netTrekker Blog

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

Without Creation, There is no Creativity

The title of this blog is actually borrowed from Wes Fryer’s Keynote Presentation at the Palm Beach County School District’s 2010 Technology Conference. His speech left me with the message not to give into the villian of fear and that “tests are not going to save us”. As one who loves a good story, and a good story often has a villian, I was pleased with the comparison of fear to the bad guy. He’s right. Fear is the only obstacle in integrating technology into your curriculum.  His presentation is available on his blog, including the creative commons images and the videos. One of my favorite videos he shared was from Ocoee Middle School, and I loved how he pointed out that the video was created in December, three months before the state test.

netTrekker had a presence there as well, with a well attended first session and a busy booth. The teachers were looking for integration possibilities and ways that you can connect with students using netTrekker. I shared several possibilities, including a few from Glogster EDU with netTrekker being the research tool and Glogster EDU being the productivity tool. I had one ask where were the standards for the Glogster, and I pointed out the paraphrasing standards and the ISTE Student Technology Standards found in netTrekker’s Standards Search. Of course, we shared about the Video Scholarship and had lots of interest! Creativity was definitely a key topic on everyone’s mind, and the door was open to many possibilities that day after the keynote.

For being the thirteenth largest school district in the United States, as busy as everyone else is with state testing, this was a well attended (3000 registered attendees), well organized “mini conference” that had fantastic sessions, inspiring keynotes, and some wonderful discussions all around.  I encourage you to seek out other blog entries, possible videos (I hear some will be coming after a much deserved Spring Break), and Twitter discussions about this day to connect teachers to technology to foster creativity and achievement.

Tags: creativity, Glogster, Ocoee, Palm Beach County Technology Conference, PBCSDTech, read, Wes Fryer

A Biting Find to Read

Psst. Wanna know a secret? I’m terribly afraid of vampires. Yeah, they really freak me out. Which is probably why I’m the last one on planet Earth to read the series Twilight. Jill Allen, the Director of netTrekker’s Customer Relationship and Training Department, seemed shocked that I, an avid reader, had not read this series. She almost convinced me to begin Twilight during FETC. Almost, because, well, I was still a bit nervous about the whole vampire deal. (Yes, I know there are no real vampires. I have an overactive imagination though.)

On March 2nd we will be celebrating Read Across America, and it should be a celebration for all readers, not

just limited to elementary students. Middle school and high school students should also enjoy this day of reading. And from what I understand, Twilight is the new Harry Potter,  when it comes to encouraging reluctant readers to crack open a book.

With Twilight being a newer book that’s just starting to take hold in the classroom, I wasn’t sure if I would find any resources in netTrekker d.i. . Not only was I pleasantly surprised to find a few, I was also pleased to find results that were not from bookstores selling the book or movie reviews. I used “twilight” as my keyword search. My first two results were related to the series! The first site was the official website of Stephenie Meyer. It was interesting to read about the dream that inspired her to write the story and how the town of Forks became the setting.

The second site is the one that I’m enjoying right now as I write this. It’s a site from the Library of Congress and includes a presentation from Stephenie Meyer at the 2006 National Book Festival.

If you search with Stephenie Meyer as the keyword, you’ll find three websites about the author. On the same note, there are 30 sites about vampires, most dealing with other writings involving these legendary creatures.

If you know of any great sites with lessons on how to use Twilight in the classroom, please share those links with our content editors in the netTrekker Village. Our content editors are always on the prowl for fresh new relevant sites.

Tags: netTrekker, read, read across America, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, vampire

Seussical Reads

By the way, the blog is written in collaboration with Amanda Barton from Content Editors and the entire Customer Relations Team. My name is Danielle Abernethy, the main voice of the blog. I am a former military BRAT, and once lived in Bitburg, Germany. On Saturday mornings, my brother and I would go down to the German bakery for fresh bread.  On the way, we would pass a “Dr. Seuss”. I firmly believed that this  Dr. Seuss (a family doctor)  was my favorite author Dr. Seuss. So one morning I got up, grabbed my Dr. Seuss books, and went to visit the good ole’ Doc. Thankfully he was a very understanding old man and didn’t turn away this naive eight year- old. He told me he wasn’t the author Seuss, but he would read with me just the same. We read quite a few books that day.

On March 2nd, all across the world, we’ll be celebrating Dr. Seuss’s 105th birthday, along with the celebration of reading during Read Across America. This is one of my favorite days in schools, and I personally love the fact that Dr. Seuss is celebrated at the same time. He is the reason I love to read! I am tempted to take my son (Joey) out of school, drive down the road to Universal Studios to Seuss Landing and celebrate with them. It’s my favorite place to play in Universal.

But I’m a responsible parent, so we’ll take our trip on the weekend. In the meantime, I’ll find other learning activities for school or home, and what better place to find these activities than through netTrekker d.i. By using “Suess” as my key word I was able to find 40 results in elementary. My favorite website found there is Seussville. This weekend Joey and I created our own story using characters, backgrounds, and sounds from Seuss world. We also found a website that had Joey practicing his math facts with Dr. Seuss.

When Joey gets older, I can go to the middle school tab and type in Seuss to find 16 results or the high school tab to find 14 results. Among those results are sites showcasing the political side to Dr. Seuss books. Here’s a trivia question, which famous World War Two Leader was the basis for Yertle the Turtle? Social Studies Teachers studying World War Two could have students study the different leaders and try to deduce who the leader was. If you know the answer, leave it in a comment below.

So with that, I’ll leave you to netTrekker to explore.
Use Seuss as the search keyword to open the door.
More than lessons, games and resources you’ll find.
For one of the greatest authors of our time.

(I think I’ll stick to writing blogs
Instead of leaving my audience in a fog!)

Tags: Dr. Seuss, netTrekker, read, read across America