netTrekker Blog

netTrekker Plus Assessment Tools

Does your school have Scantron Achievement or Performance Series? What about Edusoft, Examview, or Datawaise MEASURES?

netTrekker works seamlessly with these assessment programs to help uncover the needs of struggling students and offer resources to help them in areas where they need additional support. You can  go directly from viewing your assessment data  to standards-aligned, digital content from netTrekker!

Click here for an example lesson and to read more about integrating netTrekker with your assessment tools!

Check out more product integrations here.

Tags: Assessment

netTrekker Spotlight User: Mona Edwards Discusses Why netTrekker Trumps Google

netTrekker is pleased to introduce this week’s spotlight user, Mona Edwards. Mona is  a Librarian at Carver Middle School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mona describes how she encourages students to try netTrekker.

I really like netTrekker and how it is constantly monitored for content. It saves the kids a lot of time because educators have already gone through mountains and mountains of information and made sense of it so the kids don’t have to. The students will get reliable information every time they log on.

When the kids sit down and automatically go to Google, I say to them “Oh, so you can go through those thousands of hits and ensure that each of them has reliable information?’ Then I tell them to go to netTrekker and save themselves some time.

Tags: Google

When I grow up, I want to be a netTrekker Administrator!

Ok, I’m sure no one has ever said that, but we’ve tried to add some functions to netTrekker’s Admin Tools so that no one ever says they never want to be one, either!

Our Admin Tools are the place where netTrekker Administrators at the school or district can do several things, like check usernames, fix passwords, set system settings, among other functions, and we’ve responded to one of our biggest requests: more and better usage information!  More on that later.

First thing you’ll see in the Admin Tools is a list of video tutorials that help you with the functions here, available 24/7, and it’s always a good place to start if you have questions.

To get to the Tools themselves, scroll on down. You can view or create Teacher Codes so your teachers can have the correct role (which is very important with our role-based content), you can view or create Registration Keys for new users, you can view and download usage statistics, and manage users’ roles, status, and passwords! Just find the tool, and click the orange Go button!

Most everything continues to operate as it has, but the District and School Usage Reports are completely re-vamped for this school year. You’ll see graphs of the major areas of netTrekker usage including: Searches, My Portfolio, Dictionary and Read Aloud.

As the months pass, you’ll see alternating colored bars indicating each month, and if you hover over any bar with your mouse, you’ll see the numerical count. Pretty cool.  If you want to see the data in a spreadsheet, choose an Export button to download Summary Data, which is what you are seeing in the graphs, or Detail Data for school-by-school data for all the categories.

There’s more than just a new look in the Admin Tools!

Global Portfolio – shared resources for ALL teachers!

As an added benefit for TEACHERS – netTrekker Search provides view access to the Global Portfolio used to share out folders of digital resources from the netTrekker support and training teams to all TEACHERS.  You must be logged into netTrekker Search with an account designated as a Teacher or Admin to view the Global Portfolio.  Contact your netTrekker Administrator if you need instructions on changing the role of your account from Student to Teacher.

GLOBAL PORTFOLIO CONTENTS

• It is recommended that you create a directory structure in your school and district portfolios to organize your shared resources.  We provide a folder of District & School Portfolio Hierarchies that you can easily copy down into your school and/or district portfolios.  Once copied down, all you will need to do is edit the folder names to customize for your organization.
• The potential of My Portfolio is endless – check out some great sample Lesson Launchers to jump start your own lessons.  Simply copy down the Lesson Launcher of your choice and customize with your specific instructions, standards, and favorite digital resources.
• Take your teachers to the Teacher Startup folder to guide them through a series of videos that demonstrate the netTrekker Search features, access the online Quick Start Guide, entice them with a scavenger hunt to practice using netTrekker Search, and invite them to join netTrekker Village and other online resources to stay connected to netTrekker and other netTrekker users.
• After participating in a FREE Tip Tuesday or Connection Wednesday webinar, copy down the associated Global Portfolio folder of digital resources.

Be sure to check back often for updates.  If you have any suggestions for Global Portfolio contents, please contact Marci Campbell, Manager Professional Development Solutions.

