| Deer
Park Turns Internet into Valuable Learning Resource with netTrekker
by
Mitchell Levine
Like
many school districts nationwide, Deer Park Public Schools
in Deer Park, New York faced the challenge of integrating technology
and online resources into their K-12 curricula and classrooms.
Enrico Crocetti, Administrator for M.I.S. for the district,
and a forward thinking technology advocate, wanted to provide
his teachers and students with high quality, online resources
that would energize their K-12 curricula. He also faced a second
challenge with a new data-mining project the district was undertaking,
which underscored the need for resources specific to grade
level and New York State Standards. In his research to find
a tool that met both of these objectives, he discovered netTrekker,
the trusted search engine for schools.
netTrekker
is an academic search engine specifically designed for school
use. Unlike ordinary search engines, like Google or Yahoo,
netTrekker saves educators and students time by providing access
to only prescreened and educationally relevant online resources.
netTrekker contains over 180,000 websites that are hand-selected
by a team of educators who evaluate each resource for academic
integrity and age appropriateness.
If
a student or teacher were researching “Ethan Allen” using other
search engines, results for the “Ethan Allen” furniture store
are returned. Students and teachers then have to sift through
a number of resources that aren’t appropriate or relevant to
the topic they’re researching. With netTrekker, only results
that relate to “Ethan Allen” the patriot are returned, so students
stay focused on the task at hand.
netTrekker
also takes their extensive database of high quality online
resources and aligns them with the New York State Standards.
Because they are mandated by the state to integrate these standards
into their lesson plans and curricula, New York teachers value
this capability. With netTrekker, teachers can easily log on,
type in a specific New York standard and benchmark that they
need to teach that day, and with a click of a mouse, they can
find online resources that support and reinforce that particular
benchmark. For example, if a teacher needs to find a lesson
plan that supports the New York standard regarding “The Bill
of Rights”, she or he need only go to netTrekker and within
seconds, they can find the resources they need.
Over
the past year, Deer Park Schools has benefited from being a
member of the growing netTrekker community of educators.This
success is punctuated by the district’s extensive experience
with web-based services.Often as the district utilizes services,
they come to know their shortcomings.With netTrekker, however,
the deeper the Deer Park users delve into the vast array of
curricula available, the more pleased they have been with the
netTrekker service. As Deer Park continues to develop prescriptions
to improve student learning, the district finds netTrekker
becoming a more critical component of their teachers’ toolbox.
According to Enrico, “netTrekker is the most valuable web-based
asset we have!”#
For
more information on netTrekker, please visit the companies
website www.netTrekker.com or
call toll free 1-877-517-1125.
Education
Update, Inc., P.O. Box 1588, New York, NY 10159.
Tel: (212) 477-5600. Fax: (212) 477-5893. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of
the publisher. © 2003.
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