is a place for them to choose “I don’t know.”
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FLOATING TASKS These tasks aren’t really in the flow of the curriculum -- they can be completed in parallel with the team’s curricula tasks. As soon as you know who your Travelling Ambassadors will be, let your Sister School Guide know and these tasks will be assigned. |
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Student Tasks: When you know which students will be traveling to your Sister School Community, you can help them start to get all this paperwork completed. It must be turned in at least 3 weeks before your team travels. |
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FLOATING TASKS These tasks aren’t really in the flow of the curriculum -- they can be completed in parallel with the team’s curricula tasks. This section is for Host Families. In general, the host families are the families of your Traveling Ambassadors, but they do not have to be. Let your Sister School Guide know when you are ready for these tasks. |
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Teacher Task: The instructions for these tasks are pretty self-explanatory. It’s a good idea for you to take some time and look through the Family Guide for Host Families and Parents. Download Family Guide for Host Families and Parents Also, if you’re interested in having a host family night to orient your host families, contact the staff at the Sister School Exchange and see if one of them can lead that meeting for you. The paperwork must be completed 5 weeks before the visiting team arrives. |
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Team Task: Team Task: Awarded when your host families are approved. |
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Team Task: Bonus: Exceptional Host Families Awarded if your hosts families post a brief introduction. |
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In these next few tasks, your students are going to learn more about the Sister School Exchange, locate your Sister School on a map, and learn our operative definitions of urban, rural, culture, and cultural ambassador.
In Orientation 1, you’ll have a 10-minute movie to watch that shows parts of an actual exchange that happened last year. It’s a great look at how the program works.
Your students will be asked to look up their own community and their Sister School Community on the Alaska Community Database. Before you do this with students, take yourself to that website and have a look around. Read through the one-page descriptions and be prepared to help your students do the same.
Link to the Alaska Community Database
Your team will make written posts for Orientation 1 and 2. In Orientation 1, you’ll also be invited to copy the picture of Alaska that you see in the Alaska Community Database. You can get that image by right-clicking or two-finger clicking on the image, saving the image, and then attaching it to your post.
Task Orientation 2 covers a lot of ground. Please read through it first before doing it with your students. You may find it helpful to write our definitions of culture and cultural ambassador in a place where everyone can see them easily.
For the Bonus task, two great places to find pictures of Alaskan communities are on that same Alaska Community Database website mentioned above, and also in the state library archives.
Link to the Alaska State Archives
EXTRA RESOURCES
If you want to go deeper with your students on the topics of urban and rural Alaska, the Commonwealth North report “Urban Rural Unity Study” is a handy extra resource. It really gets to the heart of why this program exists, and gives you a strong foundation about the Alaskan urban/rural divide.
Download Urban Rural Unity Report
If you want to learn more about the Alaska Native cultures of the part of the state you will be exchanging with, a good place to start is with this resource:
Link to Online Alaska History and Cultural Studies Alaska’s Cultures page.
Another fun thing to do is to use Google Maps to see what the community looks like from space, or Google street view, if you’re looking at a community where that is available. Or just do a general internet search with your Sister School Community’s name and see what comes up!
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Important Note: Do not use last names in the videos or posts.
You should have completed your own “Hello Video”, “Profile Pic” and “About Me”, so hopefully you’re already a pro on these topics.
Personal profiles are required for your traveling ambassadors; if you are working with a large group, all students can have a personal profile, and you might use completion of the Personal Profile as one motivation for choosing your travelers.
Invite your students to make the most of their own personal pages. Please emphasize that it shouldn’t be treated entirely like a Facebook page (i.e., it shouldn’t be changed every day!), but it’s a great way for their Sister School Ambassadors to get to know them.
Remind them that you (the teacher) and the Sister School Exchange staff will see and have to approve every post they make. Also, tell your students that if they’re interested in other Ambassador opportunities in the future, their Personal Profiles may be reviewed to see who would be good candidates.
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This task must be completed and posted before your team will be assigned the Community Profile Video task. We really want to you practice planning your shots before going out with the video camera. Practicing this now will save you a great deal of time and effort for your Areas for Exploration that your team will be doing later.
There are two “Nutty Professor” videos under the heading “Learn Some Basics About Video Production” that you should preview to decide if your students will gain something from them.
For sure watch the “Planning Your Shots” video.
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Your output with these tasks is to produce a video that shows several aspects of your community to help introduce it to your Sister School Ambassadors.
If your team is doing these tasks before doing the Personal Profile tasks, have your students watch the two videos that introduce the Flip camera and editing software so they can see how it all works.
The other instructional videos are about helpful video skills, like how to edit several video clips together into one “collage video.” You’re learning skills now that will also be required later in this program, when you’re on your exchange.
The post for Community Profile Prep asks for a list of 10 places in your community that would be good to show your Sister School Team. Help your students think broadly about the various aspects of your community: schools, stores, homes, places where people spend a lot of time outside, important gathering place for lots of people, what kinds of transportation you use, important historical or cultural locations, etc.
