A confession, a smartphone, and Māori Language Week

A confession...about a year ago I bought a smartphone (Samsung Galaxy), and I have found it really useful. I must admit, until the point where I had my very own smartphone...and for probably the first couple of weeks while I shifted my mindset, I couldn't see what all the fuss was - especially for enhancing learning opportunities.

One of those folk who bleated on about the screen being too small for anything useful, and "you can't type anything of any meaningful length" (I blush), I have now experienced some of the neat complementary aspects that a smartphone can add to my old workhorse laptop, especially as most of my life is in the cloud now.

One of the neat things, of course, are the apps. And, one I trialled yesterday had me instantly engaged and I could see how it would come in useful in my professional, as well as personal life. The Hika Lite app (launched during Māori Language Week in NZ), has a range of common expressions categorised under every-day interactions such as greetings.

Carolyn Bennett, who shared the app with a community I'm a member of wrote:

Morēna koutou - Hika was conceived by Sophie Tauwehe Tamati as an attempt to revitalise te reo Māori through a fresh approach to learning. By using modern technologies, audio, visual and kinesthetic functions, Hika makes learning and communicating in te reo Māori easy and fun.

This wonderful app for iphones and Androids can be downloaded free to celebrate Māori Language Week (Whakanuia Te Wiki o te Reo Māori). Highly recommended.

Nga mihi nui

Carolyn

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Samsung Galaxy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)