netTrekker Blog

ELL Resources: Inspired testimonials from NT101 Participants

No two children, like the beautiful butterflies that open this blog, are identical.  And like butterflies, netTrekker’s ELL Channel and differentiated instruction features help each learner to take flight. As the school year is quickly coming to close, I’m reminded that it’s IEP and 504 plan time. These very important meetings dedicate time to students with special learning needs to have their plan re-evaluated and decide what should be included for the following year.

As the netTrekker 101 online course facilitator, I just wrapped up module six on using netTrekker with English Language Learners. The course participants filled the discussion forums with very thoughtful content which may be helpful to those of you who are writing IEP and 504 plans.

I am delighted to share with you several of the participants’ comments from the discussion board about the Dictionary Hot Key, Read Aloud, Readability, and other refinement features in netTrekker.  Enjoy these testimonials from passionate educators.

“ I love these features!!  What a wonderful service for students!!  First of all, the students LOVE to use earphones—I KNOW they are not just skimming over the information because they are sitting there listening to the netTrekker article…in TOTAL!!

It’s also a great feature for one of my teachers who is legally blind.  He loved it because he could listen instead of using his super magnifiers & putting his face up to the screen.

I loved the dictionary hot button when I went to some science related websites via netTrekker.  There were words that I didn’t know & instead of moving ahead, I stopped to find out the meaning of the word.

Wonderful Service to students and teachers alike!!!”
Gina Lunsford, Woodlands Christian Academy, TX

“As a high school English teacher, I think the best feature from this week is the read aloud button. In my classroom I have so many different levels (especially reading levels). Many students struggle with reading on their own. This button makes it an even playing field.

I look forward to utilizing this to help the students grasp concepts better in my classroom.”
Carrie Brisbane, Charter Tech High School, NJ

“Even as a regular education teacher my students can benefit from the readability tab and read aloud feature. There are low-level readers in our classrooms as well and it can provide that extra support that the student may need.

I love the dictionary hot key feature because it provides not only a definition but word origin as well.  It is always fun to discuss with students where words originate from and how they came to our country.”
Kalin Wilburn, Mansfield School District, OH

“The read aloud feature allows students to explore and learn on their own even if their English reading skills are not particularly strong. Many second language learners learn spoken language much faster than written language because they are immersed in the spoken language of their second language in their new country. Read Aloud provides these learners the opportunity to strengthen their reading skills because the see the words as they listen to the reading.”
Sarah Garrett
Glacier Hills Elementary, MN

To take full advantage of the many resources to support ELL students and to customize enrichment resources for all of your students, visit the ELL Channel in netTrekker.

A few spaces are still available for the Summer 2010 session of NT101. TO REGISTER: Contact your Account Manager.  If you have questions or need additional information, please e-mail Amy Ellisor, the NT101 Course facilitator, aellisor@nettrekker.com.

Tags: ELL, ELL Channel, ESL, netTrekker, read aloud, refinement menu

Training Hits a Triple! No, a HOME RUN!

Savannah is an absolutely beautiful city and the people of Savannah are hardworking, dedicated, and as welcoming as their Southern Heritage claims. I’ve had the pleasure to recently train in Savannah and experience this first hand.

It’s always a pleasure to hear back from the schools after we train to know how well the training went after the fact. That day things may have gone okay, but you won’t know until a few weeks later how effective the training really was. One way to find out how things went is through the evaluations we get back. It’s even better though when we hear directly from the schools with comments about how they have used the knowledge in training.

For Savannah, their success came with tripling their district’s over all usage of netTrekker. They have had netTrekker for a few years. Their 2010 training sessions were more focused on the features, giving more hands on time, and connecting it with their subject and curriculum. Susan Joyner, one of their instructional technology teachers, told me that the usage tripled from the last month after training. Out of curiosity, I decided to compare it with the year before. They actually increased usage by 700% this year!

I’d say that’s more than a triple. That’s a home run!

And it’s a tribute to training, their involvement in netTrekker 101,  and their Instructional Technology team continuing with implementation and getting the word out.

What’s your plan to increase use of your investment in netTrekker? Contact your Account Manager for more ideas, including training and other great resources.

