Teachers Like You

Written by: bmoeggenberg
Friday, March 19th, 2010

teacher

One of the basic tenets that netTrekker is built upon is the concept of teacher vetted resources:

“With over 300,000 digital resources vetted by highly qualified educators, netTrekker connects users with educationally relevant content that’s aligned to state standards—serving up the best digital resources available.”

You can easily find the educator’s name in the results that when clicked leads to their work experience and educational degrees. But, above and beyond that, the hiring editors have always looked for that teacher who is in the classroom, working with students, parents, and administrators, working with curriculum, creating lesson plans, and basically giving their ALL day in and day out.

Why would an educator want to become an evaluator for nT? In our discussions with teachers, the first reason is always that desire to find absolutely great web content and SHARE that information –the excitement of finding and sharing seems to drive us all here in the Content Department!

As you can imagine, since the opening days of nT about 10 years ago, our standards for website acquisition have changed. We have layered more and more requirements on to the search for the ultimate websites. We look for teachers who share that desire for educational and technical quality. We interview, test, and monitor applicants.

In the past 10 years, we’ve actually employed over 1100 teachers to find resources for nT! At the present time, we have a base of fifteen teachers who are currently in the classroom, or taking a year off due to being mothers, and a few teachers who are recently retired but volunteer in schools, because they just can’t stay away. They are diverse in subject matter expertise and are geographically located throughout Northern America.

I recently asked them for some comments about the work they’ve been doing for the past two months as well as what they like about netTrekker:

“I enjoyed evaluating the sites for the Native Americans in California because I was learning about them while I was evaluating the sites. The explorers I was able to research through the Mariners’ Museum also added to my own history lesson, which is one of the reasons I enjoy evaluating so much. With the 3pi work I have been able to explore NetTrekker a bit more than usual, and I have been amazed at the many things NetTrekker offers! Being an evaluator, I do not always get to spend time on our actual product. It is wonderful to see the good things offered to students, teachers, and administrators both for general classroom use, but also to enhance with 21st Century Skills.” K. Faulhaber

“The “screening” aspect of the product is so useful to teachers and students because they don’t have to sift through the mountains of sites from a google search. As a teacher, the grade appropriate search option is particularly helpful (especially for the younger grades).” L. Gannett

“On evaluating sites from Shmoop for nT: Shmoop covers the areas in each website that teachers and students are looking for. Each literature site analyses plot, characters, themes, quotations and provides study questions. Written in a colloquial fashion, this site will have particular appeal to high school students.” J. James

“Amazing how much great stuff is on the internet for teachers to use as resources and teaching aides. Amazing how much more there is out there to be discovered.” N. Pider

“What is “the best” in my humble opinion is that students can find info they need quickly and they can be assured that what we have placed in the data base is “the best” we can find. We virtually eliminate all the wasted time spent searching. It’s like going to the library. We are the research librarians, there to assist.” R. Rychliski

The nT teacher evaluators have great enthusiasm for new directions in content within nT. They also serve as a sounding board and advisors, usually at a minute’s notice! We will continue to employ educators that have the wish to identify and evaluate the best of the web for netTrekker users and Teachers like You.

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Friday, March 19th, 2010 Training