UPDATES:

28th May 2021

Kia ora koutou,  

As we reflect on Term 1 and the start of the school year, we were quickly reminded that COVID-19 is still in our midst. Techtorium introduced the new Tech Pathways programme to high schools in Auckland and it has been widely accepted with positive outcomes. Techtorium welcomed its first cohort of high school students onto the Tech Pathways programme in Term 1. The programme is taught over four days at our Newmarket location, and we were delighted to see the enthusiasm in the students as they started their Tech Pathway journey in their respective chosen pathway. Monday to Thursdays we had high school students participate in the programme keeping our IT trainers busy at Techtorium. 

The caliber of students enrolled in the Tech Pathways Programme ranged from your beginners in IT to high school students already familiar with Interactive Learning Environment (ILE) Techtorium offers. These students in previous years participated in our short courses and the previous ICT programme and there are very capable future IT specialists in the students enrolled this year on our programmes. In addition, Techtorium were able to collaborate with Manurewa High School Trades Academy to give students from alternative education programmes and the trades student the opportunity to experience Information Technology studies in our environment. The students were excited to be in a new education environment and from our observation most of the group had positive experiences with our IT trainers and the course content. We continue to try and create new ways to support our school communities and the alternative education group is an area we would like to work with in the future. The Tertiary Pathways team were kept busy with school lunchtime presentations and classroom engagements. The use of our virtual reality gear proved to be extremely popular amongst the students to the point where we would see students lining up to take turns. The relevance and importance of Technology in the lives of these young people, present and future can be seen and heard through our interactions with the schools as growing interest in IT, our short courses and full-time study increases. The senior high school students take the initiative to discuss various areas of IT with the team and we can see firsthand that these students are proactively planning their tertiary study pathways from the queries and comments shared, great! 

Term 1 school period saw the start of careers and expo events across the country for our secondary school communities. The Tertiary Pathways staff participated in the Northland Whangarei Roadshow. The schools in this region were highly organized with the roadshow and we were able to successfully engage with the staff, students, and parents. We would like to acknowledge and thank all the wonderful secondary school contacts in the Northland/Whangarei region for hosting Techtorium at you respective schools. Our short courses are offered online for all the schools outside of the Auckland region and we look forward to continuing our commitment to the students in the Northland schools. During the April School Holidays, we ushered through our doors over two hundred wonderful tech enthusiasts from Year 11 to 13 students from all around Auckland region and even further afield via online learning. The level of engagement with our Techtorium staff onsite and online during the holidays was incredible, and we cannot wait to have them back in the July school holidays. 

We farewelled Victoria Smith from Techtorium as she moved on from Techtorium to pursue her passion in teaching and IT. Victoria had a positive impact on increasing the number of female IT students at Techtorium through the Women in IT initiative she created at her time with us. She also helped to develop the Junior Program which Techtorium introduced last year to the Year 7-10 students. She will be missed by the schools she managed and the staff at Techtorium. 

Margaret Moala

Tertiary Pathways Manager

What you’ll learn

• Implementing security solutions on digital devices
• Networking concepts
• Routers and switches
• Demonstrating knowledge of LANs and WANs
• Provision of a desktop as a service in the cloud.

What you’ll learn

• Installing Windows Server 2016
• File Server, Active Directory Domain Services
• Data communications

What you’ll learn

• To disassemble and reassemble a computer
• Install & configure an operating system and application software
• Configuring network, security and storage options for computers