Search
Showing 10 of 7339 results
-
PIF Recipient: Chasing Time English
Across the world, there is a vast market for English language learning. To put a number on it – around one billion learners. In many countries, though, English is taught through repetitive, mostly grammar-based content. The result is two-fold: students become disengaged and disinterested, and they advance in writing and reading skills at the expense of speaking skills.
Chasing Time English is a New Zealand company on a mission to make English language learning engaging, exciting, and effective for educators and students around the world. How? Through video. The team at Chasing Time English believe that English language classes should excite and inspire students to learn more, and decided video was the best medium to achieve this.
Chasing Time English uses engaging video story content to educate learners.
Through original, live-action-drama videos, Chasing Time English brings intrigue, humour, surprise and suspense into learning. Redrawing the line between education and entertainment, the short videos produced by Chasing Time English are designed to stand alone as quality entertainment, with strong learning outcomes embedded throughout.
To achieve this feat, the company brings together a team of English language educators, applied linguists and filmmaking professionals, who collaborate to create compelling, narrative-based drama content backed up by a cutting-edge pedagogy.
While other education publishers also produce English language learning video content, this is often lower quality video with limited learner appeal and retention. By creating professional quality drama content, Chasing Time English has become a market leader in English language video learning. Captivate learners, and the learning will follow.
Chasing Time English is one of the successful recipients of funding from the International Education Product Innovation Fund, a New Zealand Government-funded initiative to support pilot projects that reimagine and rethink what a New Zealand education experience can look like and mean for global learners. Education New Zealand Manapou ki te Ao (ENZ) is the government agency responsible for international education and is managing the Product Innovation Fund.
ENZ will work in a partnership approach with each successful recipient, sharing skills, expertise and resources to help each pilot succeed and develop into a self-sustaining education offering. The lessons learned through the pilot projects will be shared for the benefit of New Zealand’s entire international education sector, with a view to encouraging innovative, new offerings for international learners to experience a New Zealand education.
The Product Innovation Fund award will enable Chasing Time English to design, develop and deliver a new set of programmes for high beginner to elementary English language learners and educators. Target audiences include New Zealand education institutions with offshore partners, high schools in Japan and the Netherlands, and English language teachers at the post-beginner level.
Across two programmes of 10 weeks each, learners will be able to access up to 100 hours of engaging resources, including Chasing Time English’s distinctive video content, along with other audio and video resources and communication-based activities. The new set of programmes will incorporate a strong New Zealand theme, sharing New Zealand storytelling and themes of environmental sustainability and innovation. The original video content will also showcase New Zealand’s spectacular natural scenery, helping inspire learners and build a connection with New Zealand, wherever they are in the world.
With the support of ENZ through the Product Innovation Fund, Chasing Time English is set to continue growing its impressive offering for English language learners around the world. Already setting the bar for the quality of its learning resources and pedagogy, this Kiwi education provider is showing that online learning can be fun and effective, while also showcasing New Zealand’s landscapes, people and values to learners wherever they are.
More information:
- E-News-December
- 27624907 2010374865646631 2732348055595172742 o
- Mortal Engines card 830x380
- PM20launching20Saudi20campaign
- Insurance Requirements for PMSA and PMSLA Recipients Oct 2025
- Around the world in 41
-
PIF Recipient: Virtual Medical Coaching
In the United States alone, approximately 800 women die each year during pregnancy and within 42 days after delivery. More than 60% of those deaths are believed to be preventable. In developing countries, the rate of pregnancy-related deaths is up to 300 times higher.
An important part of the solution is education. Globally, midwives are in high demand, with the UK’s NHS increasing their places for student midwives by 3000, starting this year. Australia is also planning to increase numbers, while in New Zealand, a funding boost will increase the number of Māori and Pacific students training in midwifery.
While the demand for midwifery training is growing, education offerings haven’t kept up. Childbirth is deeply personal, and feedback from mothers – validated by hospital staff – is that they do not wish to have extra staff or students in the room for training. With no effective opportunities for face-to-face learning, there is a global need for a realistic and scalable childbirth simulation.
That’s where Virtual Medical Coaching’s vision comes in, supported as a recipient of the International Education Product Innovation Fund. Virtual reality (VR) software will provide a safe and controlled environment for students to see and assist in childbirth simulations, both with and without complications and in a range of different scenarios. As the student improves, the simulations they encounter increase in difficulty. A machine-learning algorithm enables fast and accurate feedback to both the learner and any tutors.
The simulation will be interactive and responsive, meaning that any action taken by a student creates a life-like consequence and reaction. The outcome is that learners are taught to effectively make decisions and problem solve.
Existing options for midwifery training include a physical mannequin simulator, but this can be prohibitively expensive, out of reach of many training providers, and doesn’t offer students maximum learning hours. In addition, existing options don’t include the ability to witness mechanisms like rotations/restitutions or the ability to have back and forth conversations. By contrast, the VR simulation will be available to students wherever they are, and whenever they need to practice. The nature of the VR experience means that modern learning styles, such as asynchronous and remote learning, are well catered for.
With support from the International Education Product Innovation Fund, Virtual Medical Coaching’s childbirth simulation is on track to become fully released by the end of 2024. A beta-version is already used by some educators globally. The Product Innovation Fund is a New Zealand Government-funded initiative to reimagine what a New Zealand education can look like and mean for global learners.
Managed by Education New Zealand Manapou ki te Ao (ENZ), New Zealand’s government agency for international education, the fund is supporting a range of pilot projects from existing and emerging New Zealand education providers. Together, the projects rethink how an education experience from New Zealand can be delivered, and create impact, for global learners.
For Virtual Medical Coaching, it’s about finding a better solution to a serious issue. Like many other innovative Kiwi education technology companies, Virtual Medical Coaching is designing technology that will create positive impact around the world. It’s already successfully developed an x-ray simulation for healthcare professionals which has won multiple national and international awards. Now, with the support of ENZ through the International Education Product Innovation Fund, Virtual Medical Coaching is set to respond to a clear need for better midwifery training options and develop another cutting-edge learning product for both New Zealand and offshore markets.
More information:
-
Statement from Linda Sissons, Acting Chief Executive
We are deeply saddened by the tragic passing of international students in a road accident near Lake Tekapo on Saturday.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims, the campus communities at the University of Canterbury and Victoria University of Wellington and the wider Malaysian student community in New Zealand.
We hope those injured in the crash make a full recovery.
We are grateful for the community of support that has emerged around the accident in New Zealand and Malaysia to aid the victims and their families during an extremely distressing and challenging time – heartfelt thanks to our emergency response teams, the Malaysian community in Ōtautahi Christchurch, universities, and locals who responded to the scene.
Linda Sissons
Acting Chief Executive, Education New Zealand
- FUDAN 2
