A: Identify a research topic that is relevant to your area of practice and relates to Digital and Collaborative Learning

Part One: 

I am asking where are all the Māori Creative frameworks for planning and thinking across the digital platforms and where are the pedagogies that are based in Māori Tikanga that allow for collaboration?

Mātauranga Māori describes a Māori way of being and engaging in the wider world. Māori as a group of people need to understand the connectedness between all things humans and non-human, as it ‘what is its whakapapa?’ An initial question is, ‘who or what is this thing I am seeing in this world and how do I relate to it?’ I want to take that initial concept and state of  thinking and use it to create a framework of thinking  and planning that can be used.  I am also looking for ways that the use of Māori connectedness can be used for collaboration.

Even the much maligned Eldon Best States "In studying the mythology of the Maori race, we cannot help but be struck by the general personification or allegorization of natural phenomena, the heavenly bodies, fire, mountains, &c."  Māori people are connected to the world around them as they see it. This connectedness is a recurring theme in my readings and discussions with localised curriculum advisors. 

My guiding questions are; 

How can we incorporate this natural inclination towards personifying and drawing connections from those aspects of the natural world?  

How can we use the curriculum taught at schools to remove the effect of colonization by empowering our learners to rely on Matauranga Māori to make sense of the world without removing some of those essential achievement objectives that learnings need to include Non-Māori learners?

How can we use powerful pedagogies or even heutagogies that can propel our learners forward into the 21st Century?  Is there something that exists already that can do this?

Dr Ranginui Walker states that: “A myth might provide a reflection of current social practice, in which case it has an instructional and validating function or it is an outward projection of an ideal against which human performance can be measured and perfected.” Can we use histories of Māori to measure our learnings against? This may provide levels for the framework. Can a historical retelling or a Māori Whakatauaki be used as a framework for pedagogies that can teach collaboration?

We can use Matauranga Māori aspects very effectively. Kōrero tawhito were passed on from generation to generation so that each generation would learn the teachings of their tīpuna. The kōrero tawhito start with the exploits of the kāwai tīpuna, and the exploits of humans. Those involved in the creation of this world are endowed with supernatural powers and influence the way in which Māori society is structured, while the kāwai tīpuna or legendary heroes provide a model for human behaviour. 

If we were to use these stories and meanings of the stories in our learning it would give a recognisable learning formula for all learnings.  It would validate the learning as being authentic if it in some way showed an attempt at connectedness.  If we show the Whakapapa behind the reasoning for the selection of the learning. So the challenge is for the digital resources and tech to become authentic to all of the various iwi, adapting to their unique views and perspectives. This is something reflected by the Rumaki Reo staff who constantly lament the lack of localised content even while trying to adapt the pitifully small national pool of digital resources. 

Instead when we have annexed our creative thinking both in the planning stages and in the learning stages with imports from other places that we also try to use to teach collaboration. How can my students engage in creative and thinking frameworks that may involve hats from a Maltese man?  Or  a set of keys from a man across the ditch? Or even a Space X man who is boiling things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there as opposed to reasoning by analogy, which is direct opposition to how Māori think?