netTrekker Blog

netTrekker Search Provides Role-Based Access to Content

One of the ways netTrekker Search helps users get information quickly and efficiently is by providing Role-Based Access to content. This personalized access structure takes students, teachers, and administrators, alike, directly to the specific resources that meet their personal needs.

Students are directed to standards-based resources, learning aids, and assessments, without having to sort through lesson plans or other teacher resources.

Teachers have a Standards tab with easy access to state standards information and lesson plans. The Teacher role also contains Teacher Tools under the My Tools widget, as well as, convenient access to netTrekker Village, netTrekker Blog, Online Learning and the netTrekker Customer Center in the My Communities widget.

netTrekker school Administrators receive exclusive access to tools that assist with managing users and reviewing school usage of the product.

For more information about Role-Based Access, click here to view the Help topic on User Roles. The default role for a netTrekker user is Student. To change your role to Teacher, you will need to get the Teacher Code from your school or district netTrekker SEARCH administrator. View netTrekker’s Guide to Getting Started for Teachers to learn how to register a teacher account and enjoy the teacher resources highlighted above. Your teacher role also enables you to save and share searches communally among netTrekker SEARCH users in your school and district, and to create classes within the My Portfolio feature for users with the Teacher role.

Tags: staff development, Teacher Role, Training

The Reference Link

During the NT101 course participants collaborate on the discussion boards to share tips, strategies, resources and Best Practices.  Often times, early in the course I have to send out a few re-assuring words to make people feel comfortable to post ideas.  However, this summer the discussion boards are “on fire.”  During the first content module, Barb Wagers from Aurora Colorado posted a great sample best practice article about the power of the Reference Link.   Enjoy Barb’s Best Practice article below.  Thanks to Barb for her great submission.

The Reference Link

If you have not explored the References link in the Features box, you are missing a ton of resources for you and your students. Teaching students to access the References button gives them several resources, literally, at their fingertips. There are two areas that I would like to specifically highlight.

Students always want to use images and sounds that may be copyright protected. Using Find Sound, students can download free sound clips that can be used in presentations or video production. Click on the Reference tab and scroll down to Find Sound under the category of Finders. You can search for a specific sound or browse through a list of sounds available by clicking on See Examples in English link. Once the students find the sounds they want, they can download them onto their computer and use them legally.

In the Multimedia area on the References page, there are several sites that offer free clip-art and images. The Elementary tab is a bit limiting, but have your students use the Middle or High school tab and they will see several websites that offer free clip-art and images. Many of the sites have the images in subject categories, which is very useful to the students.

There are several more resources in the References link, so check them out and teach your students to use them as well.

Barb Wagers
Instructional Technology Coach
Aurora Public Schools, CO

We would love to hear your tips, strategies and Best Practices for implementing  netTrekker in your classroom, school or district.  Your ideas may be published on nT Village or in our netTrekker newsletter.

Best Practice Submission Process:
Please describe (in 500 words or less), a netTrekker Integrated Best Practice. Include details that support using the Collections, the Features, Web Tools, and any of our Integrated Partner Products. In your entry, include the external links, a copy of any educator created materials, and any other pertinent documents and resources you incorporated to make your lesson a Best Practice.

Send this information to aellisor@nettrekker.com to be considered for publication in the Best Practice section of the netTrekker newsletter or on netTrekker Village.

Tags: best practice, Features and Tools, lesson plans, NT101, references, staff development, Training

KISSES in Training

Rod's creation with the candy provided during training.

In high school, I used to plan events for fellow students. I’ll admit that I was one of those annoyingly perky and bubbly kids, so I made sure each event was themed. Everything had a meaning – even the candy we used!  To this day, my candy still has a meaning. For example, if I’m sending a candy bar to a teacher to thank them for their extra effort, I’ll include a note saying “I think you deserve an extra grand for your hard work.” Even the candy I use for training has a meaning.  I consider what I know about that district, the area, and details about their netTrekker use, then I look at the candies on the shelf to decide which fits best.

