Testimonials

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My 31 mixed-ability children were completely engaged in our study. It was such an authentic context for us, as we are a silver enviroschool and we have three kauri at our school that we are learning to protect. Was great for the children to see real science in action; they were very interested in the laboratory work.

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.