Welcome to the 06-07 school year! It’s so much fun to start out the new school year with fresh ideas and new approaches to helping our kids learn. It is easy to incorporate netTrekker into those activities. Access netTrekker at http://school.nettrekker.com.
Tip of the Month
Hints for the New School Year
Back to school time is a great opportunity to refresh your netTrekker implementation in your school. As you start this new school year, there are some great ways to make sure netTrekker is easy to use and easy to access.
- Put netTrekker on all of your desktops.
- Know the advantages (and disadvantages) of shared logins.
- Get the word out about netTrekker to parents and the user community.
- Check out our ELL Teacher's Guide!
Read More...
Tip of the Month
Hints for the New School Year
Back to school time is a great opportunity to refresh your netTrekker implementation in your school. As you start this new school year, there are some great ways to make sure netTrekker is easy to use and easy to access.
- Put netTrekker on all of your desktops.
You can add shortcuts to netTrekker on your computer desktop to make sure users can easily get to http://school.nettrekker.com. Linking instructions and logos can be found in the netTrekker Help Section. Please click on the following link to access those resources in netTrekker Help - http://middle.nettrekker.com/help/DI/customers/desktoplink.epl.
- Know the advantages (and disadvantages) of shared logins.
Shared logins are a very user-friendly way to access netTrekker d.i. from school or home. Some schools create a username/password to be shared by all users – this means they can create one piece of information for all users that is very easy to remember and type in. Other advantages of a shared login include ease of management for the school netTrekker administrator and the ability to “lock” that username so that the password and preferences stay the same as they were initially created. Some disadvantages to a shared login are that the saved searches can be inappropriately deleted when they belong to all users and the individual user history will not be available.
- Get the word out about netTrekker to parents and the user community.
Parent letter templates (in English and Spanish) as well as newsletter templates are available in the netTrekker Help Section. Please click on the following link to access those resources in netTrekker Help.
- Check out our ELL Teacher's Guide!
This is a great classroom resource packed with ideas to assist teachers with ELL students. Check out the very bottom of this linked page - http://middle.nettrekker.com/help/DI/ell.epl.
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Product News
New Read Aloud Feature
In July, a new Read Aloud feature was introduced in netTrekker d.i. to provide text-to-speech support to students who need additional audio support and reinforcement. The Read Aloud feature makes netTrekker d.i.’s 180,000 educator-selected resources more accessible and adaptive for special needs learners.
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New Read Aloud Feature
In July, a new Read Aloud feature was introduced in netTrekker d.i. to provide text-to-speech support to students who need additional audio support and reinforcement. The Read Aloud feature makes netTrekker d.i.’s 180,000 educator-selected resources more accessible and adaptive for special needs learners.
- The Read Aloud feature automatically reads text back to students with just the click of a button.
- Simply highlight text on a netTrekker d.i. search result, text within a website, or any text within the definition provided by the dictionary/translation hot key.
- Students who need additional audio support and reinforcement now have a powerful learning resource at their fingertips.
- To learn more about the new feature, please visit the Read Aloud section in netTrekker d.i.
- netTrekker d.i. with Read Aloud is now eligible for IDEA funds.
netTrekker d.i., with Read Aloud support, now eligible for IDEA funds, ultimately reduces the strain of reading for those who may have visual impairments, have learning disabilities or for those who find it hard to concentrate for long periods of time. "Since 1998, more than 8 million students have been served under IDEA each year," said Christine Willig, president of Thinkronize, developer of netTrekker d.i. "In addition to providing special needs students with equal opportunities for learning, it is critical that these students are not marginalized from their technology savvy peers. netTrekker d.i., offered with Read Aloud, provides students with special needs a way to comfortably participate alongside their classmates."
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New Narrow your Subject
Our new, dynamic Narrow Your Subject feature in netTrekker d.i. allows users to take full advantage of our curricular taxonomy within their search results. Just type in a keyword, receive search results and then use the Narrow Your Subject dropdown to immediately refine your search results to the curricular topic selected. For example, if you or your students do a keyword search on “mass,” you’ll be able to refine your search to see results in the curricular areas of Math, Social Studies, the Arts, or Religion.
Promethean Resources in the Classroom
1,000 Promethean flipcharts are available within netTrekker d.i. Easily locate ACTIVboard resources in the refinement tabs or by using Advanced Search. The Promethean flame icon (
) in the legend and the Promethean name on every website title indicate the resource is a flipchart to be used with Promethean's interactive whiteboard. Teachers are already using these resources in the classroom – check out their ideas.
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Promethean Resources in the Classroom
1,000 Promethean flipcharts are available within netTrekker d.i. Easily locate ACTIVboard resources in the refinement tabs or by using Advanced Search. The Promethean flame icon () in the legend and the Promethean name on every website title indicate the resource is a flipchart to be used with Promethean's interactive whiteboard. Teachers are already using these resources in the classroom – check out their ideas.
Promethean resources are extremely handy to have in the classroom. Here is an example of how one teacher is using the netTrekker Promethean flipcharts in her lesson:
Janie, high school math teacher from Indiana, uses Promethean resources for her lesson on equations.
- The keyword of “equations” brings back many high school math examples.
- Using the Promethean Refinement tab narrows those search results to only Promethean resources.
- The website from Promethean Planet called Promethean: Equations will let you download the flipchart about Equations.
According to Janie, this particular Promethean site found in netTrekker is useful for fulfilling a student’s review of writing and solving algebraic equations. The equations in this flipchart, which include the magic square, perimeter, regular polygons, circle, and the quadratic equation, provide a combination of Algebra and Geometry problem solving. This can be used as bell work, supplemental material for standardized testing preparation, or used as additional practice for those students struggling with problem solving.
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Our Partners
netTrekker and FSCreations Partner
netTrekker has partnered with FSCreations, developer of ExamView, to provide educators with instant access to remediation content for their students.
- ExamView v5.2, now features an item remediation summary that allows teachers to identify areas that need additional reinforcement and instantly link to remediation content provided by netTrekker.
- Any netTrekker classic or netTrekker d.i. customer who purchases ExamView will now have access to this new functionality.
- To learn more about ExamView, please visit http://www.fscreations.com.
Best Practices
Teachers love to share their best practices for using netTrekker in the classroom. If you would like to submit your classroom best practice, please do so at http://school.netTrekker.com/contactus.
Teachers from the Clover Park School District in Washington have come up with an innovative way to present the netTrekker resources that they have found to their students.
- Create a set of netTrekker results and save the search.
- Using the Saved Searches area, open the search.
- Edit the descriptions for each search result in the saved search. The descriptions area has enough room to include comments from the teacher about that website as well as directions or an assignment for students to complete using that particular resource.
Teachers can create a list of resources and have the assignments right there with those resources all within netTrekker! Just another way that teachers use netTrekker to make their jobs easier.
Image Search Survey
We’d like your opinion about our netTrekker Image Search – click on this link to access a brief survey about the Image Search feature within netTrekker d.i.: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=845402502608. Thank you for your time and your opinions!
Thinkronize, Developer of netTrekker, Makes Inc. 500 List!
Each year, Inc. magazine produces the Inc. 500, a list of the nation's fastest-growing privately held companies.
- On August 23rd, the 2006 list was released and Thinkronize, developer of the netTrekker suite of products, was honored as #323 on the list.
- netTrekker is currently used by over 9.3 million students in 16,000 schools across the country. It is through our efforts to fulfill our mission of enhancing the education of youth, that our company has experienced such tremendous growth during the last several years.
URL Reminder
Remember to access your netTrekker school subscription at http://school.nettrekker.com.