Customer Center – Ongoing Support for Your netTrekker Subscription

In the new My Community widget in netTrekker Search, you’ll find a quick link to the Customer Center.  The Customer Center is your online “survival kit” for getting started with your netTrekker subscription and for supporting ongoing usage in your school or district.

In the Get Started section, you’ll find the online Welcome Kit with information on setting up access to netTrekker, and checklists and resources for implementing netTrekker with your teachers, students, and parents.  The netTrekker Administrator at your school or district will also find all the info he or she will need to use netTrekker’s Admin Tools for ongoing administration of  your subscription.

Looking for information on netTrekker’s Professional Development options – check out the Learn section of the Customer Center.  You’ll also find downloadable PDF training resources and a new Online Video library with more than 35 short online training videos that you can use for introducing netTrekker’s features and tools to students and teachers.

And finally, visit our FAQs in the Support section for answers to the most common netTrekker support questions.  If you didn’t find the answers you’re looking for in the Customer Center, or have questions about netTrekker Professional Development, you’ll also find a map with the netTrekker contacts listed for each state in the Support area.

Online Learning for netTrekker Search

Are you looking for a convenient flexible option for learning how to get the most out of your netTrekker Search subscription …

Then be sure to check out Online Learning - your one stop shop for all online opportunities to learn about netTrekker Search.

Check out the FREE online videos, FREE webinars, FREE Moodle Class, and more extensive non-facilitated and graduate level Moodle Class.

Tip Tuesdays - Join us each Tuesday at 4:30 PM EST for a FREE 30 minute webinar as we share ideas on how to use netTrekker in your classroom

Connection Wednesdays – Join us each Wednesday at 4:30 PM EST for a FREE webinar co-hosted by netTrekker and one of our valued partners as we demonstrate the connection between our products including BrainPOP, NSTA, Weekly Reader Express, and Teachers Domain.

netTrekker TV (Tutorial Videos) – View netTrekker TV, our library of FREE Tutorial Videos for targeted training on netTrekker features. If you ever need that just-in-time learning, or if you are a visual learner, our set of FREE online video tutorials will help acquaint you with netTrekker features and tools.

FREE non-facilitated Online Courses (1.5 hours)
NT001 – Learn to Search and Differentiate digital resources using netTrekker features and tools
NT001S – NT001 with Scantron Integration

Advanced non-facilitated Online Courses (2 hours) – under construction
NT002 – Learn to Organize and Integrate digital resources using netTrekker features and tools
NT002S - NT002 with Scantron Integration

Graduate Level facilitated Online Course (30 hours with optional 3 graduate credits)
NT101 – Explore netTrekker features and tools, to share best practices for implementation into teaching and learning, and to create standards-based projects, all in the context of differentiated instruction. Discussion boards, an interactive webinar, and a variety of 21st Century Learning resources are included in this collaborative learning community.

Tags: Moodle, online learning, tutorials, videos

netTrekker Spotlight User: Joquetta Johnson Discusses How She Uses netTrekker’s Partner Collections

netTrekker is excited to introduce this week’s Spotlight User. Joquetta Johnson is a Library Media Specialist at Milford Mill Academy in Baltimore County, Maryland. Joquetta shares how netTrekker’s partner collections aided her in teaching a lesson on digital citizenship.

As a high school Media Specialist, I present a library orientation to the students at the beginning of each school year. This year, instead of the “traditional” library orientation, I taught a lesson on digital citizenship.

I used the BrainPop digital citizenship video and selected pages from the Promethean BrainPop digital citizenship flipchart which I found using netTrekker Search.  I also  found an awesome video, using netTrekker Search, called NetsafeNetBasics (http://www.netbasics.org.nz/) , which teaches kids about the dangers lurking on the internet. This video from YouTube, called, Everyone Knows Your Name (http://youtu.be/hOwpGF1SOQM) was an important part of the lesson as well.

Joquetta Johnson
Library Media Specialist
Milford Mill Academy
Baltimore County Public Schools, MD

More Helpful Help

Not sure how to get a list of famous people? Uncertain about whether to use a keyword search or a subject search? Looking for a quick and easy answer? netTrekker SEARCH provides new ways to help users learn about all our features and tools. The revised Help section features an expandable table of contents, a searchable index and a keyword search that allows users to find answers quickly based on search terms rather than page titles.

When you access Help from your My Account widget, you’ll see a whole new look, but more importantly, you’ll see all the new functionality.

