Cultural sensitivity and understanding are big considerations these days, and rightly so. One way that you can include this in your teaching practice is to make sure that you spell words correctly including making use of the appropriate macrons. Macrons are used to signify the length of vowels in many different languages.
It’s unlikely your computer is set up to type macronised vowels right out of the box. However, with Storypark, you can use them in your stories and posts by setting up your computer for them.
If you’re using Windows Vista or later, you can set up your PC to type macrons right from the keyboard. You need to do this from the Control Panel, then go into ‘Change keyboards or other input methods’ under ‘Clock, Language, and Region’. Click ‘Change’ and the ‘Add’. Scroll down to your language, e.g. English (New Zealand). Expand ‘Keyboard’, then click ‘Show’. Find ‘Māori’ in the list, tick it, then click ‘OK’. Finally, change ‘Default input language’ to your language, e.g. English (New Zealand) – Māori. You can then type macronised vowels by pressing the ` key, then the vowel.
If you are using a Mac, then it depends on which operating system you are using. With OS X Lion or later, these have a systemwide keyboard shortcut available. Hold down the key for the vowel you want to macronise for about half a second. A small dialog box will pop up showing you several options, including a macron. This works on iPad and iPhone keyboards too.
But if you are using anything older than OS X Lion, you will need to set your system up first. Launch ‘System Preferences’, go to ‘Language & Text’, then ‘Input Sources’ Find ‘Māori’ on the list and tick the checkbox next to it. Once you have done that, tick the box next to ‘Show Input menu in menu’. From the Input menu in the menu bar (near the upper right corner of the screen), select ‘Māori’. You can then use one of two keyboard shortcuts to type macronised vowels. You can either type the key then the vowel ( + a = ā) or, hold down Option/Alt + vowel (i.e., Option + a = ā).
https://storypark.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203295847-Using-macrons
[…] Te Wiki o te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week) is 9–15 September this year, and as a New Zealand company, we wanted to show our support for te reo in Storypark. Educators have been able to write learning stories and community posts in te reo Māori for many years, with Storypark providing support for macrons. Find out how to set up your computer to type macrons here. […]