Thursday, November 18, 2010

Current Events in netTrekker?

I attended a netTrekker Search training recently and learned some new things about the various ways to search for things in netTrekker. If you have not moved any of the widgets around on your dashboard (which you can now do to organize better for personal preference), one of the boxes at the bottom of the dashboard is called Current Events. Now at first glance, this box did not appeal to me, but after hearing about it at the training. I might have to move this box from the bottom of my dashboard to the top of the dashboard!
  • If you click on Breaking News, you get links to PBS, World News for Children, and Newsround from BBC.
  • The News by Topic Link lets you choose from Science News or Health and Sport News. The Sport News category has topics related to baseball, basketball, football, golf, ice hockey, soccer, swimming and diving, as well as track and field. Each of those links takes you to lists of websites with up-to-date information. There is also a link to the Sports Section of The Washington Post in this area.
  • Clicking on US News takes you to another category called News by State. Right now Florida and Idaho are the only states listed in this area. When I clicked on Florida, I was able to get News from All Cities and Towns. I was able to find a resource on the Everglades that contains a video segment, which is teacher recommended.
  • The World News link takes me to North America where there is a link to Bermuda. I can visit the Encyclopedia of Earth's Bermuda section to learn all about the environmental issues, geography, ecology and biodiversity, government, people, water, economy, agriculture, and natural resources. (I wonder if that information is available about other places in the Encyclopedia of Earth ... maybe that is another project for me).
  • Just looking at the list of links available, I thought the Impact of Current Events one looked the most interesting. I was pleasantly surprised to find these sites in that area:
SMART: World News
Teachable Moments (from the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility)
The New York Times Learning Network
DOGONews: Kids News - Current Events
Lesson Plan: Current Events
WashingtonPost: KidsPost
TIME For Kids
Children's PressLine

Imagine all the possibilities of information students and teachers can find from these sites focused on the impact of current events. I know that checking out each of those sites needs to be added to my list of things to do! What is even better is that I know since I was able to access these sites from netTrekker Search, these sites have already gone through a teacher review process. If I access these sites from netTrekker Search, I have the Read Aloud and Dictionary options available.
I wonder what I will find next in netTrekker ...
If you come across something really interesting in netTrekker Search for me to check out, please let me know!

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