The Virtual Learning Network in New Zealand: History and Future Thoughts
The Virtual Learning Network has operated in New Zealand for over thirty years as a collaboration among clusters of schools seeking to provide access to quality learning opportunities for all of their students.
The first part of this paper provides a background to the development of the VLN in New Zealand, providing insights to how it came into being and why.
The second part of the document explores some ideas about how the use of online learning might become more embedded as a part of our education system, regularly used by students and teachers to provide access to learning content and experiences that aren’t available to them in their local setting.
The video below tells the story of the Canterbury Area Schools technology project (CASAtech) which later became CANTAtech, a fore-runner to the Virtual Learning Network in NZ. This clip made in 1997, three years after the programme began.
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