21501f


 * Proposal submission #21501**

Strengthening Seldom Taught Languages Through User Generated Community
 * Title**

Curt Madison, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA, curt.madison@uaf.edu Christen Bouffard, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA Zeina Nehme, Prince Mohammad University, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia Susan Warner, Chukchi College, USA Brian White, American Center for Mongolian Studies, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
 * Presenter(s)**

Wide spread adoption of trans-national communication media threaten the shared culture of languages that only have a few speakers; English has become the de facto lingua franca of the Internet. However, the internet also provides the opportunity to aggregate the members of widely dispersed language communities.
 * Description**

This long tail of seldom taught languages holds rich cultural heritage. Unfortunately, the cultural heritage is threatened due to reliance on economy of scale to produce language study materials in the current method. This panel will discuss new methods.

The Center for Distance Education (CDE) at the University of Alaska is experimenting with strengthening Middle Tanana Athabascan language by concentrating on user generated content related to music ( http://songs.nenananativevillage.org). Our work is an emerging template for other Native Alaska languages. In addition, the CDE is working with the American Center for Mongolian Studies to prepare asynchronous and synchronous materials for the widely dispersed community of Central Asian studies scholars.

This panel will address the issues and pitfalls of developing and delivering cultural and linguistic content in challenging contexts. Questions include the control of copyright across traditional knowledge domains, accreditation across multiple institutions, design of non-standard fonts, use of synchronous web-meetings with 12-hour time zone differences, and discourse design that will encourage trust and respect.

The panel plan will include presenters located in Ulaanbaatar, Fairbanks, Kotzebue, and Saudi Arabia.

Panel discussion Not previously published All audiences
 * Notes & Comments**