I have been working with teachers here in our system to do a better job of picking topics. I am encouraging them to use Net Trekker themselves BEFORE the students start and to build a list of topics from the resources found in Net Trekker–ESPECIALLY when they are doing biographical research. By doing some prework and using the “famous people” search feature they can be sure their students will find information and end up with a great product at the end. by saving searches, they can accomplish the same thing. Unfortunately, some of the educators I work with have one set of rules for researching with printed materials and another for online. Net Trekker is helping us overcome that and teach everyone that research is research and that their should be guidelines established.

OK. Here’s my reason for using “dogs.” All kids like dogs. Even young kids can spell “dogs.” When I teach young students how to search our online catalog or netTrekker in our computer lab, I use easy-to-spell search terms so they can succesfully conduct an independent search. I can quickly determine if they are successful, because I know the results they should get. After dogs we move on to “cats!”

Jim
Teaching the Civil War with Technology