Project kickoff

The Siaola project has kicked off with the development of a prototype eLearning tool called Tohitapu that has been designed to meet the needs of the Tongan community. This tool has been developed using a mix of user-centred, learner-centred and metaphorical design so it reflects the culture of the people who will be using it. In particular, the choice of icons and examples reflect the interests of the Tongan community. We have also completed delivery of a ten-week course Science Transition course that teaches Web 2.0 concepts to Pacific people from the Wellington community. As part of their course participants developed their own community and personal blogs, for example the Tongan participants developed the Uelingatoni blog (http://uelingatoni.blogspot.com). If you want to learn more about the course, you can access the course details and the blogs that were developed at http://scitrans06.blogspot.com.

Welcome to Siaola

In Tongan, Siaola means weaving old and new knowledge together for success in education. This is the purpose of the new Pacific-centred Information Commons being developed in Porirua by the Porirua Pacific Islands Forum in partnership with the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science from Victoria University of Wellington.

This site will be used to report key learnings from the project as it progresses between now and October 2008.