You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
Testimonials
Kea
My students learned heaps about kea and the amazing people working with them. Students love these virtual field trips which provide for different levels of learning at the same time. We asked questions, did shared and independent reading, did shared and independent topic writing, art, technology, poetry and incorporated measurement and mapwork into this study topic.
Martie Andrew from Awakeri School
Hugely effective in that everything we wanted the students to do was covered by you in an engaging and motivating way. We covered most areas of the curriculum, as well as fostered a new understanding of what 'virtual' actually means!
Jacqueline Barrett from Westbrook School
We used a lot of the information from your field trip for our current unit about developing an enrichment toy for an animal at the zoo, as the Hamilton Zoo has keas to entertain. One comment was: 'This was the most fun research we have ever done!' The kids loved the videos and quizzes and we especially liked the listening option of the background pages for our low readers.
Sabine Hartmann from Karangahake School
Awesome field trip - students loved the videos, taking part in the audio conference etc. Really like how the background reading pages have an audio file - great for my ESOL students and for supporting students at different reading levels.
Emma Watts from Remarkables Primary School
Found the SOLO based questions for the videos useful for guiding students, really helping slow starters and students less engaged in science. The activities and quizes were also useful for year 10 science.
Lucy Meagher from Havelock North High School
It was wonderful having a bird students already had contact with to focus our inquiry skills of research, communication and self-regulation. There is an excellent balance of texts and photos which can be related to all the learning needs in my class. The field trip was so relevant and the format easy to use.
Deborah Lamont from Methven School
We are currently studying adaptations and how animals/birds suit their habitat so the Kea was a great case study. I find the newsletters great - very detailed and a great prompt in the lead-up to field trips.
Brenda Town from Town Family Home School
The whole class decided that having access to the experts was invaluable (via the audioconferences), and we wouldn't have that access otherwise. Great way of engaging the children and having them learn about our natural environment. Hugely motivating for the children, able to be integrated into all aspects of the curriculum.
Joanne Mortimer from Weston School
Smart Motorways
It was an engaging way to up skill students by involving them in an audio conference and getting their parents to complete a public survey. It was also a great way to understand changes occurring to our local motorway.
Elizabeth Cranney from Miramar Christian School
Students followed the technological process by looking at the different roles of the people and the components of the smart motorway, and related these to its purpose. Thank you - the whole resource was able to be used and made into differentiated activities for my students.
Vicki Karetai from Brooklyn School Motueka
The children loved this field trip. We integrated it into our reading programme where we focussed on the reading strategies of: Summarisation, Synthesising, Making Connections, Inference. The structure of the field trips makes my life easy as far as planning goes. The fact that the children can log on at home is great. The parents love logging on and listening to the audio conferences.
Jan Thompson from Banks Avenue School
The brilliant thing about this field trip is that it used a wide variety of media to hook the students in. One student even said "I didn't know that motorways were so interesting". There was something for every style of learning and all Key Competencies came into play as students worked together and individually to complete components of this field trip.
Cherie Norman from Rosehill School
My son has a keen interest in engineering and this was a fantastic opportunity to go behind the scenes of motorway infrastructure and find out how a smart motorway works. He found the videos very interesting, particularly the one about construction and planning.
Brenda Town from Town Family Home School
Traffic in Auckland is a big part of our lives so my boys could relate to this topic in real life. The background pages, pictures and videos held their attention. My boys enjoyed the smart motorways trip - they learned so much.
Hannelie van der Linde from Van der Linde Family Home School
The smart motorway is a great example of looking at significant issues, with a Future Focus, that involve our citizens and how the problem of traffic is being tackled globally. It was great to have the activity sheets to record our thinking while we were listening to the audio conference.
Maria Church from Bellevue School Newlands
We are studying Structures and Smart Motorways tied in well with our schoolwide topic. The field trip made the children think at a deeper level and apply knowledge gained to other areas of the curriculum. The activities and videos supported the context well. The children enjoyed sharing what they had learned on the Field Trip with their families at home.
Natalie Looney from Fitzroy School
Covers real life examples for the maths learning area. The field trip encourages independence and enterprise and promotes confidence. It also allows learners to collaborate and work in a group.
Rakesh Prakash from Alfriston College
The class found it effective as the resources invited collaboration and discussion. It was a new context that demonstrated science in action. Learning areas could all be linked and the key competency of self management was explored.
Jacob Plummer from Tauranga Intermediate
The students were motivated by the fact that this was real time learning about a new technology in NZ. Helped to inspire the students into inquiry based projects related to our term's concept of 'Movement'.
Philippa Williams from Pukekohe Hill School
Appreciate the personal interest taken by the (LEARNZ) teachers to get our school on-board and recognized. It really opened up a field that is related to real life. Broadens our experiences and much cheaper than an onsite visit, although the latter is not to be overlooked. Some sites are not accessible to general public.
Elmer Breed from Wellington SDA School
We were able to relate this situation to those we know more about in Auckland. As our topic for the year is responding to challenges, we were able to see how this is being effected in the area of transport.
Suzanne Parkinson from Parnell School
Opera
It was a great way to expose the Year 7 and 8s to something new and different, and to learn at their own pace. I have had very focused classes during each lesson. It covered all The Arts, with visual art (props and scenery), as well as dance, drama and music.
Anne Rodgers from Cashmere Primary School
The students learned so much more than I thought - they were engaged when seeing students their own age asking deep questions. We are looking at creating our own movies and seeing the interviews with cast and crew helped to focus their ideas and find realistic goals.
Sharon Riley from Ruapotaka School
From the beginning, our learners were very interested and engaged. We overlaid SOLO taxonomy as an activity pathway and for children to set goals and evaluate progress in terms of being supported, self managed or self directed learners. We have found all the Learnz field trips give a great scaffolding for explicit teaching of skills, and effective tools for those children who learn differently, such as oral material and videos to provide information.
Susan Andrews from Cashmere Primary School
Students were engaged, motivated and excited to be taking part, and learnt a great deal from this field trip as it encouraged them to work towards excellence. Participating meant they engaged with the curriculum in English, The Arts (Music, Visual Arts, Dance and Drama), Technology, and with many of the Key Competencies.
Shelley Barbour from St Albans School