netTrekker Blog

Guest blogger, Barney Sentner.

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve taught at a career college in Dayton, Ohio  (International College of Broadcasting) for 18 years.  For most of the students, music is their first love so I decided on an assignment for my Communications and Public Relations classes that in essence would have them choose the lyrics to a song and tell me how that song typifies their life.

But a caveat to the assignment involved netTrekker.

I wanted to limit their choices to songs without objectionable content.  So I gave them access to netTrekker and said the song lyrics must be available within that scope.  A couple of  student song choices included “Against All Odds” by Phil Collins and “I Say A Little Prayer For You” by Aretha Franklin.

I want to credit the site in case anyone would like to review it.

Saber Ingles: Learn English with Songs The node is English Language Learners > ELL Skill Development > Reading > High-Interest Themes. It’s at the bottom of the page.  I also used the keyword and put in “music lyrics” under high school and it’s the 17th resource that surfaced.

Would you like to be a guest blogger for netTrekker? We’d love to hear how you personalize learning and engage students. Click here if you’d like to be a guest blogger.

Tags: Barney Sentner, best practice

Networking is the Name of the Game

Last weekend I gave a presentation for the SC FBLA students and advisors about social networking. This has been a constant theme at their conference as we want to make sure the students understand what a gift being able to social network via the web is, and yet you have to be careful about how you navigate the web. They are amazed at when I share stories about the teacher who lost her job because of a photo taken of her on vacation that someone else posted or the Eagles fan who was fired over a comment. There are so many stories out there, and even with a locked down profile and account, your social networking can come back to haunt you. I even had a few that questioned the benefits of social networking. From my own personal point of view, my PLN has taught me so much and one even came to my aid when I was looking for a new position. I couldn’t imagine working in the field of education without the social networking tools, even when I’m just “lurking”.
When netTrekker was looking to get involved in the social networking scene with teachers, we looked at many options. We have a Facebook page and a Facebook Group, but teachers expressed a concern over their private world mixed with their professional world. It lead to many great conversations. So we built netTrekker Village on the Ning Platform. We pay a premium for the services we use, and while there are a few things we would like to change, it’s been beneficial to us so far.
I would like to hear from the teachers though on why they social network, what tools/platforms they use, and what more they would like from netTrekker Village. I would also love to know what are your district’s or state’s view on social networking. How have you benefited from networking professionallY? What are the tips you would give to newbies?

Resource Round Up

We are often asked how a teacher can recommend a site or other great resource for netTrekker. These resources are often either great state or local websites, resources for very specific science topics, great book links, sites that are available in other languages, and great cultural resources. Sometimes it’s just a great personal website with lots of curriculum connections. We want to include these resources, and so we are pleased to announce a very easy form for you to submit them for our content editors to review, align to standards and have added to netTrekker for every student and teacher to use.

To submit a resource, you will need access to netTrekker Village. That means you need to be a member! Once you are a member, check out the form under Events titled “Resource Round Up“. Fill in as many details as you can and submit it. Make sure to include your name and a legitimate email so we can contact you once your resource is added in, or in case we need more information.

While you are at netTrekker Village, take a look at the new events added to the calendar. If you would like to host an event, in order to share a website tool found in netTrekker or a great lesson, please contact Danielle Abernethy. We’re hosting topics such as Museum Box, Social Networking, and netTrekker specific. Join us for one or more today!

By submitting new resources or taking part in an event, you help make us stronger and more resourceful for all of your research needs. To say thank you, you will automatically be entered in our monthly Power Networking Contest.

Tags: content, curriculum, events, museumbox, netTrekker, netTrekker Village, resources, social networking

Love to Differentiate

Join me this week while I am in Las Vegas for the SDE Differentiation Conference.  I know the saying goes, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”, but I just cannot let that happen! I am actually attending the conference to learn more about how differentiation is being used in the classroom in order to add more power to the professional development we offer.   I have signed up for a variety of great sessions, and am excited to share what I learn from them with you!

Before the first session, I sat down with a teacher from Texas. She was flipping through her program book and said, “you sure do have to love teaching in order to want to even try differentiating.” She’s exactly right! So, let’s spread the love of differentiation and teaching this week.

A question that came up in one session was “what is differentiation, and what isn’t it?” The answer for “what D.I. is and isn’t” is a great discussion, but let’s look at what it’s not.  It’s not a single program, it’s not hard vs. easy, or even a single answer for all students.

In another session, we looked at how to share what we know with others in PLCs (Personal Learning Communities). This is why I cannot let what I learn in Vegas stay in Vegas!  The presenter, Joni Turville, reminds us that if you are here as a representative from your school or district, you need to make sure that you go back and share that knowledge with your peers. I plan on sharing with my peers through our team lunch and learn sessions and with my fellow netTrekker users and Village members thru the blog, discussions on the Village, and in the professional development I conduct.

Another great question that was discussed was “what do you want out of your PLC and what can you contribute to your PLC?” I want to learn new ideas, tricks, and tips from my PLC. I want to have a core group of other educators that I trust to give me accurate information and great personal opinions on anything dealing with technology in education, or just education. I hope to be able to share those same items with my fellow PLC members, and not be too weak of a link in the learning process.

