Category: Business

I’ve noticed that the same people subscribe to both my weekly newsletter on Tech Tips and Websites. That means they get two emails a week in their email box from me, in what is probably already a cluttered, overcrowded bit of virtual real estate. That inspired me to make a change.

I’m going to merge the two lists and send one email a week that includes both a Weekly Tech Tip and a Weekly Website. No need to resubscribe though you may get a notification that you’ve been added to a list that will sound something like “Weekly Tech Tips and Websites”.  Here’s the new link:

I’ll still have a separate newsletter for resource announcements. Here’s that link:

Here’s to a wonderful, busy, productive, fulfilling new year!

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, CSG Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and a weekly contributor to TeachHUB. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

For those of you who are trying to visit my resource site, StructuredLearning.net, it’s down. I’ve talked with Go Daddy, addressed their issues. Money’s there, bank’s on my side, fault is somewhere besides me, everything’s straightened out, and still it may take them 24 hours to re-activate my site. F****.   It’s not just me; it’s my entire group of cooperative teacher publishers. F** F***.

I’ve explained that, and they explained I’m in the queue.

Until then, feel free to visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store for your tech ed needs. I apologize for the technical difficulties. Sigh.

Just a quick shout out for anyone looking for an easy and affordable way to try videoconferencing. The folks over at EZTalks  are having an Easter special. You can find out more about it here.

Ask a Tech Teacher is a small group of tech-ed teachers with a big goal: provide free and affordable resources to anyone, anywhere that integrate technology into education. It’s an ambitious goal and we rely on donations from readers like you to make that happen.

About this time of each year, when several of our larger bills come due, we give a shout out for help. This year, we thought we’d share some of the costs of running Ask a Tech Teacher:

• Site hosting–we use WPEngine–an excellent company that keeps the site up and running over 99% of the time.
• Domain name hosting--for that, we use GoDaddy. They always take my calls, walk us through how to fix problems in terms we understand. we’re teachers, not network geeks, but they don’t hold that against us.
• Legal images–to avoid problems with illegal images, we buy ours through a service called Kozzi. They have a wonderful, vast collection of all sorts of tech and education pictures.
• Constant and chronic techie problems–such as IPNs and plug-in updates and so much more. Again, we’re teachers. This double geek stuff makes our heads hurt.
• The geeky tools and programs that deliver content–like the apps we review and the programs we use for webinars.

We could sell ads, but we don’t want to clutter the pages. That’s distracting as you search out resources for your classroom. We rely on donations. Any amount you can contribute–$5… $10… using the PayPal Donate button below or in the sidebar, would be appreciated.

Here’s the one-time donation button, or you can find it in the sidebar:

Here’s the button for a monthly donation–the price of a cup of coffee and a donut:

BTW, we’re always open to sponsors, too. We love sponsors!  If you’re an edtech company interested in helping spread Ask a Tech Teacher resources to everyone, contact us at [email protected]. We can add you to the sidebar, review your product, or another sponsor sort of activity.

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1.6 million teachers buy from Teachers Pay Teachers. Over 90,000,000 people visit the website monthly. If you’re a teacher, why wouldn’t you set up a free seller account (they take a percent of revenue, like Amazon does) and see if all those brainy ed ideas caroming through your brilliant brain will fund your weekly Starbucks bill (or in the case of Deanna Jumper and a growing group of teachers like her, bring in over $1 million dollars to pay a lot more than bills)?

I have a TpT store (Ask a Tech Teacher) so decided to attend the first-ever premium seller’s conference on how to TpT better, smarter, more effectively, while having more fun. I went with a girlfriend–a fellow teacher. Together we made the desert drive from Orange County, California to Las Vegas Nevada, prepared to learn how to make our online stores the best they could be. From beginning to end, every seminar I attended was packed:

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I have to pause a moment to thank all of you for that amazing number. Who would have thought three-and-a-half years ago when I started Ask a Tech Teacher, I’d reach 1,000,000 hits. Now I’m over 1.6. Wow.

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Woah. This is cool.

But what is the Fascination Award? Here’s what they say:

In order to be fascinating, content can’t just be useful, valuable, entertaining, educational, or interesting. These are all great traits to have but fascinating content is a mixture of these things and much more.

Fascinating content is best quantified by the physical and emotional reaction that it instills in its audience rather than particular traits of the content. Put simply, fascinating content:

• Inspires its audience.
• Creates conversation around the topic.
• Creates a strong emotional reaction (positive or negative)
• Gets shared both online and off.
• Contain genuinely fascinating content
• • Voting Starts: June 04, 2012 (12:01 EST)
  • Voting ends, 1^st place winner is chosen: June 11, 2012 (11:59 PM EST)

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