2008 - 2013 Flexible Learning Course

Hand and koru by Heather Day

This week Kate Timms-Dean from EDC is your lecturer. Workshop: 1 June 10:00-12:00. Venue: D317.
Web conference: 2 June 15:00 – 16:30.


Indigenous people are ethnic groups who live in a geographic area with which they have the earliest known historical connection. Historically, many Indigenous groups, including Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand, have been the subject of colonial expansion. This has often resulted in territorial and cultural conflict, and the intentional or unintentional displacement and devastation of Indigenous populations (Wikipedia, 2010). In the contemporary context, Indigenous people often feature strongly in the lower echelons of society in terms of employment, socio-economic status, health status and educational attainment. As a result, it is important to consider the needs of Indigenous learners in the development, design and delivery of flexible learning programmes and courses.

Activity
 Post responses to the following on your blog - after you have accessed the readings and media material.

• How can you include examples of New Zealand's indigenous culture in the design of your eLearning courses - language, society, history, political issues etc.?
• What approaches can you utilise to meet the needs of indigenous learners?
• Outline any experiences you have had working with indigenous learners.
• What were some of the challenges that you and the learners faced?
• How did this affect their learning? 

Media
Knowing your learner - Engaging Māori learners: an introductory resource for adult literacy and numeracy educators. Take note of the video about the model of learning for Maori - Te Whare Tapa Whā. 

Reading

• Greenwood, J., & Lynne-Hairata, T.A. (2009). Hei tauira: summary document. Wellington, New Zealand: Ako Aotearoa. PDF
• Neal, T. & Collier, H. (2006). Weaving kaupapa Māori and e-learning. Journal of Maori and Pacific development, 7 (2): 68-73. (This reading will be posted on the Moodle forum.)
• Clayton, J.F., Rata-Skudder, N., & Baral, H.P. (2004). Pasifika communities online: and implications. Paper presented at the Third Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning. PDF