netTrekker Blog

Myth or Mist?

I love delving into a good book, or sometimes escaping to a compelling movie. When my two favorite past times are joined, I try to read the book first. With this upcoming film release schedule, I decided to read Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan for this week’s National Book Month Middle School Entry.

I love mythology, and listening to the tales of the gods, demi-gods, and the different battles or skirmishes. When I lived in South Carolina, I use to enjoy a yearly visit to Brook Green Gardens, just so I could hear the stories of the statues. However, like Percy Jackson, I tend to mix up the gods quite easily. Not the major players, but there are just so many to keep up with! Which means, this is a natural fit for netTrekker. I came across two this morning that I wasn’t sure about, and used netTrekker to quickly look them up and frame my mind around who they were and their role in the life of the gods in the 21st Century.

The other item that I found interesting in this book is the talk of moving west. Mt Olympus started Greece, but it moves with the gods, and they move with society. The book even made it sound like the Roman gods were really the Greek gods, they had just moved west and that the gods also were the reason for events such as wars or Prohobition. Time to break out a timeline and map and see if you can find ways to compare those events with the gods that would have been involved – and see if the trend still was to move west.

However, one of the items that really grabbed me was the idea of mist. I am often told to get my head out of the clouds and to come back to Earth or to pay attention. Here we have the gods explaining to us that often times we “miss” events because the gods are involved and there is a “mist” that comes into play to distort our vision or memories. What would a day be like if the “mist” did not work and we actually saw the gods in action? I would love to challenge my students into researching a specific god or goddess and write what a day of that god’s life would be like in the 21st Century and the reaction us mortals would have to that god’s presence.

I think I’m going to have to finish this entire series. And I’ll definitely be using netTrekker as my source for the 4-1-1 on the gods.

Tags: integration, Lightening Thief, National Book Month, novels

Snowy Days

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a great snowfall, or had a white Christmas. I loved snow days growing up, building snowmen and igloos (which I really did try to sleep in one night), snow angels, sledding, snowball fights, and then the nice warm hot chocolate with marshmallows overflowing. Those were the best days!

Living in coastal Florida, I don’t believe I’ll be seeing a lot of snow anytime soon. I haven’t had much luck in making it to a snowy place either. Every time I get there, the snow melts and starts back up when I leave. But snowflakes can still be apart of my life, and classroom lessons, this season. With netTrekker d.i., snow can “warmly” be part of your sponge activities and lessons for the remaining few days before winter break. Let me share with you my discoveries.

I started my search in Elementary and decided to look up “snowman” and refined my search for interactive media. It took me some time to get back to this post as I practiced my mouse skills while building a snowman. Next, I searched Middle School for “snowflake” and then used the refinement menu to narrow my search for interactive games. There are two websites which help you to create your own snowflakes, without any of the cold.  My last stop was high school, where I did a search for snow. Again, my trusty refinement menu came in handy as I narrowed my searches down by subject. I used Language Arts and Writing and Grammar as my refinement selection and found a lesson plan from the New York Times for students to write riddles about their favorite season. I tried my hand at a few, then went back to the snowflake site to illustrate.

Did you do a winter search in netTrekker d.i.? Care to share with us one of your great finds and how you plan to use those sites in your classroom? Just leave a comment below!

(Image citation: Irish, kelley. dsc00265.jpg. 2008. Pics4Learning. 15 Dec 2008 http://pics.tech4learning.com)

Tags: integration, netTrekker d.i., Pics4Learning, refinement menu, snow, winter