netTrekker Blog

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

Coming soon: netTrekker Site of the Day Spotlights

With so many amazing resources to be found in netTrekker, we thought it might be handy to highlight a resource each day via the netTrekker blog. So, starting next week, we’ll feature a quick, short post each morning to highlight a netTrekker Site of the Day.

Each morning, the Site of the Day will be posted linking you to the netTrekker login page. Jump in, click on the Site of the Day banner and save the resource to My Portfolio.

Share the Site of the Day with your colleagues–if they don’t already have a netTrekker subscription, they can register for a free trial.

We’ll do our best to give examples of how to use the resources with students in the hopes that you’ll share ideas of your own too. If you’re interested in being a guest blogger highlighting how you use netTrekker with students, drop me a line by clicking here.

Or if you find an awesome site in netTrekker that you think should be highlighted, drop us a line with the URL and we’ll take a look at it.

Tags: netTrekker, site of the day

Getting By With A Little Help

I mentioned yesterday that I read a variety of blogs, articles and other goodies first thing in the morning. Well at night, I treat myself to a bit of the entertainment news and last night in my alerts were a few pages with updates about David Cook.

I admit, I didn’t watch American Idol faithfully until his season, and season 8 didn’t hold my attention as much because David Cook was not a contestant. I’m a cougar cub for David Cook, what can I say?

Well in last night’s alerts was something about Adam Lambert, a very talented runner up for season 8 – but still not my favorite over David. Adam grabbed my attention last night, and in turn has influenced me to buy my son Adam’s debut CD. Why? Because of this commercial he made for DonorsChoose. DonorsChoose is an awesome program where teachers can write up a project or request resources that they need funding, then regular people like yourself can donate. You can give as little or as much as you can. Adam is passionate about the arts, a great outlet for kids with ADHD (like Adam mentioned in one interview) and even for kids with learning disabilities, so he advocates donating to the arts in schools.

If you are a classroom teacher, and you need to find resources for your classroom, check out DonorsChoose and see if your wish list qualifies. You can include a netTrekker subscription add-on to Weekly Reader or BrainPOP. Weekly Reader Online will help you save trees, while promoting literacy skills and global understanding using this trusted classroom resource. BrainPOP – well “the more you know, the more you know”, and their movies will help you be in the know, along with the quizzes and interactive media. Both premium upgrades lend to more interaction in the classroom, and deeper learning of content.

If you are looking for grants, then check out netTrekker’s Teacher Tools (the feature I mentioned yesterday). Click on Professional Development and then there will be a topic on grants. There are many great sites with grants still available, for as little as $100 to the thousands! The Federal Government to Best Buy to HP to Dollar General offer grants that can benefit reading programs or your greatest dream as a teacher. We even have great links to websites that will help you write the grants you’re searching for.

Thank you Adam for highlighting DonorsChoose. Best of luck to any teacher submitting for a grant. Make sure you also keep an eye on our Funding Update Page by Alan Whisman for federal funding information. (You can subscribe to the page via RSS and make it even easier to keep up with. And while you’re at it, subscribe to the main blog as well!)

Tags: Adam Lambert, American Idol, arts, Best Buy Grant, Brain Cancer, BrainPOP, Cook, David Cook, Dollar General, donations, DonorsChoose, Federal Funding, Give Back, grants, HP, Lambert, netTrekker, supplies, Teacher Tools, weekly reader