Welcome back to Term 3

Click on the this link to download latest edition. Have a good read!

The Teen Parent Unit of Stratford High School, Taranaki, are   trialling Bamzonia to help teach up to 25 students. Their Mission Statement  is: To provide young parents with the opportunity to return to, or continue, their education and help them fulfil educational and vocational goals.

Bamzonia was invited to the Computers in Homes National hui to talk to nationwide facilitators.

Computers in Homes coordinators were excited to discover Bamzonia at the national hui in Invercargill last week  giving them  the opportunity to give it a go.

Contracts Director and 2020 Trust Chair, Laurence Zwimpfer, was impressed. “We support over 1500 families in low income communities each year, helping them upskill to use digital technologies. Parents become more confident using computers and the internet so that they can engage with and support their children’s learning.  We look forward to being able to share this exciting learning resource with our Computers in Homes families and the 300 schools that participate in our programme each year. I took one of the quizzes targeted at Year 5 and 6 students and was humbled to get two wrong!  Just goes to show, we all have something to learn even those of us in Years 50 and 60!

The long awaited fresh new look of Version 2 Bamzonia has now been launched to the delight of many schools. By the click of the mouse, teachers can access the Lesson Summaries, outlining individual lesson content and all the correct answers. Everything is much easier with Help buttons on each category.The new icons also make navigating around the programme much easier and more intuitive. The reporting feature takes on a more user friendly graphic style.  Probably the most radical new feature is schools being able to Register and start using Bamzonia immediately. They are now able to easily upload their own students, or move them to different classes.  Check out Bamzonia V2 for yourself.

The Team from Bamzonia welcomes you back to the new school year 2015

We have some exciting plans for the new school year. In the next week or so we are upgrading to Bamzonia Version 2 with the following new and improved features.

1. A fresh new Home Page with more intuitive navigation
2. Clear instructions on how to use Bamzonia in the classroom
3. Updated ‘Summaries’ of each lesson
4. A much easier reporting system for teachers
5. A Troubleshooting page
6. FAQ’s page
7. Available on the IPad and Android devices (later this term)
8. Voiced lessons (later this term)

We would like to extend our thanks to BNZ who are continuing to contribute 50% of the site licenses for Decile 1-4 schools. This was extremely helpful last year and we are expecting a surge of additional registrations in these areas.

We are in the process of writing 4 new lessons specifically for years 12 and13. These will cover career choices particularly in business, commerce, and accounting.

Your students will be happy to know we are looking at unlocking another Mini Game later in the year. We are also extending to Australia with the launch of Bamzonia Australia by mid 2015.

For further information please contact ronel@bamzonia.co.nz or register at info@bamzonia.co.nz

All the best, and thanks to our schools that have joined Bamzonia over the last 18 months.

We would like to extend our thanks to BNZ who are continuing to contribute 50% of the site licenses for Decile 1-4 schools. This was extremely helpful last year and we are expecting a surge of additional registrations in these areas.

We are in the process of writing 4 new lessons specifically for years 12 and13. These will cover career choices particularly in business, commerce, and accounting.

Your students will be happy to know we are looking at unlocking another Mini Game later in the year. We are also extending to Australia with the launch of Bamzonia Australia by mid 2015.

For further information please contact ronel@bamzonia.co.nz or register at info@bamzonia.co.nz

All the best, and thanks to our schools that have joined Bamzonia over the last 18 months.

Who says bribery doesn’t pay?  Year 9 Financial Literacy students came out richer – both in pocket and mind – after participating in an interesting presentation about financial software.

Guest speaker, Ronel Schodt, caught the students interest straight away with the money shot: “Who can tell me what animal is on the New Zealand $1 coin.”  The student with the correct answer was given the coin to keep. Needless to say, keen interest and enthusiasm ensued with correct answers earning a monetary value as the prize!

During her visit, Ronel introduced an online Financial Literacy Education programme for New Zealand students, called Bamzonia. This resource is designed to assist teaching Financial Literacy in a fun and effective way. Using the software, students learn about financial matters such as personal and family budgeting, credit, debt, income, tax, KiwiSaver – and much more.

See the article HERE

Philip Mahoney from Kamo High School was one of well over 100 teachers who registered in the draw for our Free School Site Licence at ULearn.

Congratulations on winning the site licence for well over 600 students and teachers at your school. Philip was very happy to receive the news “It made going to ULearn a much better experience – great!” he said, on hearing the news.

We look forward to your feedback on how the students are using Bamzonia and if you think it is going to make a difference for your community – good luck.

Come along to the ULearn Stand 43 to enter the Prize draw for a FREE School Site Licence for the rest of 2014. You’ve got to be in to win!

We have been demonstrating the new Bank mini-game at Ulearn 2014 here in Rotorua. We are hoping to have this live on the website by the first day of term 4. This has been extremely popular with those teachers with a quick mind and nimble fingers! Fun for all ages.

The interest in Financial Literacy has seen a remarkable increase this year. With over 1,600 delegates at the conference, we have hundreds of of people visiting the stand: teachers from primary to senior secondary schools. The new Site Licence cost structure has been particularly popular with everyone. We will be contacting all the people who have requested more information or their free registration, over the next week or so. We will also be announcing the winner of our Prize Draw – a free school site licence for the rest of 2014.