Elementary
Elementary teachers have been able to fully utilize the power of the Promethean boards using learning exercises found through netTrekker d.i. During a unit on simple machines, teachers were able to locate resources to use with their Promethean board. Doing a keyword search for simple machines will yield many results, but if you use the refinement tab for learning exercises you can find some wonderful sites like Edheads: simple machines. Try the Garage area by going through the Start area and choosing the House.

Do you use themes in your Elementary classroom? netTrekker d.i. has a wonderful theme search area. Recently, teachers used the theme search for president's day resources. Under the Elementary tab, you will find the Theme Search keyword box, enter president's day. If you choose the Social Studies curriculum area, the 1st site is PBS Kids: President for a Day! Under the Language Arts curriculum area, the 1st site is from the University of Virginia and it is called Good Stories for Great Holidays.

Kristin is a 3rd grade art teacher who used netTrekker d.i. to do a keyword search for web resources on Matisse. She projects one of the resources she found in netTrekker d.i. called "Matisse for Kids" onto her big screen TV. The children can come up to the computer and perform the learning tasks provided by the Baltimore Museum of Art ­ another resource Kristin found in netTrekker d.i. The children interact with the artwork by answering questions concerning patterns, lines, shapes, objects, color and design. Kristin then directs the class to design their own picture using these concepts.

Middle
Finding exciting resources for middle school students is sometimes difficult. Teachers in one middle school were looking for websites about the Hurricane Katrina disaster to show kids how it happened. Using the netTrekker d.i. Subject Search and the refinement tabs, they were able to locate sites with video to show students exactly that. Do a subject search in Science, drill down to Earth Science, Weather & Climate, Severe Weather, Hurricanes and finally Hurricane Katrina. Click on the video refinement tab to get results with just that multimedia content. One of the results is the Nova site on the Storm that Drowned a City. If you click Anatomy of Katrina and click Launch Interactive you can view any of the videos about that disaster.

High School
For a Global Studies assignment, a freshman Social Studies teacher found resources in the High School References area of the Features. The area of Maps, Geography & Almanacs provides sites to help the students find country information.

A high school Chemistry class has students researching individual elements using sites the teacher found in netTrekker d.i. This particular teacher used the subject search to locate the Science area, narrowed down to Chemistry, then selected the Particle topic to find the web resources for the Periodical Table of Elements.

English Language Learners
For a unit on the human body, one teacher uses resources in both English and Spanish found in netTrekker d.i.. Using the English Learners Channel you can do a keyword search for the word body. The ELL channel gives you much more focused results via the refinement tabs, for example, using the multilingual refinement tab you can find the site for KidsHealth: My Body. For both languages, one can click Bone ­ first, the text is in English but you can switch to en Espanol as well.

Finding interactive sites for Spanish speaking students can sometimes be very challenging. Middle school teachers looking for interactive sites with pictures for their Spanish students to practice English vocabulary have found great resources in netTrekker d.i.. Starting in the Middle School grade level of the English Learners channel and drilling down in ELL Skill Development area you can find ELL Reading & Writing Skills. Within that area are many sites for ELL Vocabulary. When you use the refinement tab for Pictures, the site on Illustrated Vocabulary is fantastic.

One 8th grade ESL teacher has a small group of students from the Hmong community of her city. She uses the English Learners section of netTrekker d.i. to learn about their culture. She chose "The Hmong and the Storycloth" site because it provides a lesson plan entitled "How Traditions & Cultures are Transmitted through Folklore and Art." As a result of the lesson, the entire class has a better understanding of the Hmong culture from what they learned about their traditions and values through the storycloth.

Pre-Service Teacher Education Assignments
Teachers in training love using the excellent resources available in netTrekker d.i. Many pre-service education students are assigned to describe lessons about cultural diversity. Using the Multicultural Pavilion area in netTrekker d.i. for their research, teaching students are challenged to explain how they will change a portion of the lesson to make it more in tune to the diverse cultures represented in their classroom make-up.