netTrekker Blog

I’m 21 C R U?

This weekend at the Palm Beach County Technology Conference and the Forsyth County Digital Schoolhouse Conference I asked a question during my session, “What does it mean to be a 21st Century Learner?” I asked for the participants in the workshops to describe the learner, their skills and their tools. Here are a few of their answers:

A 21st Century Learner has good communication and collaboration skills, globally and regionally informed, able to share, self-starters and multi-taskers. 21st Century learners have the skills to think critically, use technology, be creative in their thinking, and also to be innovative in their thinking. Tools for a 21st Century learner include cell phones, iPod, computers, interactive white boards, video conferencing, digital cameras and anything else technology related.

But what about netTrekker d.i. itself? Is it 21st Century? I have often had teachers ask me that, and I want to share with you my reasons for it being a loud resounding YES on tools for 21st Century.

1.    Our students are not just English speaking students. We have students from various countries in our classrooms, and hopefully students who are learning other languages in our schools. netTrekker d.i. has resources in 15 different languages, easily discovered with our refinement menu or advanced searches.
2.    Unfortunately not all of our students are on the same reading levels, and so we have to be able to find resources to fit their needs. With the readability levels in netTrekker d.i. you can easily find resources for your mixed ability level classrooms.
3.    Again, not all of our students are on the same reading levels, and we have some great tools to help them with reading. My personal favorite is the Read Aloud tool. You can have a student, like my child, who is a non-reader suddenly enabled with this tool. This helps leveling the playing field and enables all students to be a self-starter.
4.    By being able to refine your search to find games and interactive media, you are able to easily find the sites that encourage innovative, creative, and critical thinking. Learning does not have to be flat with sites that are straight information. 21st Century learning can be (and should be) engaging, especially with netTrekker d.i.
5.    Let’s go back to our students from all over the world or studying a variety of languages and include our students without the greatest vocabulary skills. If they come across a word they don’t know, what do they do? Most of the time they either ignore it or give up right? Well if they use the Dictionary Hot Key, they can click on the word and get the definition. And if needed, they can have the word translated to another language. Those who are studying a foreign language and are trying to read a website in that language can also translate an unknown word to English. Becoming comfortable with other languages sure does help with communication.

So there you have it, my first five (of ten) reasons on why netTrekker d.i. is a 21st Century tool and should be used in schools everywhere. netTrekker d.i. is a time-saver by only finding resources aligned to state standards that are appropriate for education, with built in tools, refinement menu and other features that help our 21st Century learners find the resources they need for learning without losing valuable time trying to weed out the erroneous information.

Tags: 21st Century, dictionary, Forsyth County, netTrekker, Palm Beach, read aloud, readability

A Look at the ELL Channel (Part III of III): Feature Enhancements and Reference Tools

The previous two blog entries explored nT’s ELL Channel, specifically the two pathways — ELL Skill Development and Multicultural Pavilion –- as well as the goals of these two pathways and the content they offer. Now, let’s take a look at the Feature Enhancements and the ELL Reference Tools.

Regular users of nT are probably familiar with the Feature Enhancements and the ways in which they can facilitate one’s search for online materials. The Refinement Menu, for example can help students find sites suitable for their reading levels by filtering according to the Readability Score. The Refinement Menu can also help users find audio and video content that benefit ELL students by linking language with sounds and visuals. To read more about the Refinement Menus and how they can help you find specific types of content suitable for your ELL students, click here. To read more about nT’s Readability Scores and how they can enhance the searching experience for both ELL teachers and students, click here.

The Dictionary Hot Key, which allows you to grab the definition of a word within a website, can also translate English words into other languages, further enhancing an ELL student’s understanding of a new or unfamiliar word. Furthermore, this tool encourages students to use advanced resources as part of their learning and research experiences, as they will be less intimidated by “big” words. To learn more about the Dictionary Hot Key, and how it can improve your ELL students’ web experiences, click here.

Last but not least, nT offers a large collection of useful reference tools for ELL students and teachers. While in the ELL channel, click the “References” link on the right and you’ll be taken to a page of language dictionaries, translations tools, encyclopedias, atlases, quote collections, calculators, online museums, government sites, collections of images and sounds, and more. Be sure to check out the collection of LOGOS dictionaries, where you can find children’s dictionaries, verb conjugation, anagram, and crossword tools, glossaries, and a forum.