Tags: integration, netTrekker, professional development, Training

Top 10 Reasons Future Teachers Love netTrekker

Shared by Education Students
Dr. Douglas Hazlett’s Integrated Instructional Systems Class
Thiel College Education Department, PA

1.  “netTrekker allows future teachers to use materials and resources that are credible and reliable – saving us valuable time planning our first units.” (Saves Time)

2.  “netTrekker is a resource for materials that are based on standards AND provide differentiated instruction.” (Standards-Aligned)

3.  “Searches for photos and videos are safe, unlike a general search engine such as Google™.” (Safe Searching)

4.  “Organized resources that can be individualized for student needs, including gifted and special needs students.” (Personalize Learning)

5.  “netTrekker pulls together all the aspects necessary for learning to take place while making instruction more engaging.” (Engaging Students)

6.  “netTrekker helps incorporate technology into the classroom while accommodating all learning styles.” (Technology Integration)

7.  “netTrekker is organized and easy to navigate which means less of a headache for teachers.” (Easy to Use)

8.  “The Read Aloud and Dictionary/Translation tools will dramatically help ELL/ESL students.” (Support for ELL/ESL Students)

9.  “Ideas and information for classroom management, professional development, learning styles and strategies, special education, and more.” (Teacher Tools)

10.  “netTrekker provides a lot of tips and resources for helping our students become 21^st century global players.” (21^st Century Learning)

“From freshman students investigating education topics through seniors doing their student teaching; Thiel’s educaiton students made great use of netTrekker.  Thiel College requires all education majors to develop standards-based lesson plans using engaging pedagogy (like Marzano’s instructional strategies) in fun creative ways using a variety of instructional strategies for all learners.  netTrekker is a tremendous digital assistant in this process. netTrekker provides all the answers for college students to design standards-based lessons using engaging pedagogies to increase student achievement for all learners.  Special features like timeline are very popular with students especially history majors.  Science majors love all of the interactive websites that are suggested with a keyword search.  All students use the image search feature.  netTrekker is just a tremendous resource for college education majors and K-12 teachers alike.”

Douglas R. Hazlett, Ph.D.
Chair and Associate Professor
Education Department
Thiel College

Tags: 21st Century Learning, ELL, ESL, integration, netTrekker, professional development, read aloud, resources, Teacher Tools

And We Have Winners!

One of the hot topics in education is personalizing education. Of course, being a former classroom teacher, technology coach, and now a netTrekker Trainer, I could tell you many ways to use netTrekker to meet the individual needs of your students. However,  we wanted to know how YOU use netTrekker to personalize learning and put it into action, so we made this year’s ISTE Scholarship Contest a video contest where teachers share their story.

It was tough, and the judges spent a lot of time watching each video entry more than once. In the end, we could only choose two for the scholarships. The others will receive nice gifts from our friends at BrainPOP.

Join me in congratulating Jackie Shanti from Clara Barton School, Milwaukee, WI and Andy Losik from Hamilton Schools, Fennville, MI. They will be attending ISTE2010 as our scholarship winners. You can check out their videos, and the other entries, on our scholarship info page.

They will also be sharing their story in the netTrekker Booth at ISTE2010. Come by and say hi, and learn something new from a netTrekker Educator.

Thank you to all who entered and shared your story. They were all fascinating and edutaining!

Tags: BrainPOP, NECC, netTrekker, scholarship

Yonkers Public Schools Take A Unique Approach to Professional Development with netTrekker

Many schools in Yonkers Public Schools in New York have been netTrekker subscribers since 2007.  To support the successful implementation and effective use of netTrekker, the district has also invested in multiple professional development workshops from netTrekker.  Looking for creative ways to deliver the professional development without taking teachers out of class, the district worked with netTrekker to develop this unique professional development opportunity.   This approach provided an opportunity to have the netTrekker trainers help introduce netTrekker to the students and helped develop new netTrekker “champions” at each school.

• At each school, the netTrekker trainer helped lead an “all staff presentation” to introduce netTrekker, explain how it can help in the classroom, and provide basic access information. The sessions were held either first thing in the morning or at the end of the day to avoid taking teachers out of their classrooms.

• Prior to the date of the scheduled professional development, the Director of Technology also gave the administrators at each school the responsibility of identifying teachers to model netTrekker in their classrooms.

• The netTrekker trainer worked with the selected teachers before the PD date to discuss the lessons and topics they wanted to use to model netTrekker.

• The netTrekker trainer set up some folders in the school’s portfolio addressing the topic to be presented and worked with the teachers to create a collection of resources and lesson templates that address a specific area of the curriculum.

• On the PD date, the netTrekker trainer worked with the selected teachers in the different classrooms to help them introduce netTrekker to the students and also to model how teachers can use netTrekker and incorporate it into their lessons.

• The netTrekker trainer also worked with the teachers to demonstrate how they could seamlessly integrate netTrekker with their other classroom technology, like SMART Boards and clickers, to help engage the diverse student population.