The filming must happen outside of the classroom, and may take more time than your usual group time. You could assign pairs of students to do each topic and then take turns using the Flip camera. The filming can take place over time, instead of all at once, but don’t let it stretch out too long because we’re waiting to send your next tasks until these are finished!
To earn the bonus badge, your team can make a collage video of some PEOPLE in your community, and show them going about their day-to-day lives. Or a series of individuals do something interesting, like saying hello in many different languages.
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The “10 Elements of Community Life” is a slideshow presentation that the Sister School Exchange staff have put together to help students think about how common community challenges and needs are solved differently throughout the state. It is a large file, and a fairly in-depth presentation with a lot of thoughtful discussion topics. We encourage you to take a look through it before you lead your students through it so you know what to expect. You may also find topics that you’d like to explore more deeply with them, or you may decide that you want to split this presentation up into 2-3 group meetings instead of doing the whole things all at once. Or, you may discover that these topics tie in to other curriculum you teach and you’d like to go a different direction with it. That’s all possible. If you’re thinking of diverting too far, please contact the Sister School Exchange staff and just double-check that it can work that way without missing some key element of this program.
Two of these topics contain important vocabulary words that we have included in our evaluation portfolio for this program. Please draw special attention to the terms “subsistence” and “bilingual” and help your students understand the importance of these concepts to Alaskan culture. Here’s an extra resource on subsistence, if you care to use it:
Link to Online Alaska History and Cultural Studies Subsistence page
The discussion topics included in the presentation may also give you good ideas of things you’d like to learn more about when you visit your Sister School Community. Take note of topics that your students seem to find particularly interesting.
The post for “More About Our Community” is a series of written statements about your home community. Help your students think about current local events to answer these questions.
Go Deeper:
Have your students attend a local meeting to hear about current local issues.
Bring someone in for your group to interview about local issues.
Link to Online Alaska History and Cultural Studies Governance page.
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FLOATING TASKS: Preparing for your Areas for Exploration The following tasks depend on information being sent back-and-forth between your team and your Sister School Team. The whole point of this these tasks is to foster curiosity within your students about particular things they’d like to learn more about when they’re in your Sister School Community, and for your Sister School Ambassadors to provide some information about those topics to help set you up for a successful learning experience when you’re there. Conversely, your team will be asked to provide some information about the topics your Sister School Ambassadors choose to learn more about when they’re visiting you! Here’s how it should flow: |
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Team Task: This will prompt your Sister School Team to add comments to your post that suggest where you should go and who you should interview to learn more about the three things you’ve listed. |
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Team Tasks: Once your Sister School has made comments to your Curiosity Post, you can start to make plans for your three Areas for Exploration: (See below for more on Areas for Exploration) |
AREAS FOR EXPLORATION:
The Areas for Exploration are the three major assignments for your team to accomplish when you’re visiting your Sister School Community. In many ways, the Areas for Exploration are the culminating point of this program, and emphasis will be placed upon assuring that these experiences are meaningful and serve the mission of the program.
The Areas for Exploration are mini research and documentary projects that help each team learn more about the lifestyles, culture, or community structure in its Sister School Community, and then tell others about what they’ve learned. Topics can range from complex issues such as “The Effect of Energy Prices on Subsistence Culture” or “Geography and Climate and its Effects on Community and Culture” to more straightforward topics like “Making Caribou Stew” or “Helping Out at the Salvation Army.”
Although the Areas for Exploration will happen during the exchange, they must be planned before your team travels.The back-and-forth dialogue outlined above will hopefully help you put together most of that plan, and hopefully your Sister School Team will provide helpful suggestions so you can learn more about the things you’re interested in. Likewise, you can be very helpful to your Sister School Team by providing information to them and pointing them in a good direction for learning more when they’re visiting you. AKHF will provide each Ambassador Team with up to $500 for field trips and other activities related to the Areas for Exploration.
The plans for your three Areas for Exploration will include the following information:
You will do one Area for Exploration on each of three days while visiting your Sister School Community. You will be required to upload a video for each that shows some snippets of the actual experience, and then a group debrief about it.
This document shows some examples of Area for Exploration plans:
Download Area for Explanation Examples
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FLOATING TASKS: Helping your Sister School team with their Areas for Exploration and travel preparation. |
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When your Sister School Team makes their post called “We Are Wondering About:”, your team will be assigned the Help them Explore Task. During this task, you’ll go to the post they made and in the comments section, you’ll send them suggestions about places they should go and people they should talk to in YOUR community in order to learn more about the things they’ve listed.
“Make a Schedule” is a way for you to help create the schedule for your Sister School Team’s visit to your community. Take a look at this task before doing it with your students so you can also check your schedule and have some idea of what else is going on in your school that week.
An extra-nice thing to do: if you’ve suggested any particular people in your community that your Sister School Team should talk to, why don’t you go ahead and see if you can make an appointment with that person for your Sister School Ambassadors so they’re already set to go on that Area for Exploration?
