Ukraine Alive—A Teaching Website that Continues to Teach Its Creators

• Main Author: Natalie Kononenko
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Alberta, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies 2017-03-01
• Series: East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies
• Online Access: https://www.ewjus.com/index.php/ewjus/article/view/286

Ukraine Alive is a digital resource built to support elementary education and available at http://ukrainealive.ualberta.ca. The site features contemporary cultural material from Ukraine and is rich in interactive units where students can explore content, play games, and perform tasks online. Google Analytics shows that Ukraine Alive (and its related Alive sites) are popular with teachers and used throughout Alberta and beyond. The creators of Ukraine Alive are working on more sophisticated games to test if gaming can teach culture effectively. Ukraine Alive is also used to teach students at the university level. By generating content for the Alive series of sites, university students learn how to write for publication online, producing formal text and combining it with visuals and audio. Teaching university students the humanistic aspect of formal composition for presentation online is an area of instruction that is only now being recognized.