• The principal invited teachers to visit the model classrooms during the model netTrekker lessons. This gave teachers the opportunity to see first hand how easily netTrekker can be incorporated into the classroom.

“We had a wonderful, productive netTrekker presentation done by the netTrekker trainer at our school on Monday. The trainer and I worked together to put together a Portfolio for the students to use. And our librarian was extremely thorough in organizing this training and providing a chance for four of my homerooms to be reacquainted with netTrekker. I have also introduced netTrekker to the parents during Open House.”

Kavita Sapra
6th Grade English Teacher
Yonkers Middle School

The netTrekker Professional Development team is here to work with your school or district to develop a customized PD program that will best meet the needs of your teachers and staff.

Click here to learn more about netTrekker Professional Development opportunities.

Tags: netTrekker, professional development, Training

Join a Brigade, Earn Money, Save the Earth

Happy Earth Day everyone! What are your big plans to celebrate today with your students? Are you planting a tree? Reading in the school garden? Making recycled art projects? Finding alternative energy sources?

Why not join a brigade, and earn money while you’re at it?

When I taught in South Carolina, I use to attend the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) sponsored event called “Action for a Cleaner Tomorrow.” It was a great learning experience where I learned more about composting, using rain barrels, recycling, and what I could do in my classroom to reduce, reuse and recycle. Many statewide EPA organizations host these great learning events and I definitely recommend attending one when possible.

At the event, one of the sponsors shared with us items they made out of recycled items. I had a pencil made out of denim, and another made out of recycled money. There was carpet made from recycled bottles and purses made from drink pouches. Lots of items can be made from recycled material. You’d be amazed!

But recycling is not always convenient. Of course when I’m traveling and I see a recycling bin for my water bottle, I use it. But what about the rest of my trash? Or when I’m home? My community just doesn’t encourage recycling by making it easy. And of course, if it isn’t easy, not man people are going to do it.

So this weekend when I was reading an article, I learned about TerraCycle and knew that it was the way to encourage recycling in many places! The way it works is you join a specific brigade, such as the Elmer’s Glue Brigade or the Chip Bag Brigade, and you start collecting the waste from those items. You get paid something like $0.02 for each wrapper or glue container, which doesn’t sound like much but if 100 kids gave you the chip bag from their lunch, that’s $2. And I bet at least 100 kids bring chips to school a day and so in one week, that’s $10 and $40 in one month. That’s $360 a year. That’s almost the price of a new iPad or gardening materials to beautify the reading garden in your school. Or money to replenish the consumable materials for a science lab. Maybe use it to sponsor a field trip to a local landfill or recycling center. Competitive organizations like FBLA and the Robotic Teams could use the money to help cut their expenses.

OR, a subscription for your school of Weekly Reader Express added on to your netTrekker subscription. Great way to use a

digital resource, with the learning tools like read aloud, and reduce the amount of waste. So many ideas!

AND, you could ask a local sub shop to help you out by collecting the bags from their guests as well.  Just make sure you have someone dedicated to go pick up the bags on a set schedule. You could also hang out at sporting events to rescue the materials from the bins there. So many possibilities! Our old canteen group could have collected the chips and wrappers from those who bought from us in order to raise money for a field trip celebration.

They are plenty of brigades out there, and some of them are only open to schools. Read through and if possible, sign up for several brigades. Maybe one for each grade level or special interest group in the school. Definitely some possibilities.

If you do sign up for TerraCycle, I’d love to hear which brigade you signed up for and what you hope to do with funds raised.

Tags: Earth Day, fundraiser, netTrekker, recycle, reduce, reuse, TerraCycle, weekly reader

It’s Not Too Late to Plan a Great Earth Day Celebration for Your Classroom

Earth Day’s 40^th anniversary is only two days away.  Have you made your plans to spend some time outdoors with Mother Nature on Thursday, April 22?   It’s not too late to write a quick note to send home in backpacks today.  Ask parents to pack a lunch that requires no electricity and contains minimal packaging waste.  A paper bag containing a peanut butter sandwiches, a piece of fruit, and milk or bottled water make for the perfect eco-conscious meal.  Save the beverage containers to recycle and weigh the limited packaging and/or food waste.  Keep a record of this and compare it to a “regular” lunch next week.  Students will be amazed at the difference.  Visit  Educator’s Reference Desk:  Cleaning Up for Earth Day.  This site contains an activity for students of all ages to do on Earth Day. It shows students the things that humans waste as well as how to sort objects to be recycled.

