Testimonials

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.

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.

Activities that went with the videos were fantastic.

It is a highly motivating tool for learning. Children were highly engaged about kauri and continue to have discussions about their learning. Saves me as a teacher a lot of time as almost all of the planning and preparing is done for me. Great to be able to "call on the expert" from my classroom. Makes learning very accessible.

I used a lot of independent learning time using the background pages which promoted managing self. Also promotes community engagement, future focused thinking. It is well integrated across the curriculum and supports a range of learning types.

It has benefited all akonga (that includes me). We knew nothing about kauri dieback disease until this field trip. Really relevant to us in Northland.

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.

Pitched to range of levels - many students are visual learners so the videos and photo gallery are especially useful. Ability to revisit info and to pace themselves as they read through the background notes is also good.

The field trip supported both our social sciences and science learning areas. The students loved the real life content and particularly enjoyed the audio conferences. I like the fact that we can revist the fieldtrip resources throughout our learning unit ... which will come in handy when the students need to research a natural disaster that may occur in our area (Nelson) and how to prepare for it.

Our topic this term is actually civil defence and I used this field trip as motivation. Living on the lower slopes of Mt Taranaki the volcano parts were our particular focus and as my class are year 2-4 we used the fabulous videos and the photos in the gallery. The class have gained a huge understanding even from what we have used. There was a lot of information they could access with a little guidance, and they really enjoyed it. It was also easily accessed by the special needs children with their teacher aides.