Tabitha McKenzie, Rawiri Toia and Hiria McRae, lecturers in Te Kura Māori, are the winners of the International Award for Excellence in the area of learning and education.

Their paper, Anywhere, Anytime - Creating a Mobile Indigenous Language Platform, was published by Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal and selected by the editors and an International Advisory Board for the award.

The article was one of two published in the journal and came about through the ongoing work being conducted by the authors in Māori immersion schools around Aotearoa New Zealand as part of a Teacher Professional Development project, Whakapiki i te Reo. The project is funded by the Ministry of Education.

Tabitha, Rawiri and Hiria have developed an innovative approach to teacher professional development. In response to limited teaching reliever numbers in schools and heightened by a dearth of language specialists, a model using video podcasts, online support and in-school facilitation was developed to advance areas of Māori language and language acquisition amongst teachers.

The project aims to improve language proficiency of teacher educators in the Māori medium sector. The project takes an innovative and cutting edge multi-platform approach to professional development, and has been implemented in three rural regions. The intention of the project team is to provide a sustainable approach to professional development that sees the schools and their communities taking the lead in their own language development.

Tabitha, the coordinator of the Whakapiki i te Reo project, is delighted with the progress being made in schools, and the wider implications of the project. "The use of mobile devices offers opportunities for strengthening Māori language and Māori knowledge and expressing a Māori worldview in local, national and international contexts."

As the winning authors, Tabitha, Rawiri and Hiria are invited to present a plenary session at the upcoming Ubiquitous Learning Conference to be held at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada in December.

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