Kura Kaupapa Māori using LAMS to help motivate and engage students

Robin Ohia (image provided by Robin)

Robin Ohia is one of the energetic, creative educators with whom I have been working for the last eight months as part of the Virtual Professional Development (VPD) project.


To provide a little bit of background around the project he is leading**, in 2005 the Ministry of Education funded the launch of LAMS in Aotearoa New Zealand. Since 200, Robin has been working on the LAMS Bilingual Interface Trial / Te Reo Māori Project, which has a strong focus on the Learning Activities Management System (LAMS). The idea behind the project was, in part, to reduce isolation, and to help with this he has been working with five geographically distant Kura Kaupapa Māori from the Whanganui, Ruapehu, Taranaki and Wellington regions.

Te Atihaunui a Paparangi (Images provided by Robin)

The stated aims of the project were to provide access to digital resources and learning activities for teachers and students within bilingual educational settings, while also evaluating the effective management of an online learning environment, the systems within the learning environment, and the effectiveness of such an environment to assist students with student learning outcomes and objectives within bilingual educational settings. I was hoped that through the use of integrated systems and rich mixed mode media learning content (available both online and offline), would help teachers construct new ideas leading that in turn led to improved student engagement and motivation.


An important part of the achievement of these aims was the establishment a vibrant community of learning, and online access was seen as way of connecting people. Robin, therefore established online collaborative areas in LAMS, Moodle and Adobe Connect. He mentions that it can be tough to help sustain the community, as teachers can be keen on the Professional Development (PD) aspect, but sometimes find it more tricky to be active members of the community while also grappling with identity shifts as teachers and as learners.

Some project participants (from top) Miriama Harmer - Principal (Te Atihaunui a Paparangi), Robin Ohia, & Yvette McGregor (images provided by Robin)

The Aotearoa New Zealand LAMS is aimed at students in years 1 to 8 and designed specifically for Māori-medium settings, whereby students are able to learn individually and collectively and teachers are able to create lessons and monitor students’ progress online. Robin also sees the project as a positive professional development experience for teachers who are starting to explore online learning environments within their kura, and says “The project enhances outcomes by teachers becoming more aware of how to construct learning for their students. This is particularly efficient when systems are incorporated into the students’ existing environments” (Annual Report on Māori Education, 2008/09). LAMS appears to be a good way of scaffolding teachers embarking on the design of learning experiences within online environments - a kind of stepping stone.

For the future, Robin is encouraging a more coordinated effort to help expand the existing digital resources that have already been developed as part of the project. One of the barriers to this is workload: “The scary part is whether those responsible for Māori education, with their heavy workloads, can sustain the momentum the project needs” (Annual Report on Māori Education, 2008/09). Robin hopes LAMS will extend to other kura in the near future.


To watch and hear Robin speaking about the LAMS Project click HERE , and to watch a slideshow to some of the underlying concepts of the project click HERE.

(**Some of the information above was sourced from VLN Projects 2008/2009, the 2008 LAMS conference in Sydney, and the Annual Report on Māori Education, 2008/09.)

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An illustration of the environment that Robin has created in Moodle as part of the LAMS Project

Successes to date

As well as helping to develop the initial bilingual interface and facilitate the community and associated PD around the LAMS Project, Robin continues to teach and is rapt as his students have started to suggest topics they would like to see as LAMS sequences. Robin has also noted that the LAMS PD community has encouraged the integration of an online environment into students’ learning in a way that mirrors the kind of online experiences they have in their personal lives. One specific learner Robin speaks of is a student with attention problems, who went on to spend 35 to 40 minutes on a LAMS activity, as well as other students who voluntarily access LAMS from home. “The feedback from teachers pertaining to motivation can only be described, in their words, as ‘unbelievable’.” (Annual Report on Māori Education, 2008/09).

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Examples from some of the LAMS sequences that Robin has been involved with

On the PD front, Robin now has four teachers who are ready to start facilitating their own LAMS PD sessions with new teachers in the cluster. Robin is also working with a new PD group around LAMS and says they have a lot of energy and motivation to go full steam ahead, which he is finding exciting and inspirational. He has also noted that online PD is becoming more mainstream, and is consequently a focus of some of the groups he is working with. Some of the feedback Robin has received from participants includes:

Glenise Ward - Year 2 Teacher

"My first impressions were, oh my gosh, what is this all about? At that stage IT and I were not very good friends. HOW, was the biggest issue but looking ahead to the benefits for the tamariki [children] drove me to rethink my position with IT. Eventually seeing the activities hands-on, and the tamariki being involved helped me to understand the objectives and purpose."

Tira Woodley - Year 4-5 Teacher

"Impressed by how quick most of the tamariki grasped the concept of following through with the activities. As i have grown I have had time to absorb and understand the direction that LAMS has to offer and the benefits our tamariki will achieve in this modern eLearning programme. Its cool...all the tamariki love it and the enthusiasm has been shown by all tamariki, especially their learning behaviour."

On the assessment front, Robin in keenly exploring the potential of LAMS for diagnostic, formative and summative assessment, and accelerated achievement and outcomes. It all looks really positive.



Robin also takes an active part in the LAMS international community.

