Posted on 3 March 2020
Open Polytechnic and Te Wānanga o Aotearoa’s (TWoA) collaboration for the Te Ara Reo Māori Programme received an honourable mention at the 2019 International E-Learning Awards, held in Bangkok recently.
The innovative collaboration between the two organisations for Te Ara Reo Māori involved converting Te Wānanga o Aotearoa’s existing classroom programme for blended delivery on Open Polytechnic’s iQualify online learning platform.
Blending the programme involved digitising the course content for delivery on iQualify, with face-to-face teaching and learning support provided by TWoA tutors. Along with deploying the iQualify platform, redevelopment work included creating digital content and audio and video features.
The two organisations received an honourable mention in the ‘Blended Learning – Academic Division’ category of the 2019 International E-Learning Awards which were held as part of the 22nd International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning 2019.
Open Polytechnic Chief Executive, Dr Caroline Seelig, says the recognition highlights what can be achieved when you combine organisational specialist education technology and digital content creation skills with a high quality Māori language programme such as Te Ara Reo Māori.
“This award is a recognition of the great work between our organisations and using our strengths to work together on such an important project,” says Dr Seelig.
Te Taiurungi (chief executive) o Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, Te Ururoa Flavell says the acknowledgement reinforced the benefits of collaborating with the Open Polytechnic.
“As leaders in mātauranga Māori, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa is always looking for ways to improve the delivery of our programmes.”
“By working with the Open Polytechnic we are able to combine our technical prowess with mātauranga Māori to create a groundbreaking product which will benefit our tauira (students) for many years to come.”