netTrekker Blog

There’s a Feature for That.

I am a social network junkie. I’m not as bad as I used to be, but I start my day off checking my RSS feeds, see what’s new on netTrekker Village, check in on my PLN (personal learning network) on Twitter, my Facebook PLN (which has a few different people than my Twitter), and a few other sites. Part of it is because I’m nosy. I want to know what other people are up to. The rest is because I learn a lot from these networks.

Guess what the teachers in my PLN are up to? Getting ready to go back to school. Can you believe it? Six to eight weeks of conferences, special learning opportunities, summer school, graduate classes, district professional development classes, catching up on their RSS readers, planning that really cool flat classroom project for next year, and maybe having the chance to read a book for pleasure and to lounge around the pool are over. It’s time to get back to work with the kids. Most are anxious to get into the classrooms because they are changing rooms and/or grade levels. Others are excited because they learned so much this summer at various conferences and through their PLN. They are all looking for or sharing ideas to get organized, for their bulletin boards, and “Welcome to the New Year” letters.

For this, let’s turn to netTrekker. Yep, we have a feature for that! How many of you have clicked on the

Teacher Tools on the right side in the Features box? If you go there you will see a list of drill down topics with plenty of ideas for back to school. My favorite one? Getting organized. I am the most unorganized person that probably ever existed. Well, maybe not the most, but close to it. So this is definitely a good place for me to start.

One of my favorites here was the classroom designer. You can draw your classroom dimensions out, add the door, windows, chalk boards, desks, bookshelves, plants, and students. Whatever you want. Now, if you’re like me, you probably rearrange your room several times before school actually starts. Then again once school does start as you try to get the right arrangement once you know the personalities of your kids. Instead of moving furniture over and over and over, you can actually design your room on one of these sites. I tried one out and designed an almost dream

classroom. 22 student desks with laptops and room to collaborate, plenty of books, a couch, beanbags, and coat racks instead of those mixed blessings called cubby holes.

There’s another great site that deals with rules. I had one rule, “Do what you’re supposed to be doing, when you’re supposed to be doing it, the way you’re supposed to be doing it, with whom you were supposed to be doing it.” That covered everything. But I’m sure there were better rules out there. I know that you’re supposed to try to keep it at 5 rules, even if Ron Clarke has something like 55, but I found that one rule worked for me. What rules work for you?

Best of luck to those who are getting ready to go back. Enjoy these last few days of vacation before the school year begins. I’m sure netTrekker has a search for that, too.

Hanging by a Thread

Last week I promised you a gem from one of the sessions I attended, and told you that you’d have to take a gamble on whether or not I post it. I am so sorry to leave you hanging by a thread, but I’m ready to start sharing. This first gem has become quite popular over the past year or so. It takes presentations and digital storytelling to a completely new level.

I’m talking about VoiceThread, which is a fantastic tool. We used it to wrap up our field trip in Washington DC, to see what they learned about either a monument, netTrekker and how to use it, or about netTrekker Village. Since we were at a very busy, fast paced conference, I was extremely pleased with the number of teachers that responded. I went ahead and paid the $3 for a downloaded version of the field trip and then loaded it to netTrekker Village.

I just mentioned a price, so some would ask if this is a free tool or a subscription tool. It’s actually both. There are some free aspects, and then there are some that are based upon a subscription. You can learn more about the type of accounts they have on their site. You can even see examples of how to use Voice Thread in your own classroom in their library.

Another thought on how to use this goes back to training. What if you took screenshots of your favorite product, such as netTrekker, and asked for the teachers to comment on how they would use that feature, or leave a tip for a best practice, or even post a question on something else they want to learn? You can have the participants in the workshop comment and share, and continue the learning experience from each other.

Let’s give it a shot. Here is a VoiceThread I started on netTrekker. Leave your comments on the different features and share your knowledge and insight with each other. Let’s see how many comments we can get on this thread. All you need to do is sign up for a free account. Then you need to select if you want to leave a written comment or a voice comment. You can also mark up the page while you comment by using the marker to point out a few things or highlight something of interest. Don’t be shy. Have fun with it and experiment. That’s the best way to learn.

Freebies for Attending a Free Webinar!

Sound too good to be true?  Not so.  We are so convinced that you must see The Power of My Portfolio in netTrekker that we’re pulling out all of the stops to get you to attend.

Learn how to create a project-based lesson plan and how to manage your web-based resources all within netTrekker’s My Portfolio.  Sound too good to be true?  Not so, I say.  We’ll show you how.  Go to netTrekker Village to see the dates and how to register.

And just what do I get, you ask?  Once you’ve attended, we send 50 netTrekker Quick Reference Guides, 5 netTrekker posters, a sample project and 10% off of any Professional Development you purchase before June 30th.  Better hurry!  The webinars are filling up quickly!

Hidden Gems

There are so many gems in netTrekker, and with over 300,000 resources, it’s easy to get sidetracked by a few. A few of my favorites are actually found in the netTrekker Reference Section.

Aside from the typical encyclopedias, dictionaries, converters, and such, you’ll also find some valuable resources to help with the creativity side of things in the classroom. Classrooms that are creative are gems for our students. Those are the classrooms in which students can participate and come alive rather than simply sitting on the sideline.

Pics4Learning is absolutely one of my favorite places for images to use in storytelling. This resource is found in all three of the grade level tabs in the reference section, under the “Finders” near the bottom. What’s a digital story without images? And these images are fantastic for classroom use!

Also in the “Finders” section is another one of my favorite resources, FindSounds. I use to play a sound for my students during our creative writing segments. I would tell them to close their eyes and just listen. I would play that sound two or three times and then tell them to open their eyes and write me a story based on that sound. FindSounds is a perfect place to go and get these great sound bytes to use in digital storytelling and for other creative writing projects.

You can learn more about digital storytelling by reading an article from Forsyth County, GA in our latest newsletter or joining Jill Hobson in her presentation on Digital Storytelling: The Tools to Create the Magic at NECC 2009.

cheer This sound alone has so much potential! But I’d rather you think of it as netTrekker cheering on you!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

Tags: digital storytelling, netTrekker, reference