You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
Hearing from experts is fantastic from a multi-layer perspective - from learning about future careers (scientists, DOC rangers, visitor centre staff) to the significance of the kauri to NZ was excellent. The (bilingual class) children really enjoyed hearing guest speakers present in Te Reo, present their mihi and hear first hand how important the kauri was and is to them.
Resources that we used were excellent, thought provoking and have my whole class sold on taking care of kauri. Teaching kit very helpful, well thought out, age appropriate.
Easy to access and structured well for independent work. Just the right level and interest.
It gave them the sense of being there, and the children were motivated and empowered to make a difference. The children loved watching the videos, and it made the whole learning process more authentic.
It was easy, engaging and grabbed the students attention. Covered all areas well as we were able to use it as a hook in, therefore allowing students to explore further in areas of interest as well as share with the wider school and community.
Fun, engaging, easy to use once you get your head around it all, kids love it, lots of different technology options. Some great info to challenge gifted and talented learners. Great to see the inclusion of Maori vocab.
Owing to time constraints with other curriculum areas, I sadly did not get an opportunity to use this wonderful resource with my class. I will be using it retrospectively however.
Linking a community issue with young adults (in this way with LEARNZ), has been empowering for the students. They are able to contribute to conversations outside the classroom using science and cultural based knowledge.
The visual and aural activities of the virtual fieldtrips, real time and recorded, are an immediate way to bring the wider environment into the classroom. The field trips and their material are flexible enough to give opportunities for a variety of uses in the classroom.
It is visual, relevant, easy to access, and makes good use of technology to be virtually there. Very relevant and topical in Northland.
Set at a great level for year 7 and 8 students. A lot of the planning has been organised for you. Great learning experience. Majority of students loved the topic and the quality of the work completed was outstanding.
LEARNZ adds a rich IT experience to the class learning, that relates to local topics and utilises local expertise very well.
Great that kauri dieback was in the news, while we were studying it on the virtual field trip. Good integration with Literacy, Te Reo, Key Competencies, Science, and Environmental Education. Wide range of topics, relevant, real life and happening now.
The kids get really engaged with what they are learning about. Because it is real the kids really respond to it. We can make links to what is happening around our area, also.
It illustrated clearly community engagement, ecological sustainability, participating and contributing. Students were interested. It also helped in the Nature of Science ... seeing how the community can work with the scientists on an issue.
Kauri is one of our taonga, and this field trip supported our role as tangata whenua and kaitiaki. A great resource and easy to use with the class who learnt so much about the kauri and the disease affecting it.
The field trip was yet another way to utilise the tools in our digital classroom. My recommendation to colleagues is this resource, while valuable when it links to current teaching and learning, has also proven to be excellent for use with smaller groups to extend critical thinking and learning linked to a real context.
Fabulous e-learning experience! Very appropriate to our Inquiry theme of Survival. Very effectively presented. Children really enjoyed the videos and questions that were included which helped them focus on key ideas. Enthusiasm overflowed into homework! Love the idea of having background notes read so children of all levels can listen and learn. Really liked the integration of Te Reo. Can be used by a range of learning levels in a variety of ways.
Related to our personal environment, local issues, and experiences at camp. Very relevant to developing a MLE and BYOD environment. Combined literacy, science, social science. Andrew (the LEARNZ Teacher) was friendly, engaging, and related well to students and experts.
My class always enjoys the Learnz Field Trips, regardless of the trip we enrol in. The LEARNZ teachers are so enthusiastic, it really teaches the children things that I can't.
We learnt things that were directly related to our topic of kaitiakitanga and sustainability. It is great to have the background information, videos and photographs that support a NZ topic.
The virtual field trip worked well for my mixed ability y9 science class. It engaged the students and it was relevant to the curriculum. The class enjoyed the wide range of activities. One of my students is a boarder, who has iwi connections, with the far north and kauri forests - the kauri are taonga to her iwi. She was very engaged in this unit of work.
My students enjoyed it and learnt so much. They were inspired and did their own projects on kauri dieback. They learnt to do inquiry learning. They enjoyed the videos and doing the activities to test their knowledge.
We used this field trip to help us cover our Deep Learning Topic of Past and Present. it was very helpful in many aspects as we also wanted a science based focus in this area. The activities and background pages were useful for self management.
Easy to implement and a wide variety of resources to choose from. We made a kauri forest in our class with tracks and did some science experiments. Being hands on the students really enjoyed the new learning and have retained the information well.