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A screen shot from the video Robin made giving an overview of the LAMS Project

A bit more about LAMS

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The Learning Activities Management System (LAMS) is a resource that enables teachers to create lessons and monitor students’ progress online. It also helps school leaders in general, and in Māori-medium settings in particular, to share knowledge, resources and teaching ideas on a daily basis. LAMS has been completely or partially translated to 27 languages by more than 55 volunteers (and you can volunteer to help out with this initiative). To find out more about LAMS you can visit:

• Sign up for a free account for LAMS
• Click here to access an example LAMS sequence about the capitals of the Americas and Europe,
• The LAMS Community forums where all things LAMS are discussed, and where you can access heaps of support, as well as a large repository of LAMS sequences
• The Minedu welcome page of their instance of LAMS, which has links to useful information such as some of the new tools in version 2.3 of LAMS, and a list of new features and improvements
• Click HERE to access a wide range of videos, case studies, papers, presentations, articles and reports
• The LAMS user documentation is available by clicking HERE
• Watch a brief animation about the LAMS Community by clicking HERE
• Visit this site to find out more and to collaborate in the LAMS 2.0 / Moodle integration project

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• Teaching geography in New Zealand: Māori geography (ictelt.blogspot.com)
• Links to ideas, resources, and tools for learning and teaching te reo Māori (ictelt.blogspot.com)
• Maori Language .net - New Zealand Aotearoa's Learn Te Reo Maori website (maorilanguage.net)

Links to ideas, resources, and tools for learning and teaching te reo Māori

Image via Wikipedia

Kia ora koutou katoa.

Ideas for communication around and through Web 2.0 can be in a vast array of languages. Language learners and teachers are increasingly recognising computer mediated communication and multimedia as key factors in learning the mechanics of the language, as well as for connecting learners, encouraging students to create their own artefacts, and enhancing the exploration of socio-cultural aspects of language. Te reo Māori is one such example.

The following represents a brief selection from a large range of ideas, exemplars, resources and tools for te reo Māori. Please make recommendations around other resources you may have found useful, and share any feedback you may have about those mentioned below.

Ideas for learners
Ngā whakaaro mō Te Wiki Reo Māori - Ideas for Māori Language Week: The introduction to these ideas reads "No matter what your level of fluency, there are many things you can do to celebrate te reo Māori. Of course, you can try these suggestions all year round, but Māori Language Week is a great time to start!". The page goes on to make over 20 suggestions, with links to supporting resources and sites. There is also a language club that enables students to make contact with other learners.

For learners making their own resources, these two short videos - Let's go out and eat (by Lucy, Maddy and Darren), and one by Katie, Evie and Fran about a hangi, give a nice example of students working together to create something that they have shared with the world in general, and which can be rated and commented on.

For material for discussions around language and culture, there are a couple of interesting resources that could be used with learners. For example:

• A short, thought-provoking compilation of the voices of "four young people and four elders from sharing their thoughts, fears and hopes for the future of whānau (family), of technology, of te reo..., of environment, of Ngāi Tahu, of our country and of our world". Other videos from this video stream can be found by clicking HERE.
• With reference to the contemporary influence of the language, Te Reo Māori plays a part in Hollywood blockbuster Avatar is well worth a watch.
• The Channel 9 video: Should Te Reo be a Compulsory language in New Zealand Schools?
• Two short recording entitled: 'Mauri Tu! Mauri Toa! Mauri Ora!', and 'Ahai' which could be used to lead into a discussion around the implementation of Mau Raakau (The Art, Values & Disciplines of Māori Weaponry) into NZ High Schools.
• For images related to Māori life and New Zealand, www.maori.org.nz have a variety of graphics, including clip art and Web art, that can be used (as long as the source is acknowledged). For a wider range of resource types, including multimedia, the University of Otago Library has compiled a useful list.

Resources

This site has a rich selection of resources, some of which are interactive. Learners can, for example, click on a word and hear the pronunciation, then test their knowledge with online activities. There are also sections suitable for beginners and advanced learners, as well as for businesses. A great place to find out about protocols as well. There is also a downloadable resource with language learning strategies.

There is a reasonable selection of online resources around the meanings and pronunciation of Te Reo Māori on the Internet. Some of the best include really clear videos that show the mouth shape as well as the audio, (from www.maorilanguage.net who also have a You Tube channel you can subscribe to), which model the pronunciation of the vowels and consonants. The site also has an annotated list of links to online dictionaries and translators, and a range of commons phrase 'drills'.

Māori television and Māori radio are both good sources of authentic language, but would need scaffolding for early learners, and it would be a good idea to have some sort of task associated, such as a blog post about a programme enjoyed in a specific week, which is then shared with other learners.

The Treaty of Waitangi can be read in Māori (with accompanying audio read by Whetu Scott that needs Windows Media Player installed to play the files) and English.

Te Kete Ipurangi (TKI) – The Online Learning Centre have a wide range of multimedia and interactive resources, related to Māori Education including myths, dance, ancient civilisations, collaboration and cooperation, and dramatic performance - to name but a few!

Initiatives / Creative Projects

Tools

The launch of Google in Te Reo Māori is discussed in this blog post and this video. To change the language that you view the Google interface in follow these instructions.