Plan to begin your day with an Earth poem or song.  Lin and Don Donn: U.S. History Lessons: Holidays: Earth Day contains lessons for Earth Day as well as coloring books, songs, and the like.

Go outside and observe nature.  Have students complete a sense chart and record the sights, sounds, smells, and tactile qualities of natural objects.

Plant a class tree to commemorate this 40^th anniversary.  EcoKids provides simple tips for proper planting.  To properly dedicate your new tree and honor Mother Nature, take the Earth Pledge.

Have students sit under your newly planted tree and work together in groups to create a Haiku, a traditional form of Japanese poetry about nature.  The Kennedy Center resource, Kennedy Center: A Fact Haiku, will provide you a guide and assessments.

Enjoy a picnic lunch.  Use any of the recyclable lunch containers to build a creative statue.  Name this statue and keep it in your classroom as a reminder to REDUCE, REUSE, and RECYCLE.

Wrap up the day reading Just A Dream by Caldecott-winning Chris Van Allsburg.  This story will serve as the perfect resource to reinforce your Earth Day activities and to motivate students to continue to make responsible choices as they play a part in preserving Earth’s resources.  Chris Van Allsburg’s website is wonderful!  It includes a Kids’ Corner, Teacher Resources and many other great literature resources to use anytime of year.

Do you already have some great plans for Earth Day? Post a comment to this blog.  Also, visit netTrekker Village and start a discussion of Earth Day reflections. Post photos, quotes, or any other artifacts and let us know how you celebrate this important day.

Tags: Earth Day, ecology, Integration Ideas, lesson plans, literature, netTrekker, read, staff development, Training

iCan Create an iCon

I splurged yesterday and took the day off to spend with my son and a friend of his at SeaWorld. I let the kids play for a bit in the Happy Harbour, letting the kids get wet and run off their extra energy. While there, I met another teacher from Georgia and we started talking about netTrekker. It happened innocently enough. Her child asked a question about whales, she didn’t know the answer, and I said, “Hey, I can help you look it up.” So there we were, with kids running around splashing and screaming all around us, looking up information about whales on netTrekker using the iPhone and eventually her Droid. (Yep, netTrekker works on the Droid as well!)

I mentioned in another post that I have netTrekker as a shortcut on my home screen on my iPhone, and I was asked how to do that.  I made a quick set of instructions, including screen shots of how to do this on the iPhone and turned it into an animation. Did you know that you can take a screen shot of your iPhone by holding the sleep button on top and the round home button on the front, bottom of the screen and then let go. It’s pretty easy to do, and great for making tutorials.

To create the animation, I used an online program called Imator. Pretty easy to use for beginners like myself.  Does someone want to create one for the Droid?

I hope the teacher submits a video entry for the ISTE 2010 scholarship.  I told her she could use the example of her son wanting to learn more about whales at SeaWorld.  She seemed pretty excited when I left her filming her video with his flip camera and him on the Droid explaining how he uses netTrekker at school and now on vacation.

Have you submitted your video yet for the ISTE 2010 Scholarship? Deadline is April 16, and ISTE2010 promises to be fantastic, with plenty of opportunities to learn, connect with your PLN and explore the excellence of technology in education!

Tags: Droid, iPhone, ISTE2010, netTrekker, scholarship

netTrekker & BrainPOP in PA Cyber Charter School

We’re excited to introduce a guest blogger today. Karry Simmel is the Assistant Principal for PA Cyber Charter School, a leader in providing online education to over 8,000 K-12 students. Karry shares how her school is using netTrekker and BrainPOP together to engage students in 21st century learning.

Here at PA Cyber Charter School, netTrekker and BrainPOP have become a vital part of our instruction.  It was just a few years ago that I was introduced to netTrekker and started to utilize their resources through the state access that was provided for all Pennsylvania Schools. This past year, the statewide subscription ended and each school had to purchase its own license.  At first I felt this was a devastating blow.  Now, through our netTrekker subscription we are able to subscribe to additional resources that have enhanced the education we provide for our 8,000 plus students.

One of the best resources that our teachers utilize often is BrainPOP.  BrainPOP provides additional learning opportunities, interactive learning games, videos, activities, and a large variety of animated educational resources to assist students, teachers, and parents.  BrainPOP increases active engagement opportunities that relate to the 21st Century Learner.  With technology advancements, students are learning differently, and demanding more creative interaction. Education is ever changing, putting more demand on teachers to be more creative in their instruction.  Basically teachers need a wider variety of activities in order to actively engage and captivate their students.  With netTrekker and BrainPOP, many of our teachers have been able to do just that. For example, upon evaluating teachers’ instruction, I often ask, “Where did you get this video or the interactive web site?” The answer is always, “Through netTrekker and/or BrainPOP.” My response, “Marvelous, simply marvelous!”

