netTrekker Blog

Are you 21st Century Literate?

Amanda has done a wonderful job sharing all about the 21st Century Channel and a bit about netTrekker’s d.i.’s involvement in the 21st Century initiative. It’s my turn to tell you about the ICT Literacy component, my favorite section of the 21st Century Channel.

ICT. What do those three letters stand for? No peeking at Amanda’s last post. Here are some of the answers I’ve been given in the past: Instructive Computer Tasks, Information Computer Technology, and Instruction for Computer Teaching. While all of those are components of ICT Literacy, it actually means Information and Communication Technology. It’s also commonly referred to as digital literacy, since it is the ability to use the technology available to accomplish given tasks, demonstrating skills and knowledge. Students, and teachers, are able to find the information they need, analyze the appropriate materials, and even evaluate which media is the right one for the given task.

With netTrekker d.i., many think that the task of finding the information has been  customized a little too much, but in truth it hasn’t. If you were a doctor, pharmacist or a lawyer you would use a specialized search engine or database to research your information for your field in order to save time. netTrekker d.i. is similar in that all the resources are geared to be the most appropriate for education. You still have to use your digital literacy skills to determine which ones are the most effective and will help you accomplish your goals.

Onward with the great features of ICT.  To start with, it is a great place for you to learn more about the tools and processes involved in the variety of digital medias. When I was a student, our resources included magazines, journals, newspapers, encyclopedias, and other books. Today our students have all of those, plus podcasts, blogs, vlogs, digital video and digital images. Instead of just writing a paper, students can create digital stories, their own podcasts or blogs, use other Web 2.0 tools to share information, and other digital presentations. If you want to learn more about these medias and the tools involved in creating them, check out the ICT Literacy Component.

My favorite section though goes beyond learning about the tools and how to use them. I like the 21st Century Integration Models, which are lessons for teaching the 21st Century Skills. The ones from www.nettrekker.com were written by teachers for netTrekker. For these lessons they took a traditional lesson plan and added a technology-rich components to make the lessons 21st Century ready. Other lessons include those from Apple Learning Interchange, State Departments of Education, and other great 21st Century sites. Many of the lessons were written by teachers just like you!

Head on over to the netTrekker Village and share just how digital literate you are in one of the discussion boards.

Tags: 21st Century, Digital Literacy, ICT Literacy, Integration Models

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

Template Test Drive

How’s the folder coming along? Shaping up pretty nicely? Which websites did you add to your portfolio?

Today’s tip is how to use the Templates in the My Portfolio. Next to the ADD WEBSITE button is another button that says ADD TEMPLATE. netTrekker d.i. has two templates available. These templates allow you to add details to your portfolio which comes in handy when dealing with research or project based learning.

The first one is a Digital Literacy Template. This template has five questions a student should ask themselves before they decide to use a website for research. What a great practice for 21^st Century Literacy! Now with each template, you must add a title. The description is optional, but is a great place to add directions. With the Digital Literacy Template the five questions are already in place, but there is space for you to add more details. For example, the first piece of information a student should question is the author or creator’s level of authority. What does this mean? The space below gives you a place to put prompts or more details for the students, such as “what level of educational degree do they hold? Are they an enthusiast, hobbyist, or do they work in the field?” Or you could tell the students to look for a biography of the creator and tips on what to investigate.

The second template is a USER DEFINED TEMPLATE. This is a blank page for you to add your own content. You must add the title, but the rest of the information is up to you. I like to use this page to write the project directions, to create a Web Hunt or WebQuest, or to list the printed material you want students to use in the project. The possibilities are endless! Here is a PDF of the template I used for the science fair project. Another possibility for the blank template is for students to collect and save their research notes. They don’t have to keep track of the paper and pen or remember where they put their file. All of the details they need for that project are contained in one space.

The template is not a worksheet, but rather a digital reference or guide for the students. It can be printed off if needed.

Share with us how you use the templates by leaving a comment below. If have one that is extraordinary, send it to Danielle at dabernethy@nettrekker.com. She’ll share them on the blog for others to use.

Tags: 21st Century, Digital Literacy, My Portfolio, netTrekker, netTrekker d.i., template

My Portfolio: Start Sharing Now!

We have a tool in netTrekker d.i. called My Portfolio which is useful in creating Project Based Units. For the next week, we are going to explore the My Portfolio features and all of the uses. We are going to showcase how to save searches, add links outside of netTrekker d.i., how to add a template, how to organize your project folder and then how to share your folder with your school or district.
Let’s start at the beginning.

When you are logged into netTrekker d.i., you have the ability to save websites that you discover during your search. Start by doing a keyword search. I chose to use the keyword “scientific method” and will be creating a folder to prepare for the spring science fairs. In the middle school tab, this keyword brings me 136 results that I can easily customize using the refinement menu.
Next to each result you will see a checkbox. If after reviewing the website you decide it is one that you want to save, just put a check mark next to it. Go ahead and view the results on the next pages and check the ones you want to save on those pages as well. Once you have your results checked off, scroll to the top of the page. Under the refinement menu you will see a button that says “Save Search”.
(If you are IP Authenticated, you will need to log in at the top right hand corner in order to see the save search feature.)
When you click on Save Search, a new window will come up. This is where you start your organization of

your saved search and name your folder for the results. Your keyword and the date of your search will

automatically fill in the title field. You are welcome to change the title if you choose. Next, you’ll see a place to add a description. This is not mandatory, and you can leave it blank if you want. You can see the changes I made to the Title Field and the description I added in the photo
Since this folder will be about science fair projects, I did another search on science fair experiments. After selecting the search results I thought would be most helpful to my students, I clicked on “Save Search” again. Instead of creating a new folder of results though, I checked “Add to Existing Folder” and then selected my Science Fair Project folder to add these results to.
You can also save Famous Person Search Results, Dynamic Timelines, and images to your folders as well.
It’s your turn now. I want you to decide on a topic and create a folder of a project of your choice. Tomorrow will add more detail to your folder.

Tags: 21st Century, My Portfolio, netTrekker, netTrekker d.i., Project Based Learning, Units