netTrekker Blog

Adventures of Cyberbee

Buzz into some cool content online at Cyberbee!

The Adventures of Cyberbee is designed for K-12 teachers and encourages engaged learning and problem solving skills through a variety of activities based on frameworks such as the WebQuest, treasure hunts, and Big6.  Today’s Site of the Day contains teacher tools and courses in using these instructional approaches, as well as student activities that are fun and engaging!

Login to netTrekker before midnight (eastern) today to access the netTrekker Site of the Day and add it to your “My Portfolio” for 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. Need help with My Portfolio? Easy, handy instructions can be found here.

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: problem solving, site of the day, Teacher Tools

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

New Teacher Tools

As part of our latest update, in addition to all the great science, math, language arts, and social studies resources, we’ve added 66 new items to our Teachers Tools area, including graphic organizers and template-creation tools. Our hope with these resources is to help you save time, especially as the school year sprints full-steam to a close. If you’re finding yourself with much to do, but with little time, see if you can find assistance via resources found via a drill-down search to Template Creation (Teacher Tools > Classroom Resources > Template Creation), as well as all the areas beneath it (e.g., Puzzle Makers, Worksheet Generators, Classroom Games, Graphic Organizers, etc.).

New from Freeology.com are collections of “printables”: Free Graphic Organizers offers .pdf files for Venn Diagrams, SQ3R, note taking, cause-and-effect organization, and timeline creation; Free Awards and Certificates provides a small collection of colorful award templates for “Good Attitude,” “Student of the Week,” and “Reader Award,” and Forms for Teachers has a calendar template, parent-contact form, homework pass, and other forms to help teachers keep track of classroom activity.

Also for this update, we’ve added the popular resource ClassTools.net, which provides a collection of templates that you can edit and interact with online, and even embed into your blog, wiki, or website. Fast and intuitive Flash animations guide you through the template-building process, and you’ll be creating arcade games, flashcards, Venn diagrams, puzzles, and charts in no time.

Tags: Graphic Organizers, Teacher Tools, Template Creation