7 July 2022

New Zealand’s Te Kura Māori o Porirua, a predominantly Te Reo Māori medium school, participated in the digital learning exchange on June 25th and July 2nd with students from Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, and Malaysia.

This ground-breaking code camp event, called #NZAsiaTech Code Camp, focused on sustainable tourism and the UNESCO Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a resonating theme around the Asia-Pacific region. As an educational goal of the programme, students were tasked with researching and presenting examples of sustainable tourism in their home countries while showcasing these via student-built websites using HTML.

The programme encourages the development of cross-cultural interpersonal skills and digital literacy. The online programme includes team-building exercises, cultural awareness, language learning, and HTML coding skills by creating individual and student team websites. Students presented their sustainable tourism-themed websites in teams to a panel of judges at the awards ceremony last weekend, with students from Indonesia winning first place.

“The hybrid #nzasiatech Code Camp is an opportunity for Kiwi students to re-establish connections with international students, while gaining critical digital skills to prepare them for the future.” Ben Burrowes – Education New Zealand’s Regional Director for Asia.

“The Code Camp has been an exciting growth experience for our students, who have extended their digital literacy skills while having the chance to connect with students of different ethnicities and cultures across the Asia-Pacific.” – Te Kura Māori o Porirua school Principal, Whāea Evelyn Wharehinga.

“The Code Avenger camps I attended were well structured and I found each of the sessions easy to follow. As a first time participant with coding I now want to pursue a career along the lines of Computer Science.” – Ahuriri, Year 10 student at Te Kura Māori o Porirua

“It was a privilege to gift all participants a one-year free subscription to the Code Avengers site as part of our mission to build lasting digital capabilities for educators and young people, and bridge the digital divide,” – Steve Budd, Code Avengers