netTrekker Blog

The Family

I had a great blog post ready to go. My son thinks of Moby as sort of a “superhero”, so on Wednesday as we were goofing around with homework, we created a video of him being a superhero called “Recycle Man” for his public service announcement homework assignment. He was wearing his Moby shirt, and well, it was a cute video. But as soon as he realized his classmates, and my blog readers were going to see it, he made me promise not to show it. I’ve put it away for future blackmail needs, but I can’t break my promise. Which also means, I had to find another blog idea.

When inspiration doesn’t hit right away, I start checking in on my social network and sure enough, an old teacher friend from SC reminded me of this little creature in BrainPOP that maybe you haven’t met before. By now you all know the family of Annie and Tim, and how Moby belongs to them. Annie is our BrainPOP Jr leading lady, Tim is our BrainPOP and BrainPOP Español guy, and Moby is the star in three series. But there are other characters that you’ll meet here and there, and with that, I’d like to introduce you to my favorite lab rat, Gary.

Gary is the little rat that you see running in and out of a window pane on the main site. The poor guy looks like he’s been an active part in most experiments with his hurt tail, bent whiskers, the boo-boo on his head, and the bandages across his tummy. But don’t let his looks fool you! This lab rat has some special treats just for you! If you are watching a science movie, look under the movie player. There you will find a variety of activities that go along with the movie. Gary is the one responsible for sharing all the science experiments that go along with the science movies, with step by step instructions of what you need to complete the experiment.  I used him in my days as a technology coach to introduce a topic, we’d try out his experiment, take the quiz and then we’d watch the movie to learn even more about our given topic before doing the next activity in our lesson, which probably included some great netTrekker resources!

There are other great characters you will meet in BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. (Joey thinks one of the fish in Belly Up from BrainPOP Jr is named after him.) You’ll get to know them with each exploration into this great new partner of netTrekker’s!

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Hook, Line, and Reel ‘em In

Last year my niece came home from school all excited about a project she had to do on her favorite president. I asked her who she selected, and she answered Abraham Lincoln. I’m always curious as to how little minds work, so I asked her why President Lincoln was her favorite. Her response, “He was born on my birthday!”

Since we had our work cut out for us, I decided to take advantage of her school’s subscription to BrainPOP Jr. When I was a technology coach, I used BrainPOP movies as a way to hook interest in the lesson. BrainPOP Jr. has another great feature. It teaches the students how to take notes. Annie stops periodically throughout the movie to ask a question and take notes. I had Zoe practice this skill with Annie and Moby so that way when she furthered her own investigations she knew how to ask questions and find the answers. She even enjoyed playing with the activities found under the movie and used the activity template for her puppet’s hat.

After watching a great thorough introduction to President Lincoln, Zoe then accessed her netTrekker account. She conducted her search and refined her search by reading levels 1 and 2. She wanted to just find more movies, but her mean old aunt made her do some actual reading. I did allow her to use the Read Aloud tool as needed.

Once Zoe had all of her notes together, she decided to create a little puppet play about Abraham Lincoln. She started her play with BrainPOP’s “Pop a Joke” feature, getting a her classmates to chuckle and even introduced note taking to her fellow classmates, telling them that Moby and Annie taught her that great skill! The puppet turned out pretty neat and now resides on her bookshelf, the play got an A so she was thrilled, and Zoe gained a better understanding of why President Lincoln is her favorite US President with two fantastic tools.

And what’s even better, she now has access to both of these great resources by logging into her netTrekker account. Her BrainPOP movies are always at her fingertips with one search. Yours too! Try it today!

If you have any great lesson ideas on how to use netTrekker and BrainPOP together, please share them either in a comment below or over at netTrekker Village on our discussion. boards!

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.

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