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Tags: | ads, advertising, banner, blog, dembo, teach42
Your thoughts on advertising
I’ve been approached by a company that wants to advertise on Teach42. It’d be a pretty decently sized banner ad that would stay in the sidebar. Dont’ know how much it would generate, but there’s only one way to find out. So here’s what I’m thinking:
1) I display the ad, and donate the revenue that it generates from the first year to an education charity of some sort. I’m sure Beth Kanter can recommend a few 
2) I display the ad and donate the revenue that it generates from a specific period of time back to the audience. For example, maybe give away a few Flickr Pro accounts, or podcasting equipment or something along those lines. Basically, give it back to the people that are generating it.
3) I keep the darn thing off the blog.
What do you think? Cast your vote!
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Tags: | blogs, dembo, efl geek, language, lexophiles, oedb, scott mcleod, teach42, top 100
Number 8 in the Top Language Blogs? Seriously?
When I was first notified that Teach42 was one of the Top 100 Education Blogs, I have to admit I got kind of excited. That was until I followed the link back and discovered that the site giving me the ‘award’ basically had no content at all. It seemed little more than a cheap ploy to get some press. If it was, it worked. Many people linked into it at the time and still proudly display the badge. More power to them. It isn’t necessarily a bad list, I just questioned it’s credibility at the time. Since then, the site has definitely filled out quite a bit more, but I’d still be curious to know what their standards were and how they came up with the list. It’s why being in Scott Mcleod’s top 50 list is more meaningful to me. He clearly states how he came up with the list and shares his data with the world.
So this morning, when I checked my email, I got a message that I assumed had to be spam. The subject was “You ranked #8 in out top 100 language blogs list!” Yes, I too found it ironic that the subject line announcing that I was a top language blog had a typo in it. But that’s besides the point. Or is it?
Like I said, I assumed that it had to be spam. It wasn’t. I followed the link over to Lexiophiles.com, and checked out their Top 100 Language blogs page. Lo and behold, there I was:
At first I assumed that this was just a publicity stunt per se, and that they must have just done some keywords searches and put them in some random order. However, they do have a page explaining how they picked the sites, what their criteria was and how they judged them. Not only that, but they claim that they sifted it down from a larger list, and even have a link containing all the blogs that didn’t quite make the list. And beyond even THAT, they’ve created a poll where you can vote for your own favorites, so if they got it wrong, the community can help correct the problem (of course I threw in a vote for Teach42 while I was there).
So what does all this mean? Well, it certainly wasn’t all automated. This took some serious time by at least a few people. Looking through the site does reflect that time and effort was spent creating it. It’s NOT spam. And while they are sponsored by Bab.La, there’s just one small add on the page. Pretty subtle if they’re really behind it. Although, their image WAS attached to the email I received. Despite all this, there’s still just one thing that doesn’t quite add up…
How the heck did somebody review Teach42 and decide that it was the 8th best LANGUAGE blog on the internet??? I don’t even talk about language much, besides mentioning a few tools that could be used by ESL teachers! I’m completely boggled by this one. There are some great sites on there that I recognize that actually focus on language, and ESL learning and so on. Mine doesn’t. So to put Teach42 ahead of blogs like EFL Geek is just crazy! They deserve to be on the list. I can’t for the life of me figure out why I’m there.
I guess the lesson in this is once again that we always need to be looking at our sources and questioning them. Who’s the expert? What are their credentials? What are the ulterior motives if any? And after evaluating it all, does it feel right to you? The internet is a slippery place to hang out.
The funny thing is that I’ll probably get taken off the list for spouting off like this. And that would make me feel sad, melancholy, sorrowful, doleful, woebegone, and desolate. Think that amazing use of language will keep me on there?
Oh, and if you’re from Lexophiles and reading this right now, welcome! Love your site! And I’d love to hear what the real story is.
Related Reading on Teach42
Pogue shared a letter that’s got me all riled up again…
I’m a high school teacher. Like all high schools, we are dealing with a problem that sucks time, energy, and resources like a black hole: cellphones. We waged a similar battle a few years back with iPods, and although stakes seem much higher now, the fundamental argument is the same. The argument is:
1] cellphones are a distraction
2] cellphones present a potential liability in terms of cheating on tests
3] cellphones are a distraction
…
So I’m asking for some insight on how to sell this to an administration that is overwhelmed with a hundred more important things, and to a school board that feels that two $500 computers are twice as good as one $1,000 machine. What’s the answer?
I’m so fed up with these arguments. Paper clips are a distraction. Spiral notebooks are a distraction. And as we’ve seen recently, students certainly do NOT need a cell phone to cheat on an exam.
So off the top of my head, I decided to rattle off a few things that cell phones could be good for.
Such as…
1) Check the spelling/definition of a word
2) Research a topic
3) Look up reference images
4) Pull up maps (even with satellite imagery)
5) Document a science lab with built in digital camera/video
6) Fact check on the fly
7) Mail questions to the teacher that they might be embarrassed to ask
Classroom response system
9) Take quizzes
10) Record and/or listen to podcasts
And that’s off the top of my head, spur of the moment. Give me some time and I’m sure we can come up with a much more comprehensive list.