Here are examples of my favorite candies for training:

• Hershey Kisses, because netTrekker Keeps Internet Searching Simple, Educational and Safe. I’ll often pick up a multi-flavor pack too. After all, netTrekker has multiple tabs and channels, depending on the “flavor” you’re looking for!
• Twizzlers are always a favorite because educators need to be flexible (and a little fruity)! When I train, I’m willing to be flexible and change the agenda to meet your needs.
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are also relevant because there is more than one way to eat a Reeses, and there are multiple ways to search in netTrekker!
• Hershey Nuggets are perfect when I do short 1 hour trainings because I share “nuggets” of information about netTrekker.
• Hershey’s Miniature Packs help illustrate how users can refine their netTrekker search results with the Refinement Menus, just like they can refine this candy treat!
• Lifesavers are great to have in a pinch, just how netTrekker can be a lifesaver to a teacher in need of new teaching and learning material when struggling with a particular standard, (or just bored with old lessons!)

I recently did a training in Canton, NY with the St. Lawrence-Lewis BOCES, and explained why I bought the candy. They asked if I would write a blog post, to which I agreed, but only after they let me take a picture of Rod Hooper’s candy creation! Check it out above! Thanks Rod, and good luck with your Technology Camp this week.

If you’re at ISTE2010, stop by the booth and learn how you can Keep your Internet Searching Simple, Educational and Safe. I’m not sure if the Hershey Kisses made it there in this heat, but I can promise that there are some exiting announcements, great presentations, and wonderful people waiting for you at the netTrekker booth!

Tags: Candy, KISSES, Training

Make the Connections with the Timeline

One of my favorite netTrekker features to play with is the Timeline Tool. I love to build a timeline and add layers to make it just what I want. In training, I often showcase this tool by selecting United States History and the WWII Timeline from the events section. This pulls up both the timeline for the United States and their activity in WWII, as well as famous Americans who lived during this time. Nothing shows up for the arts or innovations and discoveries – but so much happened in the arts or sciences during this time! To prove that point I simply add layers, beginning with American Literature. How were stories written during that time influenced by the war? Next I add music and see a famous musician, Duke Ellington. The next layer is Physics, where we discover beta-trons, fission, and atomic bombs. Was the push for the discovery of the atomic bomb influenced by the war? Did it have an impact on WWII?

You can take this beyond just WWII of course. Do your own layering! For instance, would the people of America been so enamored by Franklin D. Roosevelt had he not taken office during the time of the Great Depression and saved the banks? Did the events during his term influence America into a four term president instead of the traditional two term? How about George W. Bush? What would his presidency have been like without September 11th? Did his focus change, and did it influence Americans into another term of Bush Presidency? What about Obama? What is influencing his presidency and will Americans decide if he’s a two term or one term President? It’s not just the laws that are passed – it’s often an event and the response to that event that influences those decisions. Those events will also often inspire art, literature, scientific discovery or invention. Nothing happens in a bubble without touching something else.

It was pointed out that many standards require connections to historical events and people. Make those connections with netTrekker’s  Timeline tool!

Tags: Integration Ideas, netTrekker, Training

Save 20% on netTrekker Professional Development

How do you maximize the value of your netTrekker subscription? By giving your teachers the professional development they need to ensure successful implementation and classroom use!

Save up to 20% on all netTrekker Professional Development offerings through July 15, 2010!

Here’s how it works:

If you order netTrekker Professional Development and your purchase order is received by July 15, 2010, you’ll get 10% off*!

Order netTrekker Professional Development and schedule your training session before you send in the order, and you’ll receive 20% off*! The purchase order must be received by July 15, 2010 and your training must be scheduled for a date prior to December 31, 2010.

*Travel expenses will not be discounted.

Creating awareness of netTrekker and training on its features contributes greatly to high and effective usage. Our team of experienced educators developed specific training programs designed to meet the needs of today’s classroom teachers. We can accommodate small or large groups meeting on-site or online with a customized agenda to meet your training goals.