Opening each of the books in the Table of Contents will give users a menu of pages that is similar to the Help menu they have been used to in netTrekker.

Clicking on the Index will show users an alphabetized list of topics covered in Help. This index also has a keyword search box to make finding indexed items a snap.

I think the most dramatic and useful new feature of the Help section is the Search capability. Not only can users keyword search the index, but they can also click on the Search icon and do a keyword search of all the text in the entire Help database. This Search capability is available both from the left of the page, where it lives next to the Table of Contents and Index, and at the top right of the page, where it is always open.

Finally, when users access Help pages, they will often find, in addition to explanations and examples, links to to the same online video tutorials which readers of this blog are already familiar with from the nettrekker.com Customer Center.

netTrekker SEARCH offers many ways for users to personalize their experience with netTrekker and these new features extend that personalization to the Help section as well.

Sorting Your Search Results

Much like online shopping where you may search for a particular item by price, color, size, etc., the sorting feature in netTrekker SEARCH provides a similar approach to locating educational resources. Users may sort any search result in a particular order, according to a variety of criteria. The sorting options include:

• the name of the Educator / Evaluator who evaluated the resource
• the Readability level of the resource
• the Overall Rating of the site, as determined by the Educator / Evaluator
• the ranking of sites in that Search Result as recommended by student Voting
• the ranking of sites in that Search Result as recommended by teacher Voting
• the Title of the site

Click here to view a video tutorial about Sorting netTrekker Search Web Resources.

Tags: sorting

netTrekker Spotlight User: Kavita Sapra Discusses netTrekker’s ELL/ESL Tools

netTrekker is excited to introduce this week’s Spotlight User. Kavita Sapra is a 6th Grade English Teacher at Yonkers Middle High School in Yonkers, New York. Kavita shares how netTrekker’s personalized learning tools have been an asset for her ELL/ESL students.

75% of my students come from a background where English is not their native language. netTrekker enabled the students as well as their parents to attain an element of success, using the Readability Level as well as the option of Elementary/ Middle School level content. In addition, the Read Aloud feature helped the students who were challenged with reading.

By being prepared for the lesson, the students were able to participate in class. Consequently, their self-esteem was impacted. As an educator, I was able to target the different modalities of learning and provide a curriculum-enriched environment to my students.

Our parents also found netTrekker informational, without the danger of exposing their child to irrelevant material. Access to netTrekker through eChalk, our in-house communication program, made it convenient for the students to complete their assignments.

Make Your Vote Count!

With the new netTrekker voting feature, students and teachers can give each of their favorite resources their seal of approval and more efficiently choose resources!

 When you open a netTrekker resource, a frame will appear at the top of the page featuring the read aloud button and the voting buttons. If you like the resource you’re viewing, you can click the thumbs up button, and if you dislike the resource you can click the thumbs down button. Depending on whether you are registered as a teacher or a student on netTrekker, your vote will be counted respectively.

 Now, when you conduct a keyword search, your search results may contain student and/or teacher recommended resources. The sort menu can be used to sort search results by teacher or student recommended resources. Resources with more student and teacher thumbs up recommendations will be bumped up to the top of your search results. If none of the resources returned by your search results have been student or teacher recommended yet, your search results page will return the same resources in the same order as a regular keyword search.

Check out the Help section on Voting for more information.

Tags: Voting

netTrekker Search – Customize Your Homepage

netTrekker Search now supports your ability to create a personalized search experience that is as unique as your students.

The new netTrekker Search homepage offers the same ease of use and overall structure, while supporting your need to add, remove, and reorder elements that are important to you. All of this is now possible in the “Customize My Homepage” section in the top right corner of your screen. When you select this link, you’ll notice that you can still easily set your default Academic Level and default Education Channel.  Beneath this section, you can now customize your homepage display by adding or removing subjects and Navigation Widgets.

Once you’re back on your homepage, subjects and navigation links that are important to you will appear based on your selections. What if you need to reorder or remove certain widgets? No problem. Simply drag and drop widgets to reorder, or select the close button on a specific widget to personalize your page even further. Homepage elements can always be restored by traveling to the “Customize My Homepage” section.

For more information about customizing your homepage, click here to view the Help page on this topic.