You can contact LEARNZ, part of CORE Education, at:
Postal Address:
PO Box 13 678,
Christchurch 8141,
New Zealand
Teacher testimonials
Wetland Biodiversity
Very hands on feeling to videos and a very good learning experience all up! One of my sons loves animals and the outdoors. Living in New Zealand we all should know about the importance of these areas.
This is awesome (one student, Jack, many times over)! Being my first Learnz fieldtrip I was a learner too, and found it well prepared with invaluable information to add to our Wetlands unit. The managing self aspect came into play here as well for my Year 4-8 class.
Opera
It was an opportunity for students to experience something they may not have ever been able to, had it not been for this field trip.
Smart Motorways
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.
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.
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.
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.
High Country
Exceptionally appropriate for this age group - particularly the videos, web board and photos. The class also loved having Walt (the class mascot) there.
The field trips meet the needs of lots of learners and enables multi level learning on the same topic. I like the ability to easily revise, and work can be looked at outside the classroom. Excellent links to key competencies, self management, use of 21st century learning environment.
Antarctica
The field trip supported the development of Key Competencies, and provided up-to-date information relevant to Education for Sustainability.
The LEARNZ virtual journey to Antarctica was great because EOTC is not possible in Antarctica for a school classroom to do for real. The opportunity to hear real scientists talk to the LEARNZ representative, Shelley Hersy, was very valuable and also helped us form some of our science goals.
For my Year 4 class enjoyed the learning experience. The virtual field trip raised their awareness of how special and unique Antarctica is and made them think about being the guardians of the area.
This field trip was very appropriate for my Year 4 class as we used it under the theme of Kaitiakitanga. I feel the effectiveness (of the virtual field trip) can be gauged by the involvement and the questions asked by the children, and this Antarctica study has really had them enthused and doing independent research of their own. It is fascinating to discover how much knowledge the children take home and discuss with their families.
Very appropriate for year 7/8 students. They absolutely loved being able to look at the resources, especially the photo/video content. It gave maximum opportunity to discuss what they were looking at and learning.
My Year 3-4 students found the field trip extremely interesting, particularly as we had an ambassador join Shelley on the trip, too. We used the background pages for our reading programme and used the videos. There was a high degree of curiosity from the students, and their questions were answered at their level.
Great for Nature of Science. Also enviroscience topics. The kids were really interested - we found all the science fascinating and it was delivered in a way that made it understandable for the class. Also just the glimpse into life in the Antarctic.
This field trip supported our science and geography topics. We found the videos very informative. It was great to listen to scientists and the artist giving us a glimpse of what living and working in Antarctica is really like.
It takes us to a place we have never been and experienced before and it gives us more insights of what's happening there. It's incredibly interesting.
Great for students to have new people connecting to them in a different way, linking many aspects of the curriculum in a real setting.
The field trip was extremely appropriate and challenging. Very effective. My class really got into it - it was so well organised for teachers and students.
This is a rich experience for students who know NZ but are often living offshore.
The whole field trip has added a sense of authenticity to student learning. This really is a wonderful way to give us invaluable learning experiences - students have been so engaged and have been thinking of their own experiments to test some of the things that they have learnt.
I run the GATE programme and we do Future Problem Solving so the ecological sustainability was particularly relevant. A great teaching tool which is motivating for students.
Provided real meaning and connections to topical subjects like global warming. There was a high level of interest about Antarctica from the students.
Very effective, especially the videos. Fantastic with much of the planning done for the time-poor teacher. This field trip is fully supportive of Principles, Key values and Competencies as well as learning areas of our curriculum, thanks.
This unit linked with our topic of sustainability and enabled cross curricular learning in a digital context. This type of learning resource helps students to work at their level, irrespective of where they start and their reading ability.
Children loved every part of the experience- thoroughly engaging. Really cool for the students to be able to participate with a group outside of their immediate context!
Excellent source of information for the students, aimed at their level, well presented and easy for the students to access and work with. Students found it extremely interesting and they learnt plenty of new things about Antarctica.
It has been one of the best units I have taught in my 16 years of teaching - I would recommend it to anyone. I do think that it has been particularly successful in my classroom because we signed up for the extras such as the ambassador and the audio conferencing - that's what really made it come alive for me and the children in my class.
My students have a different view of the world we live in after this field trip. My students love the field trips.
You do a great job of preparing and motivating us to engage with the topic. Well structured for all students. Even low achieving readers well engaged. Covered science, values, aspirations and career information.
It was superbly rich with a wide range of activities to select from, to cater for differentiated learning in a class of individuals with multiple learning needs. LEARNZ Field trips have been an intrinsic part of my teaching aand learning programme for many years now. Extremely appropriate.
The audio conversations were brilliantly done along with the accompanying videos, plus questions being typed and answered while online. I have been intrigued and surprised by how much my young students have taken on board during the trip.
ShakeOut
The kids thought it was a cool way to learn and they also said that the Shakeout drill now made a lot more sense i.e. why we do it. We found that the variety of different ways the information was presented made it interesting and accessible for all levels.
This was my first time on LEARNZ and I loved it. Apart from the well-prepared unit as such, the level of motivation for the kids was instant, high and continued through-out the whole series of lessons.
The children saw themselves being part of a wider community, participating with other schools and learning from their questions. It was especially useful to have Te Reo words to complement the learning.
Reinforced other learning on natural disasters, emergency procedures and being prepared.
All my students could relate to the information according to individual ability and interest levels. LEARNZ opens up a whole new dimension of making outdoor teaching a reality.
The visual content helped quite a lot of discussion. So many real life experiences that the children can piggy back onto. The Field Trip was an asset for all the class. Thank you.
The levelled information was great. It also was at an apt time as far as reinforcing evacuation and preparedness as a class/school/whanau. I liked the availability of the videos and audio conferences to review and use, even though the fieldtrip had ended.
Very relevant for year 7 students. I really like the audio voice over which has allowed the lower reading level students to work with a lot of independence, without having to wait for the teacher to say the word / discuss the word / explain context etc.
We used this across the school - very appropriate. It linked well with the main ShakeOut event, managing selves, and collaboration.
Resiliance was a key idea we discussed, as were some of the key competencies and their application in real life situation. Right level, good content.
It broadened students' thinking and understanding of the large scale of the event and excited them about the topic. The ability to access information, colleagues and a world which we otherwise wouldn't have access to makes the learning process really meaningful.
Was topical and at appropriate level for my student. Encouraged good discussion and gave excellent information. Student said "That was great. Can we do another one?"
We are looking at change and our ways to survive. It (the field trip) gave more specialist knowledge to students, that the teacher could not give.
We used the videos and some background pages for discussions.
Very appropriate - supported student learning about earthquakes and doing the ShakeOut drill. Interesting, motivating and flexible - students get a lot from having readings, videos, audioconferences, activities, and photos.
We think this (field trip) was very effective as we are much wiser about what we need to do at school and at home, to be prepared during and after an earthquake. LEARNZ is a remarkable online learning community which allowed us to get information on earthquakes from schoolchildren, parents and teachers.
Kea
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.