Schools and districts that have invested in netTrekker Professional Development have seen a dramatic impact on usage rates. Susan Joyner, an Instructional Technology Teacher from Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools, saw immediate results. “We trained media specialists and second year teachers in March, and all of the trainings were quite successful.” Before netTrekker Professional Development, Savannah-Chatham’s total number of netTrekker page views sat at 277,674.  “By March 24th we were at 432,925 total page views. We are so grateful for netTrekker’s support!” netTrekker training almost doubled Savannah-Chatham’s usage, and could help your school or district achieve the same results!

netTrekker’s Professional Development offerings include Online Courses, Webinars, On-Site Workshops and Differentiated Instruction Packages. View a comparison of these options to see which training best corresponds with your needs, or contact your netTrekker Account Manager for more information.

Tags: NT101, professional development, promotion, Training, webinar

Training Hits a Triple! No, a HOME RUN!

One of the favorite resources was the Reference Section, especially Pics4learning.com

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

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

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

This is a hand-drawn image of the Earth from the Pics4Learning Collection in netTrekker’s reference feature.

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.

A great book by a treasured author.

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

A Christmas Carol : A sneak peek into the Victorian Era

What a perfect project for Christmas time – and spectacular way to introduce the Victorian Era, while learning a wonderful lesson about the true spirit of the holidays.

The newest version is a 3D Animation by Disney Studios.  Students will love the rich characters and mystical nature of this classic holiday story, A Christmas Carol. The main character, Ebeneezer Scrooge, is a miserly old man who hates Christmas and whose heart has turned cold since the death of his business partner and the break-up of his engagement many years ago. As Scrooge meets up with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, they help him to understand his misgivings and start celebrating the holidays in the true spirit of giving and compassion.

The tale has been viewed as a reflection of nineteenth century industrial capitalism and provides a “sneak peak” into the Victorian Era.  The novella captures life in London between 1830 and 1840 – the midst of the Victorian Era.

The Victorian Era is defined by the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 – 1901.  netTrekker provides many resources to compare and contrast what life was like at the start and end of the Victorian Era.  This time of tremendous change is most evident by where people lived and worked in London, England.

1837		1901
People lived in villages and worked on the land.		People lived in towns and worked in shops, offices and factories.

Check out some netTrekker resources that will bring the Victorian Era alive in your classroom.  These and other similar sites can be found by refining your search on Victorian Era with Interactive Media.

Travel back in time to the Victorian era in this interactive journey to help Ruby & Michael search for Sam, their missing dog. While you are searching, you can learn about Victorian life by examining the objects in the house, listening to the characters, and answering the questions.

Be a Victorian Millionaire Now! Benjamin Gott was a model of entrepreneurial skill. By taking risks and experimenting with new ways of doing things, he managed to hit the cash jackpot and become a powerful businessman.  Can you solve business problems and make money by taking risks?

Virtual Victorians. Interactive examination of life during the Victorian era. Home, work, leisure, education, and technology are just a few facets of life addressed through photos, brief summaries, interactive games, newspapers, and documents.   Questions about daily life can also be submitted on-line to a role playing persona.

To learn more about integration ideas other resources to support your learning objectives, contact your Account Manager. We’d love to provide the perfect Professional Development solution for you.

Tags: Integration Ideas, professional development, refinement menu, Training, Victorian

Kissing Frogs brings Literature and Culture to the Classroom

The Princess and the Frog will debut in theaters this December.  Disney brings to us, “a modern twist on a classic tale.”  Set in the bayous of Louisiana, this film follows the adventures of a frog prince and a beautiful girl.

As this movie is filled with Cajun culture and a definite contrast to classic literature, it provides the perfect introduction to a multicultural unit of study centered around familiar classic folk or fairy tales, as well as, any other topics related to holidays or cultural events.

netTrekker’s Multicultural Pavilion and other portions of the ELL channel contain a wealth of resources to help students study classic literature and the cultural  traditions represented in diverse school populations.

Choose a familiar classic folk or fairy tale or any other topic relating to culture.  In the Elementary tab of netTrekker, do a keyword search for Venn Diagrams.  Use the subject refinement and choose Language Arts>Literature.  On this page you will find a great place to begin planning,  Scholastic: Myths, Folktales, and Fairy Tales: Online Activity Teacher’s Guide. Scholastic’s Online Activities are designed to support the teaching of standards-based skills. While participating in the Myths, Folktales, and Fairy Tales project, students become proficient with the skills listed below, only to mention a few.

