You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
Testimonials
Harbours and Estuaries
The students were very motivated and learned many new things. They have changed their attitude to estuaries in our area. They particularly enjoyed the audioconferences and twitter - audioconferences are fantastic. I like the contact with scientists and other experts. Good links with careers education and Nature of Science.
Susan Feron from Collingwood Area School
It helped my students understand about estuaries as they had no knowledge of what they were before we read about them and participated in the audioconference. Two of my students with ASD are highly excited and showing the site to their whanau, which is great. The Te Reo content and Maori perspectives in the texts and from Guest experts is also excellent and much appreciated.
Sue Hodge from Elm Park School
It linked well with our focus on global issues and water use. It caters for a range of abilities and now that we have more devices allows students to work at their level. The live links created more reality and interest to begin with. Great stuff.
Francis Ganderton from Cashmere Primary School
Perfect for my class level. Children were engaged and gained environmental knowledge and inspiration to care for the local area. Useful resource with great planning and layout. Catered to a variety of learning styles. A valuable learning tool that engages the children in a different way. Easy to follow lessons with realistic and interesting follow up activities.
Philippus Meyer from Ohope Beach School
Students were able to make comparisons between Ohiwa and our local Ahuriri estuary. The field trip challenged them to think about what it means to be living near a coast. Covers diverse areas that would otherwise be inaccessible to my students.
Gabriel Hawke from St Mary's School (Hastings)
It has provided us with a valuable resource about a local area and allowed children to ask local experts some questions. The information was easy for the children to understand and the videos were very informative.
Susan Sisam from Taneatua School
Appropriate as an introduction to harbour ecology. Made for a useful comparison to our own harbour. My Year 12 Science students were able to compare and contrast both ecological and social values of the harbours.
Keith Hartle from Ruawai College
Stewart Island
Fitted fine with our topic, Taonga. Level 2. Suits the way I like children to learn, and the children gain so much from this sort of online learning. Caters for the range of different children/cultures/needs/learning styles. Able to view the material more than once.
Lynn Douglas from St Francis Xavier Catholic School Whangerei
Kauri
Children really enjoyed learning about kauri dieback. We participated in all three web conferences and I am pleasantly suprised at how much the children learned. The field trip links well to the Key Competencies as well as our school values, and was inclusive of all cultures.
Tosca Parata from Kenakena School
Easy to access and structured well for independent work. Just the right level and interest.
Craig Barrow from Riwaka School
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.
Anthea Shattock from Otakiri School
Linked through te reo me nga tikanga Maori - caring for our environment. Redwood Forest is in our area so able to connect to it through this field trip. Related to the NZ Curriculum - Community engagement, Cultural diversity, Future focus and the Vision - Confident, Connected, Informed, Contribuors.
Tarakihana Roberts from Kaitao Intermediate
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.
Jane Seymour from Makuri School
It was a really good way for students to learn about NZ and what's happening currently and in a manner that they could choose how they participated; some were more independent and others more supported.
Mary-Ann Bailey from St Peter's College (Palmerston North)
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.
Phoebe van der Pol from Nelson College for Girls
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.
Paula Walker from Titirangi School
It brings things alive for the kids, as many are visual learners. Fabulous to learn from experts. It covered participating and contributing beautifully, and we also connected it to "Understanding about Science".
Lisa Davies from Red Beach School
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.
Jane-Mary Gunson from St Francis Xavier Catholic School Whangerei
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.
Amelia Read from Pillans Point School
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.
Judith Van Boxel from Waiau Pa School
LEARNZ adds a rich IT experience to the class learning, that relates to local topics and utilises local expertise very well.
Esther Dickinson from Kaitaia Abundant Life School
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.
Lianne Shirley from Glenbervie School
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.
Adrienne Dines from St Patricks School Panmure
It provided a quality opportunity for integrating eLearning into the Inquiry programme. As part of our inquiry we will be researching possible sites at school and in our local area to plant several Kauri. I really like the questions and activities for further inquiry in the green boxes at the bottom of the Background pages. The videos also provided excellent class discussion with the questions that were attached to each video. Many children revisited the videos frequently during the trip.
Heather Richmond from Otakiri School
Adds to the learning experiences of our topic studies. We are studying kauri dieback using the "Keep Kauri Standing - Kauri Dieback" school resource so this trip supported that learning. It visited some of the areas we had already learned about and added some information from experts that helped to answer some of the questions we had.
Sharon McGaffin from Verran Primary School