NZ School oversight of Māori in the house system

Little or no consideration has been applied to the house system in New Zealand Schools and the impacts that they have on Māori children. Many Māori children may be placed in a house that competes against another house that may have their ancestral name or other significant tribal sensitive name. The house system at school is … Read more

Google Doodle of Whaea Dame Whina Cooper

Whina Cooper

Google Doodle published (in New Zealand only) on Dec 09 2015 Dame Whina Cooper which was a significant cultural step forward raising awareness of Māori land issues. A  definition of a Google Doodle “Doodles are the fun, surprising, and sometimes spontaneous changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of … Read more

Digital Indigenous Issues – My Ramblings

rangatiratanga

Here are some of my ramblings of Digital Colonialism and issues of Indigenous knowledge on the Internet. When I have time, i will expand on these more. Digitising  Traditional Knowledge is like mining the earth for precious metals. With every scoop of earth there is a void. Eventually there will be no mana or tapu … Read more

Māori Data Sovereignty issues

rangatiratanga

Free services such as Google, Microsoft Office 365, Facebook, Cloud, web hosting etc, are risking Indigenous Data Sovereignty issues and ownership of their own data and knowledge. Wherever your digital information is stored, it is subject to the laws, or legal jurisdiction, of the country in which it resides. The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, … Read more

Definition: Digital Colonialism

rangatiratanga

Digital colonialism deals with the ethics of digitizing Indigenous data and information without fully informed consent. Digital colonialism is the new deployment of a quasi-imperial power over a vast number of people, without their explicit consent, manifested in rules, designs, languages, cultures and belief systems by a vastly dominant power (Renata Avila, 2017).  A new … Read more

Macrons for Mac OSX (older than Lion)

macrons

To enable macrons to be created in Mac OSX systems that are older than Lion. 1. Launch the System Preferences application 2. Navigate to Language & Text, then the Input Sources tab 3. Find Māori on the list and tick the checkbox next to it 4. Tick the box next to “Show Input menu in … Read more

Macrons in iPad 4, iPhone 4 and later

macrons

These devices and their operating systems have system wide keyboard(s) available by default. Mac OSX Lion can also create macrons this way. Hold down the key for the vowel you want to macronise (Maybe a second). A small dialog will pop up showing you several options, including a macron.

Te Reo Maori macrons in Samsung Galaxy

Samsung Galaxy 4 Samsung Galaxy 4 has several default common languages that do not include Māori or other language to create macrons. To install Māori and other languages, the easiest method is to install an app from Google Store. Latvian is the only language currently available that will create and recognise macrons. Install any soft keyboard … Read more

Macrons not recognised in email by Government and Polytechnic web sites and systems

If you have te reo Māori or macrons in your email address, it is unlikely you will be able to contact a government department, MP, local council or a polytechnic. Read the full report here. Most of the 158 NZ government department website online contact forms surveyed, would not accept an email with macrons. This … Read more

Obituary for Richard Ozrecki

kawakawa

He Aituā Kua hinga te totaranui O te ao nui a Tāne Auē te mamae e E te rangitira Kua hoki koe Ki Hawaiki Nāna koe i whakaruruhau Nō reira haere atu rā, haere atu rā The ICT industry is so new and even newer for Maoridom, that it is uncommon for a digital leader … Read more

Te Reo Maori to prevent hackers

Using a Creative Commons Aotearoa list of Māori words from Te Ngutu Kura, Taipo and Indigenous developer has created a Māori Diceware word list to create pass phrases. The instrucitons and download can be found here https://github.com/Taipo/MaoriDiceware   This list can be used for kura kaupapa, kura, whanau, iwi and hapu to generate secure passphrases that … Read more

Maori respect for the dead considering cyber land

kawakawa

Uncle Api Mahuika was an esteemed Māori leader with his people and the government. Moe mai ra e te rangatira. The first I heard about it this tragedy was on Facebook when via Te Wananga o Takiura were seeking some form of authoritative clarification that the devastating news. Immediately you may be saying “Huh?” But … Read more

Indigenous Domains not effected by new .nz domains

Indigenous Domain Name

Latest .nz statistics today show little change with Indigenous Domain names despite registrations being made directly at .nz and the new .kiwi.nz and .kiwi domains. Stats for March 2015 .maori.nz = 1059 registered domains with 126 renewals with 19 cancellations (in line with previous months) and 17 new registrations. .iwi.nz = 87 registered domains with … Read more

Macrons in Microsoft Surface

macrons

Typing macrons in Microsoft Surface tablet is the same as with an Apple i-device such as an iPhone or iPod, but the macrons are installed by default. To create a macron,  hold down the key of the vowel you want to add a macron to and a list of characters will appear. It is important to … Read more

Te Mangai Paho to administer the proposed $30 million ICT fund for Māori

This is a positive step forward for Māori society and for tax payers. The money is being administered by a government entity that has a proven track record in administering large amounts of funds, is publicly accountable and who are being transparent with the way they plan to structure the organisation.   The Māori ICT … Read more

Te Reo Māori Strategy lacks modern day thinking

maor ai voice

The Minister of Māori Affairs, Hon Dr Pita Sharples announced a proposed change in te reo strategy but failed to miss the fact that technology plays a vital role in this area. For any language to be spoken by the masses it must be normalised and easy to access and widely used in not only … Read more

te reo Māori Spam brings te reo Māori into 21st Century

With so much emphasis on te reo Māori being normalised; it looks as though spammers are now using Google Translate to translate spam into te reo Māori according to Robyn Gallagher http://www.robyngallagher.com/2014/01/11/te-reo-Māori-419-spam/ . Is this a new avenue of normalisation albeit an annoying but normal part of our online lives? I suspect so! and that … Read more