Strategies for protecting the mana of our online whānau.
Someone who sees what is happening but does not get involved.
Someone who sees what is happening and acts to support the person being targeted.
You send a private message to the person being targeted.
When to use: Almost always a safe and powerful first step.
Example: "Hey, I saw that comment. That was out of line. Are you ok?"
You post something positive and unrelated to change the subject.
When to use: In a public comment section to break a negative cycle.
Example: On a video with mean comments, you post: "This was a great video! The editing at 2:15 was awesome."
You use the platform's built-in tools to report the harmful content.
When to use: When a comment breaks community guidelines (e.g., hate speech, threats).
Example: You click the three dots (...) and select "Report Comment".
You gently and respectfully question the behaviour. (Use with caution!)
When to use: Only if you feel safe and the comment is ambiguous, not openly aggressive.
Example: To a comment like "That's a bit weird," you could reply: "What do you mean by weird?"
In a group chat for a game, one player keeps making fun of another player's new username, calling it "lame".
What are the two best tools to use here? Why?
Someone posts a photo of their artwork. A commenter writes, "My little brother could draw better than that."
Which tool would you use first? What would be a good follow-up action?
Students will engage with this resource to explore digital kaitiakitanga — applying tikanga Māori principles of guardianship, manaakitanga, and whanaungatanga to their digital lives, spaces, and technologies.
Scaffold support: Provide sentence starters and visual frameworks to scaffold access at the entry level. Offer extension tasks that deepen ethical analysis — for example, comparing digital tikanga principles to international AI ethics frameworks.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach key kupu (kaitiakitanga, manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, tikanga) with bilingual glossaries. Allow students to express ideas in their home language first before translating to English.
Inclusion: Chunk tasks and provide clear visual instructions. Neurodiverse learners benefit from structured choice in how they demonstrate understanding (e.g., verbal, written, or visual). Affirm diverse digital experiences as valid starting points.
Mātauranga Māori lens: Digital kaitiakitanga frames technology through Te Ao Māori — our digital spaces are extensions of our marae, our data is part of our whakapapa, and our online behaviour reflects our mana. Tikanga Māori provides a powerful ethical compass for navigating the digital world.
Prior knowledge: No specialist digital technology knowledge required for entry-level engagement. Best used after introductory lessons on tikanga Māori or as part of a digital technologies unit.