The “Welcome Plan” really helps make your Sister School Ambassadors feel excited about arriving in your community, instead of nervous or scared. “Help Them Prepare” gives you an opportunity to send them suggestions and ideas about what they should pack to bring with them on their trip.
Here are some ideas from past Sister School Teachers to help you think about how to welcome your visitors and make them feel at home:
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These tasks are fairly straightforward and scripted, and they can really come to life if you’re interested in going deeper. You might consider inviting a Sister School Exchange staff person to visit your team to help go through all of these tasks all at once and have a good in-depth discussion about what it means to be a culture bearer and a cultural ambassador, and to help your students understand that they are both of those things. (While that staff person is there, you could also have an informational meeting for parents and host families to learn more about the upcoming exchanges!)
The information in “What is a Cultural Ambassador?” is important in helping your students understand the importance of their role as ambassadors and the responsibilities they have when they’re both traveling hosting.
The “Culture Bearer Interview” task is an opportunity for your team to meet a cultural leader in your community, and also to get some practice conducting an interview. Please help them formulate good questions to ask this person, and help them practice asking those questions before doing it live with that person.
The “Exceptional Cultural Understanding” bonus task is a fun activity based on something called “You Might Be From Minnesota If …” This document contains a long list of things unique to Minnesota, and the challenge is for your team to create something similar that shows the uniquenesses of your community. We intentionally chose the Minnesota document as an example, so we wouldn’t influence your ideas with other Alaska ideas.
Other Resources & Suggested Activities:
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This task MUST be completed by all Traveling Ambassadors. It is critical to our evaluation and continued funding. If you have involved other students in the curriculum, then they are welcome to take it to. We will send a summary of how your students did on this section via email.
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FOR TRAVELING AMBASSADORS ONLY |
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This is the last set of tasks you need to do before you travel. These should be done within the last week before you leave. “Traveling Ambassador Prep” is designed just for you - the teacher - to help you think through all the details of the trip and help make sure your students are prepared for the assignments they have for this program as well as knowing what to pack.
This is also your opportunity to look through the Field Manuals and Passports and become familiar with both of these tools. Take some time to page through both items with your students and discover everything that’s within.
Your team is required to make a public group introduction of themselves in your Sister School Community. This works best if you’ve planned it ahead of time and practiced it. All the details are outlined in “Travel Prepped!”
The Group Interview is designed to help your team practice one more video skill before you go - setting the camera up so that the whole team fits in the picture and having each person answer a couple of questions. This skill will be required for your team debriefs of the Areas for Exploration. It’s also a good way to hear how your students feel a few days before the trip, and take note if anyone is especially nervous.
Before you go, communicate clear expectations regarding cell phones, iPods, etc. If being a Cultural Ambassador includes representing yourself and participating, experiencing, and learning from others, how will that be done if your student is shut off from their surroundings?
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FOR TRAVELING AMBASSADORS ONLY: Tasks to be completed DURING the exchange. |
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Team Task: Bonus: Exceptional Ambassadors
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All of these team tasks and the details for each are listed in the Fields Manuals (they’re called “Waypoints”). Be sure to look through all of these with your students before you leave so you know what’s expected of you. Tasks “Getting There”, “Icebreakers”, and “First Impressions” all happen very early in your trip. For example, for “Getting There”, your team should be taking video and/or pictures while you travel.
Here are a few extra hints, tips, and things to consider:
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FOR TRAVELING AMBASSADORS ONLY: Tasks to be completed AFTER BOTH exchanges. |
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FOR TRAVELING AMBASSADORS To be completed at least one month after completing the exchange. |
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This set of reflection tasks are designed to bring thoughtful closure to your whole journey, and provide an opportunity for your team to share your experiences with others. Although there are five tasks listed here, there are basically two activities: each individual needs to answer a series of questions (either on video or in writing), and your team needs to make a presentation to a group in your school or community to share stories of your exchange.
Try to complete the “Looking Back” and “Group Presentation” tasks as soon as possible after you have both traveled and hosted. The team “Looking Back” tasks will be completed when all of your students have finished “Looking Back” on their own.
You might have a hard time getting your team back together after your travel is finished. You will also have to get your students to respond to a series of reflective questions. But all the students who traveled in this program MUST participate in this step. It is a program requirement, and critical to our continued funding. Use whatever sticks and carrots you need to. Remember that the Sister School Exchange can provide incentives that you can use to complete these tasks.
The instructions for the students within “Looking Back” are pretty comprehensive. Read through them now so you’re prepared to help your students with it.
If you started this program working with a larger group, like an entire classroom, that group would be an obvious audience for your presentation. Otherwise, think of other groups in your school or community who would be interested in learning about another Alaskan culture and your experiences with visiting that culture. A local Rotary Club is a great option, as many clubs have their own cross-cultural exchanges for young students, and this is a great opportunity to let them know about a group of Cultural Ambassadors in their community. Other great groups are local government, school board or tribal councils.
