netTrekker Blog

What Are You Searching?

netTrekker d.i. just released the top searches this fall, sharing what our students are searching. Here’s a break down of the top 15 keyword searches:

1. Dogs
2. Games
3. Barack Obama
4. Animals
5. Halloween
6. Football
7. Civil War
8. Christopher Columbus
9. John McCain
10. Weather
11. Frogs
12. Plants
13. Native Americans
14. Cats
15. Cells

I’m curious though, why search for dogs in school? How are you using games in the classroom, and how is netTrekker d.i. helping you find games? Football – does it have an academic search purpose? (I actually had a complete unit for geography and math using hockey, so I’m not knocking sports in the classroom.  I just want to hear your responses on how football is used in the classroom.) Cats, those mysterious creatures, are also quite popular for keyword searches. Are they on the list for the same reason dogs are, or is there another reason cats appear on this list. 

Please share your comments below on how you or your students are using these key words in their studies.

By the way, there were over 1,087,610 unique search terms for the fall quarter. That’s a lot of key words!

Tags: keyword, netTrekker d.i., search

Register for NT101 Today!

We’ve had a great response to our last week’s December Did You Know? e-mail.  19 people have already pre-registered for our NT101 online course.  We hope you will make plans now to join us for our first netTrekker d.i. online course on January 21st.  Please read the information below.

…pre-registration is now open for the new NT101 online course that begins Jan 21st. Be sure to take advantage of $99 introductory pricing; regular price is $125.

• NT101 is a 20-hour online professional development course for educators. The format is designed for educators who are dedicated to understanding and incorporating netTrekker d.i.’s key features and functions into the context of teaching and learning. Participants will be guided to gain experience and build expertise using a variety of 21st Century learning resources, including Moodle, interactive tutorials, educational blogs, podcasts, electronic surveys, and other web tools. The course provides a collaborative online learning community promoting opportunities for interaction among participants and instructors as they explore netTrekker d.i. content and functionality.
• Upon completion, participants will receive a certificate for 20 contact hours.
• Pre-register now or contact your Customer Relationship Specialist at 877-517-1125 with questions.

Tags: 21st, 21st Century Learning, Moodle, netTrekker d.i., online course

Snowy Days

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a great snowfall, or had a white Christmas. I loved snow days growing up, building snowmen and igloos (which I really did try to sleep in one night), snow angels, sledding, snowball fights, and then the nice warm hot chocolate with marshmallows overflowing. Those were the best days!

Living in coastal Florida, I don’t believe I’ll be seeing a lot of snow anytime soon. I haven’t had much luck in making it to a snowy place either. Every time I get there, the snow melts and starts back up when I leave. But snowflakes can still be apart of my life, and classroom lessons, this season. With netTrekker d.i., snow can “warmly” be part of your sponge activities and lessons for the remaining few days before winter break. Let me share with you my discoveries.

I started my search in Elementary and decided to look up “snowman” and refined my search for interactive media. It took me some time to get back to this post as I practiced my mouse skills while building a snowman. Next, I searched Middle School for “snowflake” and then used the refinement menu to narrow my search for interactive games. There are two websites which help you to create your own snowflakes, without any of the cold.  My last stop was high school, where I did a search for snow. Again, my trusty refinement menu came in handy as I narrowed my searches down by subject. I used Language Arts and Writing and Grammar as my refinement selection and found a lesson plan from the New York Times for students to write riddles about their favorite season. I tried my hand at a few, then went back to the snowflake site to illustrate.

Did you do a winter search in netTrekker d.i.? Care to share with us one of your great finds and how you plan to use those sites in your classroom? Just leave a comment below!

(Image citation: Irish, kelley. dsc00265.jpg. 2008. Pics4Learning. 15 Dec 2008 http://pics.tech4learning.com)

Tags: integration, netTrekker d.i., Pics4Learning, refinement menu, snow, winter

Research Review

We’ve been noticing great postings out there about netTrekker d.i. on various blogs. I’ve done a little digging on some recent postings and it looks like the blogs are coming from students at La Conner School District in Washington State. I have yet located the teacher’s blog with the assignment, but the students have done a fantastic job of detailing their research results and strategies.

Here are a few of the links for you to check out:
• http://fohnjared.blogspot.com/
• http://zoriak.blogspot.com/
• http://classworklc.blogspot.com/
• http://guitarhero2012.blogspot.com/

I love how these students took to the time to compare and contrast the features of netTrekker d.i. and Google. We know Google is a great search engine, but when you’re working in a school setting, time is of the essence, and you need to reach students with different needs. netTrekker d.i. clearly triumphs according to these students! They mention the readability, the dictionary hot key, and the website ratings. Here’s a quote from the first blog:

“I think that Nettrekker is the better search engine over Google. Google might come up with more results but Nettrekker is better because it helps you narrow your results and it gives you ratings which help you to find better sites faster. Nettrekker was the site that returned more relevant information to me than Google did. Nettrekker is way easier to use because you are in a more refined site and you aren’t out on the World Wide Web. I tried all the things suggested like the dictionary and the subject headings and they prove that Nettrekker is better than Google because it helps you to refine your research and find more relevant information.”

What a great quote, especially from a student!

My Portfolio within netTrekker d.i. provides a great way to record your  research information. Remember those index cards that we all used for each resource with the details from each periodical, including notes to use in our paper? I always lost mine. With netTrekker d.i., if you find a website that you want to use as a resource, you can save it to My Portfolio. The default setting includes the date you saved the search. You’ll now have this information for your bibliography. Then once in the My Portfolio area, you can edit each website and change the description with your notes. (This description will only be seen by you.) You can also add a template and add all sorts of information there, including a note to yourself of what type of information you are still looking for, printed resource information you are using such as a journal or periodical, or even a rough draft of your paper.

Look for our upcoming series, 5 Days of My Portfolio in January. This blog collection will definitely be of use to the teachers creating project based learning units and to students conducting research.

And to the teacher of these fine students, thank you! Keep up the great work. If you don’t mind, I’d love to interview you for a future blog on how you are using netTrekker d.i. Please e-mail me your contact information.

If you are using netTrekker d.i. with your students, leave a comment below telling us how.

Tags: My Portfolio, netTrekker d.i., research

Time for a Theme

‘Tis the time of year where kids are getting excited about the holidays, whether it’s because they believe in Santa, are expecting gifts, or just because they will enjoy two weeks off from school. I remember my days in the classroom of planning lessons around the theme of the winter holidays to keep my students interested and on task. netTrekker d.i. has some wonderful resources if you are planning lessons for this multicultural season.

We’ll start our exploration in the Elementary Tab. How many of you knew that you could do a search by theme in netTrekker d.i.? If you scroll to the bottom of the Elementary page, there is a section to either type in a keyword or to browse themes. With over 100 themes, we’re sure to have a topic for you. If you have a multi-cultural classroom, or are teaching on a multi-cultural theme, you can find resources on Hanukah, Kwanza, and Christmas. There are other holidays to explore too, for later.

When I taught middle school, I used the holidays to teach technology skills. We created spreadsheets on how to celebrate the three major winter holidays, a team PowerPoint on a selected holiday, and other computer activities centered around the holidays. We even divided Christmas up with regions because Christmas is celebrated different all over the world, and within our own country. With netTrekker d.i., your students can click on the ELL Channel and explore the holidays in the Multicultural area. This is a perfect starting place.

 

Happy holidays, and may this season of cultural celebration exploration be even more engaging and enlightening with netTrekker d.i. Share with us how you plan to teach with the holiday season by leaving a comment below.

Tags: ELL Channel, Holiday, theme