You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
Testimonials
Harbours and Estuaries
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
The material was age appropriate (particularly liked the audio links, reading the material). The participation levels at school and at home were a lot higher than usual because material was readily accessible and easy to read and understand. Audio conferences were excellent. Having the few visual photographs kept some of my less focussed kids engaged, as did the summary sheets that they had in front of them. I was surprised at just how much they picked up. It was great to be able to ask questions via the backchannel and get immediate responses - the kids loved that.
Vada Miers from Riverina School
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
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
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
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.
Iona Rait from St Martin's School
Engaging and can be tailored to the specific needs of a small group of students. Uses all of the Key Competencies. Enabled students to self regulate their learning.
Patricia Patten from Oaklands School
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.
Valerie Moratti from Havelock North Intermediate
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
As an Enviro school it is wonderful to be interfacing with experts in the field on real issues in real time. Some of my students go onto Learnz to explore further as additional home learning. Great to hear them educating their parents about what's happening to our mighty taonga, Kauri. LEARNZ is the most marvellous educational resource for NZ teachers. This is my 14th year with Learnz and I get great great support if I need it. The staff are truly amazing at every level.
Susan Hodge from Elm Park School
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.
Rachel Oliver from Otahuhu Intermediate
It is visual, relevant, easy to access, and makes good use of technology to be virtually there. Very relevant and topical in Northland.
Denise Hadwin from Paihia School
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
Was extremely motivating for our learners! Very appropriate for our "Diversity" inquiry. Supported Science: Living World but also the Key Competences of "Thinking" and "Using Language, Symbols and Text". Watch the video where our Cambridge East School students share what they learned about kauri dieback at https://vimeo.com/272665119
Kathleen McIsaac from Cambridge East 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
Love the fieldtrips as a compliment or stand alone to my programme. Students engaged, differentiated material, connections to things Maori, I could work on my own or with a group.
Joelle Walker from Edgecumbe School
We are in a reasonably remote area and it is great that we can interact with other schools. The Web Quest was fantastic for a range of abilities. LEARNZ is wonderful for those students who learn in different ways e.g. listening (and they can refer back to recordings to check information). We are now interested in "adopting" a local reseve and planting some natives, including kauri.
Debra Sheehan from Pukenui School
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
Very informative as to what is happening on our doorstep, and we did not know about it. We are now going to contact DOC in our area and finding out more that we can do to help locally. All children saw things they related to, and saw the relevance of what they were learning. Nice to have the extra background from maori perspective.
Diana Donovan from Pamapuria School
My students from this field trip are now very connected to kauri, that four weeks ago was just another native tree. Very powerful to have online learning with experts. Made a national taonga come alive and made kauri dieback real, relevant and contextual. Brings in elements of Nature of Science and the Social Science curriculum.
Janine Fryer from Pukekohe Intermediate
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