Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 26, Number 2, 1 February 2009 — Online learning, Hawaiian style [ARTICLE]

Online learning, Hawaiian style

A'o Makua program celebrates one year By Lisa Asatū Public lnfurmatiun Specialist Fbr 64-year-old Raymond Kailiuli now living in Utah, leaming Hawaiian via an online elass takes him back to his "hanabata kid" days mnning around his grandparents' home on Homer Street in Kalihi. In those days, relatives would eome over, sit in a circle and the room would fill with talk story in 'ōlelo Hawai'i as children ran around. "We didn't really know any better so we just played and made noise, not really sitting down and hstening to the elders," said Kaihuli, a 1962 Kamehameha Schools graduate who moved to the continent after retiring in 2000. "I miss that, so when these classes eame up, I thought, 'This is a good eonneehon.' " Kailiuli has reconnected with his roots with the help of Kamehameha Schools' A'o Makua online enrichment program for adults 18 and older, where the classroom is a computer and teachers are a eliek away. "You know what is good with this class?" he asks. The teachers ean review tapes of you speaking and provide critiques, all via computer, he said of the Hawaiian language class. "I listen to my (speech), I sound like one old Hawaiian now." A'o Makua, now celebrating its first year since launching in February 2008, is designed for parents, caregivers and adults to leam the Hawaiian language and culture - at their own paee. "We get a lot of eomments that online courses work for a lot of people just because it's convenient," said Kelly Dukelow, manager of Kamehameha's distance-leaming programs, including A'o Makua. "We ean pretty mueh offer it to anybody who has an Intemet eonneehon." "As far as online programs," she added, "we think we're pretty unique that we're enrichment, but we're fully facilitated - students get an instructor with them the entire time and all of our content is developed primarily with the help of our curriculum support and dissemination branch and reviewed by Hawaiian culture specialists." The program's slogan, A'o Aku, A'o Mai, "means 'to leam and share,' so as you leam, it's yourkuleana to share," Dukelow said. And with students participating from Hawai'i, the continent and intemationally, "we find that all these people across the nation have the same

desire to leam culture, to leam the language - and oftentimes they share resources too." "The courses are really more focused on learning and growing," she said. "We don't have tests or worksheets, and activities have to do with taking concepts and reflecting on how it relates to you and sharing with the other participants." Among the most popular offerings are the Ola Nā Iwi genealogy course and the Kii'ii One Hānau culture class. "We like

to push that one because we have kūpuna do most of the content for us through live interviews with them talking and singing," Dukelow said. "We didn't pull a lot of stuff out of books or CDs; it was primary sources straight from the kūpuna. And you can't find it any plaee else. They did it just for us." In March, the program will add a new culture class, Mālama: 'Āina, whieh will cover the ahupua'a system, how Hawaiians traditionally lived in hannony with the land and how people ean incorporate those ideas in contemporary times, Dukelow said. More additions are also possible. "Our development is dependent upon our enrolhnent," Dukelow said. "The more we ean get the word out, the more we ean get people signed up, the more courses we ean offer." S

ONLINE COURSES Kamehameha Schools' A'o Makua online leaming program for adults offers three-week language courses and four-week culture courses. Minimum age: 18 Cost: $25 per course ($5 specials are sometimes offered) Requirements: Computer, Intemet eonneehon (minimum 56K dial-up; but broadband, such as eahle or DSL, is reconunended to view streaming videos), headsets for language courses only Registration: rolling registration closes on the 15th of the previous month March offerings (register by Feb. 15): 'Ōlelo Hawai'i: Pili 'Ohana, March 2-30; Mālama: 'Āina, March 9-27 For information and registration: ksdl.ksbe.edu/adult Questions: aomakua@ksbe.edu

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