In her second session, Joni shared with us her favorite web resources for Differentiation. During our “stand up meetings” I heard a teacher several rows back introduce herself from Texas. I’m not sure why this grabbed my attention, but it did. Then on our way out the door, that same teacher said that Joni didn’t share a great resource that covers all of what she did show in one place, and that was netTrekker. WooHoo! I tried to catch up with her so I could get her to write this blog, but no luck. But this is Vegas. Maybe I’ll get lucky today and find her or another one of our great users!

Terms:

PLN: Personal Learning Network

PLC: Personal Learning Communities

DI: Differentiation Instruction

Connect with Us

Connections are made when two or more people have a common thread that ties them together, and are often made at an event of some sort.

netTrekker Village has several events listed on the calendar, including both online and onsite events. At NECC this summer, we are proud to feature six special guest speakers who each will be presenting a 15- minute session in the netTrekker booth #931 on how they use netTrekker or on a special feature in netTrekker. Marci Campbell, Jill Allen and I (Danielle Abernethy) will also be presenting in the booth at NECC, so there are plenty of opportunities to make a connection and learn from other educators about how you can get more from your netTrekker subscription. We are also pleased to announce that our two scholarship winners, Ryan Evans and Teresa Diaz, along with Teryl Magee, Chad Lehman, Jill Hobson, and Tom Turner will also be presenting in our booth, sharing insights about netTrekker from an educator’s point of view.

Our Sunday Night event at NECC, which was announced on the Village, is already full. We announced this one through the Village Message System and were pleasantly surprised by the quick number of people that signed up. But don’t fret, we have more events planned! If you’re in the Ohio, Indiana or Kentucky areas, there’s a netTrekker Fest happening on August 13th that is definitely worth checking out. Check the calendar for details.

Other events are online, including free webinars. Currently we have free webinars for how to make the most of netTrekker Village and the new Customer Resoruces section of netTrekker.  More of these events will be announced, and through mid June. We will also have many other free webinars on how to use netTrekker’s My Portfolio, special guests sharing how they use netTrekker, and more!

It is important that you RSVP for any of the events you are interested in. The RSVP feature is found on the right side of the event.

So join us at an event, and connect with us!

Tags: connect, NECC, netTrekker, netTrekker Fest, netTrekker Village, village, webinar

Trek With Us

netTrekker d.i. has some of the BEST customers! Our educators are down to Earth, creative, and a joy to get to know. Yesterday in the booth we met quite a few of these great users and last night we howled with a few as well.

I would like to introduce you to a few of our customers from Henrico County, VA. These guys stopped by the presentation side of our booth and we played tag with teaching each other a few things. Jill and I taught them about the admin tools and the teacher code, and they taught us about Virginia. These guys are really dedicated to their state and have started their own curriculum building for teaching everyone about Virginia.

They call themselves the VirginiaTrekkers and you can find their website by visiting VirginiaTrekkers.com. There you will find podcasts, activities, SOL Correlation, and more links to learn about their great state.

Three of them were available for a quick interview, and you can find that interview on our new netTrekker Village.

Tags: FETC, netTrekker d.i., netTrekker Village, VirginiaTrekkers

Look Who’s Talking

Georgia is one of three states that earned an A on their technology report card, and after attending some of the great sessions here at GAETC, I can see why! The last session I attended yesterday was by Tony Vincent (who’s not from GA, but definitely an “A” presenter). His “Ten Tools For Teachers” was fun and engaging. I was itching to get back to the hotel to play with one of the tools he showcased, Gizmoz.

I finally got to it this morning. Gizmoz is a tool that lets you animate yourself, or other images. I decided to do a Famous Person Search in netTrekker d.i. for famous males from the 18th Century, that were politicians and American. My results had 127 people and so I selected the most famous, George Washington. I used a Weekly Reader resource to learn more about our first president and then wrote a simple “who am I” type script. I found an image that used as much of Washington’s face in our image search and then headed over to Gizmoz. I loaded the image, added my text, selected a background, and then rendered the video by clicking save. Click here to see my example.

Give Gizmoz a try and let us know how you’re using it!

Danielle Abernethy
Customer Relationship and Training Specialist

Tags: tools

What’s all the Twitter of a PLN?

Twitter. What a strange word, but one I have come to fully appreciate this past year. Twitter is the basecamp to my Personal Learning Network, commonly referred to as “PLN”. My PLN keeps me up to date and gives me a connection to what’s going on in the world of education.

One of the members of my PLN include John Lien of Orange County, Florida. John has shared some awesome links and integration ideas with me over the year simply by posting a 140 character Twitter Response. John was also netTrekker’s first Twitter follower. Another important PLN member is Tim Childers of Tennessee. He and I met once in person, but I learn so much from him online and feel comfortable going to him with quick questions. He was even the first member of the new netTrekker’s Facebook Group.

There are so many other social media gathering spots that PLNs share today. netTrekker will be joining those places so we can learn from each other. Meet us today on Twitter, Plurk, and Facebook to help create a learning network for all netTrekker users.

Tags: PLN, Training