netTrekker Blog

Are You the Biggest User?

This blog post is the first of an exciting series to come. Many of us are inspired by the hard work and accomplishments of the men and women who participate in The Biggest Loser. Through coaching and the support of peers these dedicated individuals learn new things and discover tools and strategies to gain a wonderful new lifestyle.

This experience is much like the virtual community in NT101, netTreker’s Online Professional Development Course. We are currently in our sixth session and our participant group includes a diverse group of over 200 people including teachers, media specialists, curriculum coordinators, administrators, and content evaluators all representing many regions of the United States.

I recently sent out a request to the NT101 Alumni groups to write in and let us know how they are doing “after they left the training camp.” Within just a few minutes, I had an amazing response. Jo Anne McClelland from Sierra Sands School District in Ridgecrest California wrote back to me, “I Have a Great One!” She explained to me that on the first day of school, during first period, as she was checking attendance, she noticed one of her eighth graders who had not answered roll call. Knowing he was a new, unfamiliar face, Jo Anne matched him up with the one name left on her roster. At the end of the day she received a message from the office that this new student was from China, had only been in the United States for two weeks and spoke very little English. JoAnne knew absolutely NO Chinese. After working with him a few days, it was evident that he read and understood English a little better than he could speak.

JoAnne called in “netTrekker to the rescue” with the Read Aloud feature. “I just pull up a list of search results that relate to our lesson of the day, have him use my computer and he loves exploring, with the assistance of ‘Mike’ or ‘Lauren’ to help him learn English and history. It’s been 7 weeks and now he brings an electronic translator to class and is able to complete most of the written work that the class is working on. Thank you netTrekker!”

This is just one of the many training success stories. Visit netTrekker Village to join our online learning community, meet members in your regional group, participate in discussions, enjoy reading Best Practices, watching videos and learning about exciting upcoming events. If you have training success story to share, please let us know. You may be the next Biggest User.

Tags: netTrekker, NT101, Training

Techno-Novice Call For Help

There’s a request for help on the discussion board by a netTrekker Villager who would like me to fly to him and assist him for a week.  Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to make it to Northbridge, but I still want to help. My first tip, take it at an even pace. Try one thing at a time, and then add the next step. Don’t try to do all of it at once!

There are more great tips and ideas in the Teacher Tools Section of netTrekker. There are a few resources that are linked to the One Computer Resources and a few more for the One-to-One Computing.

A great tip I have learned over the years came from a friend of mine, Tom Turner. Tom’s school bought a bunch of SMART Boards last year and he needed to find a way to “hook” his teachers into using them. His secret weapon? netTrekker.

Tom did a search, refined his search by the collection of SMART, and pulled up those resources to share with his teachers. Once he showed them how easy it was to find SMART notebooks already created by other educators, how cool they were to use on the SMART Board, and what other interactive sites were like on the SMART Board, they were hooked! Once they got used to just using pre-made SMART notebooks, he then taught them how to make their own. He even used resources in netTrekker to help build those resources.

If you have a great tip on how to get started, please visit netTrekker Village and let Dean know. Help a fellow teacher out.

Tags: getting started, help, netTrekker, netTrekker Village

Engaging Students Through Personalized Learning

You’re going to start hearing this a lot from us in the near future – netTrekker helps you engage students through personalized learning.  This is, in fact, our new “tagline.”  You may be asking yourself, “What was netTrekker’s tagline before, and why did they need to change it?”

Good questions.  netTrekker previously used these two taglines:

• The #1 educational search tool for K-12 schools.
• Redefining search to help every child learn.

Why did we change our tagline?  We needed a tagline that:

• Better reflects our focus on student-centered learning tools
• Positions netTrekker as more than just a “search engine/search tool for schools”
• Represents the purpose of our expanding line of educational solutions

In coming months, new content, tools and resources will be added to netTrekker, shifting its function from that of an educational search engine to a digital solution (content and tools) repository built on the industry’s most powerful search platform.

How did we choose THIS tagline? Engaging students through personalized learning.

After much consideration of feedback from our customers and employees, review of primary and secondary research findings and trends in the industry, as well as first hand discussions with educators, this tagline was selected because it:

• Speaks directly to the biggest challenge facing the education world (engaging students).
• It introduces the new category of solutions that we are evolving into (personalized learning).

One of our Customer Advisory Board members who helped us reach this decision was Mary Woodard, Director of Library Services in Mesquite ISD in Texas.  She shared why she thinks this was the right tagline for netTrekker and what she hopes netTrekker will become with this new mission – Engaging students through personalized learning.

“In this tagline, I see two words that are a focus in our district: engaging and personalized. In order for 21st century students to be successful, they must be engaged with their learning, and this is a challenge in today’s fast-paced world. Web 2.0 technologies now make it possible for students to customize and personalize the information that they receive, so that it is tailored to their specific learning needs. This customization makes learning personal and meaningful for each individual and is the best way to keep students engaged. I’m excited to see how netTrekker might merge web 2.0 features like RSS and embeddable widgets with their already robust search engine.”

What features would you like to see netTrekker add to help you engage students through personalized learning?

Tags: 21st Century Learning, engaging students, netTrekker, personalized learning

Concept to Classroom

Can you say FREE Professional Development? Can you say work from home in your own time (and maybe even in your PJ’s)?   Concept to Classroom, our first netTrekker Site of the Day spotlight,  is a free series of award-winning professional development workshops covering important and timely topics in education such as:

• after-school programs,
• cooperative and collaborative learning,
• inquiry-based learning,
• web quests,
• use of the Internet in the classroom, and more.

The workshops are intended for teachers, administrators, librarians, or anyone interested in education — and there’s no technical expertise required. They are self-paced, so you can explore them on your own time and go back as often as you like; you can take all of the workshops, or just one. Professional development credit can also be obtained after completing a workshop. Bring on that online learning!

Quick!  Login to netTrekker before midnight (eastern) today to access the netTrekker Site of the Day.   Be sure to add it to My Portfolio for quick/easy future reference.  After midnight, the new Site of the Day will go up and you’ll have to look for today’s site using netTrekker’s search tool.

Not yet a netTrekker subscriber? Visit www.nettrekker.com and click on the Free Trial link at the top right of the page for 14 days of complimentary access to netTrekker.

Tags: Concept to Classroom, free professional development, free trial, netTrekker, site of the day