* Appreciate diverse cultures and traditions through folklore and folktales.
* Compare historic world cultures with contemporary ones.
* Demonstrate understanding of the genres by responding to questions.

Select a story based on your content standards and the cultural diversity of your student population. For example, you many choose to study the Persian version of Cinderella. You will find that this Cinderella may prefer a sturdy sandal to a glass slipper so that she may trek through the sandy Persian terrain. If you are a physical education teacher, you may choose to focus on the sports of a particular culture. Math teachers may be interested in converting currency or analyzing climate statistics.

Use the resources in the Multicultural Pavilion and/or any other portion of the ELL channel in netTrekker to locate resources to help students study the food, geographic features, weather and climate, dress, or any other topics pertinent to your curriculum.

For the assessment of this project, create a plan for students to produce a visual representation of what they’ve learned.  Encourage students to cook authentic dishes, create cultural costumes and enjoy  associated art and music to produce a shared Cultural Literacy Festival.

To learn more about the Multicultural Pavilion and other resources to support your ELL student population, contact your Account Manager. We’d love to provide the perfect Professional Development solution for you.

Tags: ELL, language arts, multiculture, profess, professional development, standards, Training

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

What Are You Showing Us Exactly?

One of the gems I discovered at the SDE conference was this video from Saturday Night Live showing Fred and his Magic Map. I searched so many different ways, so many different times looking for this video, and finally stumbled across it by accident.  It’s a hilarious video showing all the cool things you can do with a map on an interactive white board. But then a question came up, “what are you showing us exactly?”

I fell in love with this video for so many different reasons. Mainly because it emphasizes that we need to be trained on all new programs and equipment, otherwise it’ll be abused and misused. For instance, why is it important to that you can bounce a state or scramble them up? Well for scrambling, can you put the states back in the correct order, and as they entered the Union?

Recently I was conducting a training and a teacher was upset about having to be there all day for a six hour training. After all, it’s netTrekker, simple to use and she already knew how to search. I asked her to just give me a little bit of her time and let’s see how she feels after the first thirty minutes. I started the training, talked about the various ways to search with standards and then keyword and the refinement menu. While the teachers took their turn to find resources, I went over to this particular teacher and asked her if she wanted to stay for a bit longer or if she still wanted to leave. She said that the refinement menu was new, so she’d stick around for a bit longer but probably wouldn’t come back after lunch. As the day progressed, this teacher stayed focus and on task. She had ignored the dictionary button, the read aloud key, the various features, and definitely didn’t know all that you could do with the My Portfolio. She ended up being the last person to leave the session, sticking around to pick my brain for other possibilities.

It proved to me that even if you “know” something, sometimes it’s good to have a refresher or an enhancing session on it. After all, how many times do we teach planets or addition or the structure of the US Government in our curriculum from the time the students start school to the time they graduate? There is always something that needs to be refreshed, and knowledge that can be expanded.

Another thing I learned? Make sure that as a trainer I not only show the class the fun stuff, but the relevant stuff and make the connections to their curriculum. Otherwise, all they’ll do is make Michigan bounce, and really, does Michigan need to be bounced? Make sure there is a connection and they know exactly why they are attending (besides “because I said so”).

If you are about to attend a session of professional development, even if it’s a mandated session that you’ve already been to before, I want you to do some investigating. Keep a fresh mind though and see if there’s some nugget of information that you can actually take away and use. If you don’t find something, raise your hand or approach the instructor at the end and ask how this relates to what you do. Maybe, just maybe, they didn’t realize they weren’t making that connection and you can help them improve their training for the next group.

If you are looking for professional development ideas, check with your CRM Rep. We conduct a variety of training, including an integration coures that are customized to your needs. Digital storytelling, Google Earth, Web 2.0 Tools, and more. All integrate netTrekker and all are hands on fun. Then of course we have our basics, train the trainer, webinars, and nT101 courses. You can’t go wrong with a netTrekker Training.

Tags: SNL, Training