Hero photograph
 
Photo by Leoni Combrink

Whakahuatia mai!

Emma Lumb —

We've been working out a way to have sound recordings of people's names, so that we can do better with our pronunciation of students’ and colleagues’ names.

Mark Tull has made a fantastic little app called Whakahuatia mai! which we have recently launched. So far we’ve got around 80 recordings. Eventually we’d love to get every student and staff member's names recorded.

Students and staff are able to record correct pronunciation of their names directly into their phone or laptop through the app. The recording is then easily accessible to staff in the app, and also linked to each student’s details in KAMAR, our admin system.

In explanation of the reo Māori, whakahua means pronounce, -tia makes it a command. So Whakahuatia mai! is a broad translation of ‘Say my name’. Kia ora to the Māori department for your expertise there.

The app has been of interest beyond our school – I shared it at a Wellbeing Community of Practice, with other schools keen for information to be able to go back to their own IT staff. Mark has also shared his development of the app with Microsoft Education support.

Tino pai and kia ora to Mark for developing the app.