Click here to go to the Elementary ELL Reference Tools.

Click here to go to the Middle School ELL Reference Tools.

Click here to go to the High School ELL Reference Tools.

A Look at English Language Learners Channel (Part II of III)

(This is a continuation of a previous blog post on netTrekker’s English Language Learners Channel and the resources it offers for ELL teachers and students. The previous entry focused on ELL skill development. To read Part I of this blog series on nT’s ELL Channel, click here.)

Multicultural Pavilion

• Sites on geographic and cultural information on continents, countries, and regions;

• Resources on ethnic identity, acculturation, cultural sensitivities, diversity, cultural heritage, and social justice issues.

One goal of the resources in nT’s Multicultural Pavilion is to go beyond restating facts and offering data. Students benefit from understanding not only the unique languages, religions, and traditions unique to each culture but also the common threads that tie together the entire human race. The United Nations’ Cyberschoolbus (http://cyberschoolbus.un.org/), which offers versions of its site in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish, opens students’ eyes to important global issues, such as poverty, peace, discrimination, and hunger, and promotes understanding and response to these topics via interactive games and quizzes, webcasts, news stories, and teacher materials. nT links to 100 resources from this site.

A hot topic today in America is immigration, and the Multicultural Pavilion offers several resources on this topic, one such being PBS’ In the Mix, which shares the stories of five teen immigrants.  In the Mix is the online companion to a PBS program of the same name and offers a collection of immigration-related links, “myths and facts”, and clips from the show. Another great PBS link is the Immigration Myths & Realities Quiz, also in our immigration resources. And yet another site worth checking out is the Library of Congress’ Immigration feature, complete with vocabulary activities, recipes, and interviews.

For our next and final blog in the ELL channel, we’ll look at ELL Feature Enhancements, such as the Dictionary Hot Key, and ELL Reference Tools, which will boost the ELL Learner’s educational experiences, both in the classroom and on the web.

Tags: ELL, ELL Resources, English Language Learners, Multicultural Resources

A Look at English Language Learners Channel (Part I of III)

Are you a teacher of English language learners, looking for resources to facilitate classroom instruction as well as for tools to enhance students’ own learning experiences? Look no further than the English Language Learners (ELL) channel, with resources available for English learners of all grade levels. Clicking on the “English Learners” link will open two pathways: “Skill Development” and “Multicultural Pavilion” resources.

Depending on whether you are in Elementary, Middle, or High School, these pathways will present you with a different list of nodes and associated resources. However, the gist of these pathways, no matter what level, is pretty much the same. netTrekker’s Help section covering the ELL channel offers a detailed description of the channel’s offerings, but here are some highlights of the first pathway, ELL Skill Development, provided below:

ELL Skill Development

• Sites on reading and writing, listening, and speaking skills,
• Sites on critical thinking and fluency;
• Access to a broad collection of resources on ELL teaching methodologies;
• Access to assessment, research, and proficiency standards;
• Resources for parents of ELL students.

Included in the collection of ELL Skill Development resources are online quizzes and activities from The Internet TESL Journal (http://iteslj.org/) and Activities for ESL Students (http://a4esl.org/). nT has cataloged nearly 70 links from these sites, covering topics such as subject-verb agreement, irregular verbs, parts of speech,  sentence completion, and vocabulary.

To augment students’ English-language growth, resources geared toward helping ELL students understanding of important math and science vocabulary words and concepts are a must. An example of one such resource is Harcourt’s Math Glossary, which makes new math terms easy-to-understand with colorful animations, audio clips, charts, and diagrams.

nT also offers links to bilingual dictionaries, resources for natives speakers of Chinese and Spanish, print resources, tutorials, and other sites references appropriate for learners of English. Be sure to check out http://www.diccionarios.com/ and http://www.tomisimo.org/, great for native speakers of Spanish, and Look Way Up (http://lookwayup.com/free/dictionary.htm) a dictionary offering multilingual translation to and from English.

Next time, we’ll continue our look at netTrekker’s ELL offerings, specifically the next pathway, the Multicultural Pavilion and its resources.

Tags: ELL, ELL Skill Development, English Language Learners, ESL