This week, I’ll post updated suggestions to get your computers and technology ready for the blitz of projects you’ll accomplish in the New Year. Here’s what you’ll get (links won’t be active until the post goes live):
- 12 Ways to Update Your Online Presence— December 11th (today)
- 8+ Ways to a Speedier Computer — December 12th
- Backup and Image your computer — December 13th
Regular readers of Ask a Tech Teacher know these are updated each December. New readers: Consider these body armor in the tech battle so you can jubilantly overcome rather than dramatically succumb. If you also read WordDreams, these are also posted there with some adaptations to writers.
Today: 12 Ways to Update Your Online Presence
For most teachers I know, life zooms by, filled with students, parents, meetings, grades, reports, reviews, and thinking. There are few breaks to update/fix/maintain the tech tools that allow us to pursue our trade.
That includes our online presence. But, if they aren’t updated, we are left wondering why our blog doesn’t attract visitors, why our social media Tweeple don’t generate activity, and why we aren’t being contacted for networking. Here’s a short list of items that won’t take long to accomplish. The ones you read last year, consider a reminder!
- Update your online profile–on your blog, your gravatar, FB, X/Twitter, professional groups, your PLN. Have you changed focus? Switched jobs? Adding new publications or items efriends would like to know about? Is your contact information current? This, btw, should be done once a quarter, but at least at the new year.
- Clean up your social media stream–delete pictures and comments you no longer find as funny as when you first posted them or make them private. If you have active social media, employers will check it out. Make sure it represents you.
- Publish content constantly. This will make your page look fresh and current, a must.
- Add copyright protections. A note in the sidebar or attached to each post or both (see mine). Readers erroneously think if there’s not a copyright claim, it isn’t. They’re wrong, but make it clear.
- Use images and videos. Surveys are unanimous: Pictures and videos draw in readers. This is especially true with new potential readers who don’t know you so don’t want to spend more time than necessary on your post.
- Update old blog posts–start with the most-visited and work your way down (in case you run out of time). Update links and references that are out of date. Consider freshening images or banners.
- Check individual post tags and categories–reorganize options so they authentically group your writing.
- Check the sidebar–for out-of-date and no-longer-relevant widgets and links. Include new pieces that add utility. Move pieces around to give an updated look. Current thinking is ‘less is more’. Consider putting awards, PLN groups, and memberships on separate pages noted in the menu bar.
- Check your ‘pages‘–are they still relevant? Could some be nested under other pages to save room and/or make them easier to find? While you’re at it, be sure less-visited pages are up to date.
- Check the appearance of your blog on a smartphone and iPad. Does it display properly? If not, consider switching to a responsive theme that auto-adjusts for a variety of digital devices.
- Unsubscribe from lists you no longer have an interest in.
- Update venues where you sell books (if you’re a teacher-author) like your Amazon Author page, Teachers Pay Teachers, BarnesandNoble.com, Google Play, and others–prices, descriptions, categories, freebies. I need to do this more often.
Finished? Have some eggnog. Any suggestions I missed?
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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, 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.
