May 16, 2023
App to draw in next generation of scholars
A Ngati Awa cultural advisor says digital learning is the future.
Pouroto Ngaropo has been working with Kiwa Digital to create an app for the Education Ministry that will give students aid to the Ngati Awa dialect on their phones, using the history of the Mataatua waka.
He says rangatahi are increasingly using going online to learn.
“Be it Facebook, be it this app, TikTok, all these different platforms that our kids love access to … there’s a lot written of Mataatua, but there’s not an app that’s being done specifically to an audience that’s our rangatahi – because you know they’re gonna be the carriers of the future of our history,” Mr Ngaropo says.
He says there are many different narratives about the Mataatua waka – and all waka – and he hopes Maori will take full advantage of technology to tell their stories and keep them alive.