Cincinnati (June 24, 2010) – netTrekker, a leader in the delivery of digital K-12 educational resources, is adding new features to its search tool that provide a more personalized and productive search experience, and facilitate educator collaboration to share resources and best practices.

The leading educational search tool, netTrekker provides students and teachers with over 300,000 safe, educator-reviewed digital resources that are aligned to standards and span the entire K-12 curriculum. With Universal Design for Learning and a variety of unique features designed to support personalized instruction, netTrekker enables teachers to support every students’ individual needs and help them succeed. The new version of the search tool, now named “netTrekker Search,” features a sleeker, user-defined interface. Separate interfaces for teachers and students, and a series of customization options, enable users to personalize their home pages and search results based on their unique needs and preferences. In addition, new search features, such as sorting by key education factors and shortcuts to refine search results, streamline the search process to help users find appropriate, relevant content quickly.

In a recent survey of netTrekker customers, a majority of respondents cited the ease of use, impact on learning, and quality and depth of content as the primary criteria for selecting services to engage students and personalize learning. The features most frequently described as the highest value by educators were the ability to search for and access standards-aligned content and multimedia resources, and the options to easily sort and refine results. “We asked educators what they need to help each student succeed,” said Randy Wilhelm, CEO of netTrekker. ”In keeping with our commitment to support educators in personalizing learning for every student, we’ve responded to our customers and developed new products and features that make it faster and easier to find the appropriate resources and tools that connect with students’ individual needs and inspire learning.”

“netTrekker continues to be one of our most important resources during these difficult economic times,” said Jill Hobson, director of instructional technology for Forsyth County Schools in Cumming, Ga. “The value provided by the extensive standards-aligned resources in netTrekker is tremendous. It’s a cost-savings measure for the school district to invest in the digital content available through netTrekker rather than in traditional print-based resources. And, we get so much more. netTrekker provides us with resources to support a variety of struggling learners through differentiated resources, read-aloud tools, resources for English Language Learners, and more.”

Professional development support is critical for teachers to incorporate technology into the classroom and personalize instruction effectively. With the additional features available in netTrekker Search, educators can collaborate with peers across the United States and around the world to discover new ways to engage students and improve learning. Teachers and students can vote on resources by indicating whether they like or dislike a resource, and sort their search results to find resources recommended most by their peers.

From the My Community area on the home page, educators can now easily connect with other educators to share integration tips, teaching best practices, and other topics of interest in netTrekker Village, the company’s online learning community. For example, while searching for science activities for her fifth-grade students, an educator identifies a virtual lab resource she’d like to use in her classroom, but wants to know how other educators have incorporated it into a lesson. The educator can simply post a question in the netTrekker Village community forums, or search previous discussions, to get feedback from her professional learning network. netTrekker also offers professional development and training opportunities through on-site workshops, webinars and online courses.

Based on educator feedback, the company is planning to roll out additional products in the 2010-11 school year that will combine its enhanced search tool with unique digital media assets and new student and teacher productivity tools that promote project-based, collaborative learning.

netTrekker Search will be available in August 2010. Current customers will be upgraded automatically for free.

More Information

To learn more about netTrekker Search, visit www.netTrekker.com.

About netTrekker

netTrekker is a leader in the delivery of digital K-12 educational content. The company is dedicated to enhancing the education of today’s youth with highly effective technologies that deliver the rich educational value of the Internet to every child in a safe, relevant, easy-to-use format. netTrekker is the leading educational search tool and was first to market with a standards-based solution utilizing the services of Academic Benchmarks (www.AcademicBenchmarks.com), the premier provider of comprehensive standards-based K-12 educational databases, alignment tools, and integration products. Peers, educators and parents have honored netTrekker more than 25 times for its contribution to education. Founded in 1999 by Robert Reinders, the company serves millions of students and thousands of schools around the world. For more information, visit www.netTrekker.com or phone 877-517-1125.

Contacts

netTrekker
Laura Hannah
Marketing Manager
513-731-4090
lhannah at netTrekker dot com
www.netTrekker.com

C. Blohm & Associates, Inc.
Kristen Plemon
608-839-9805
kristen at cblohm dot com
www.cblohm.com

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