With the direction of education evolving, I personally feel there is not a better educational resource to have at your finger tips than netTrekker and BrainPOP.  Through the years that I have been using netTrekker, it also continues evolving, learning, adapting, and growing to ensure that today’s student’s needs are met and students are provided with a variety of educational opportunities.  netTrekker is the search engine that links the bountiful resources BrainPOP has to offer to any classroom, student, teacher, and parent.

Though we do pay for these subscriptions, they are proving to be a priceless investment to meet the educational needs of the 21st Century Learner.  This is our specific targeted audience at PA Cyber Charter School.  Safe sites are more and more difficult to come by. Through netTrekker we know our students are viewing protected, educational, and meaningful sites that are specific to the information needed.  No matter what type of school a student attends, netTrekker and BrainPOP are two resources that specifically target the progression of education.

In my own personal words, “Don’t go to school without netTrekker and BrainPOP!”

Are you using netTrekker and BrainPOP together? How is it helping your teachers and students?

Tags: 21st Century Learning, BrainPOP, integration, netTrekker

Win $10 iTunes prizes every week when you tweet!

You’ve told us you want an easier, quicker way to suggest resources for netTrekker.  And, we know you’ll love a weekly chance to win a $10 iTunes card.

So, here it is: using the #netTrekker twitter hash tag, simply tweet your ideas for digital resources and we’ll add them to our queue for consideration and evaluation.

Winners will be announced Fridays via twitter and featured on the #netTrekker webpage.

For more information, visit http://www.nettrekker.com/pages/nettrekker/.

Tags: content, iTunes, netTrekker, twitter

Tell Us How You’re Using Web 2.0 Contest – Winner Announced

In our recent blog contest, we asked you to tell us how you’re using Web 2.0 technologies in your classroom to enter to win a free netTrekker subscription & free webinar.

Congratulations to Nate Guteras for sharing the example below. Since it looks like Nate is already a netTrekker subscriber, he’ll get to give the netTrekker subscription & webinar as a gift to a friend in another school that doesn’t have netTrekker yet.

Nate’s Example
We use netTrekker and Musek12 (web 2.0) along with Gaggle.Net to post and exchange projects with my students. First they see the assignment on Muse or Gaggle Net with a rubric. They conduct their research using netTrekker.  If they need to work in small groups they can exchange ideas via e-mail or discussion boards within the sites. Then they post their citations and projects to Muse or Gaggle. netTrekker helps make learning interactive and boosts higher order thinking of my students and their parents.

Nate, please contact lhannah@nettrekker.com to redeem your prize!

Tags: "web 2.0", contest, netTrekker

Glogging It

This past weekend I was invited to hang out with the Florida Discovery Educator Network at SeaWorld for a great learning event. The teachers learned how to create a waypoint for geocaching and how to create a Glog as a way to share what they have learned. Being the netTrekker fanatic that I am, I created a SeaWorld folder with resources, a link to a map to use with geocaching in the classroom, classroom project ideas and a link to my Glog. Unfortunately, you can’t access this project folder unless you are at my school. However, if you want a copy of it, leave a message of how to reach you and I’ll move the folder to your school or district.

Aside from catching up with good friends and making new ones, the fun part for me was creating the Glog. I chose to do one on Polar Bears. Unfortunately this exhibit was closed (SeaWorld is getting ready for sharing their Polar Express), so I couldn’t add any photos I took first hand. However, netTrekker did point me to a great video and some interesting facts.

For those of you new to Glogster, it’s a way to posterize your knowledge with graphics, text, video, images, and even sound! (The sound I found in a resource under References!) The even better thing is that they now have an “edu” version. If the regular version of Glogster was once blocked, I encourage you to see if this version can now be made available. It’s a great way for students to be creative in sharing their knowledge.

Quick note about the video, I ended up using the link from YouTube. The same video is on a website found in netTrekker, but it didn’t have the link-ability that YouTube has. Sorry about that!

My Portfolio is a great way to organize complete projects. One of the things you can do is add links to outside resources, which is especially a safe and easy way to have students post their projects. The link(s) you add will not show up in netTrekker as a whole, but rather in your portfolio, for your students to view.

Anyone up for a free webinar on Glogster? I’d love to share what I learned! Or contact your account manager to learn how to book your next professional development with us to learn how to integrate netTrekker with many great tools out there!

Tags: DEN, Glogster, netTrekker, polar bears, professional development, SeaWorld