So let’s stop exerting so much energy trying to ‘bust’ students for carrying the same devices the rest of us carry. Rather, let’s start focusing on how we can use them to improve education in the classroom. You know, prepare them for the world and such…
Related Reading on Teach42
I’ve used TinyURL off and on over the years, but my usage of it really started skyrocketing when Twitter came on to the scene. When you’re limited to 140 characters, every single character is incredibly valuable! Shortening a URL down by even just a couple characters can really give you some breathing room.
For those of you that don’t know, TinyURL let’s you plugin in a really long URL and it’ll give you a teeny tiny shortcut to it. For example, if I wanted to tell my parents where to find photos of Aiden, I could tell him to go to http://flickr.com/photos/teach42/tags/aiden/ That’s a pretty long URL though. By using TinyURL, I can shorten that to http://tinyurl.com/2pbnyn It may not be pretty, but it’s MUCH easier to share with someone. And this can be particularly valuable when you’re trying to share a link to something like a Google Map of Wrigley Field:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q
=wrigley+field,+chicago,+il&ie=UTF8&ll=41.94812,-87.65532&spn=0.002055,0
.005879&t=h&z=18&om=1
Trouble is, many schools block TinyURL. Some are worried about people not being able to see what’s behind that URL until they click on it. Others consider it a method to get around filters (although that one has always boggled me a bit). And let’s face it, TinyURL is just so bland… Wouldn’t it be nice of there was a sleeker, shinier, more Edu-friendly way to shorten your URLs?
Well, just in time for the holidays I’ve got a little present for you! The Teach42 Magic URL Shrinker! Wouldn’t you rather have Teach42.com/go as a shortened URL than TinyURL? I know I would!
Some of you may be thinking… “But Steve, isn’t Teach42.com/go a few characters more than TinyURL.com? Well yes, but TinyURL adds 6 more characters to give you a unique URL. Mine will only add on 1 or 2 characters. So for the first 3800 URLs people shrink, it will be as small or smaller than TinyURL. So I think we’re in good shape for a while!
Oh yeah, and the Teach42 Magic URL Shrinker comes in two different flavors. The first flavor is the traditional, quick method. Plug in a URL, it gives you the Teach42 shrunken version of it. The other version has a few safety features for people who are concerned about security. When someone clicks on the URL, it doesn’t take them directly to the destination. Instead, it takes to an intermediary page that gives people a warning and let’s them see what the destination URL is before they decide whether or not to click on it. Same short URL, but a little more edu-friendly for the security conscious among us. Both flavors are full of Teach42 karma though.
I didn’t write the code for this. Full credit for that goes to TopHat Stuff Go! It was very easy to install and not too difficult to tweak to my needs. If you’d prefer to have your own URL shortener, feel free to download the code and install it yourself! Otherwise, go ahead and take advantage of the Teach42 Magic URL Shrinker. It’s there at your disposal. Oh, and for those of you worried about how long it’s going to be available, I’ll make sure that it’s up and active as long as Teach42 is around. And trust me when I say i’m not going anywhere
Related Reading on Teach42
It’s been a little while since I’ve gone through a lot of the feeds in my aggregator, but while doing some reading today one blog really stood out to me. Ben, over at Tech Savvy Educator, does a fantastic job of highlighting some very practical ideas for integrating technology into education, and also demonstrating ways that he has already done so. A few of the things that I learned about from spending about ten minutes on the blog were Tony Fraction’s Pizza Game, Comic Creator, and a fantastic project that he did about Ancient Egypt.
I started this blog entry yesterday, and in between starting it and finishing it, turns out I wasn’t the only one who was noticing just how exceptional this blog is. Turns out he was chosen as RedOrbit’s site of the day! So congrats to Ben, and if you aren’t familiar with his site yet, check it out. Definitely worth a visit.
Technorati Tags: education, techsavvyed, technology, blog, science, dembo
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Under construction
Just to warn ya’all, I’m in the midst of upgrading to Wordpress 2.0 and getting a new theme set up (one that actually works in all browsers correctly). So the site will probably be up and down over the next few days.
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DEN vs. Teach42
I got an email the other day asking me how I’m deciding what should go up on the national Discovery Educator Network blog and what goes on Teach42.com. Umm… I’m not really sure just yet. I’m still trying to figure out just where that line is going to be drawn, and at least for the short term I’m straddling it quite nicely. I don’t really want to get into the habit of cross posting, because I find that sort of irritates me (not to mention it creates instances where there are multiple comment threads about the same post that should really be one conversation).
The reason I bring it up right now is that I just posted this massive article (well, massive for me) about the potential for students to use Wikipedia to cheat and was debating with myself whether to post it here as well. Obviously I’ve decided not to.
Anyway, the point is, if you enjoy the stuff I write you should keep an eye on that blog as well. Scott Kinney, Hall Davidson and Betsy Whalen are also exercising their blogging skills over there, so it’s pretty active. Once I figure out exactly where that line between the DEN blog and here is drawn, I’ll be sure to let you know. And if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them!
Related Reading on Teach42
Spam Karma for Wordpress does a pretty darn decent job of filtering everything. In fact, it’s caught about 700 spam comments in the last two weeks, without even bringing it to my attention. Occasionally, a comment is held in a queue because it isn’t sure if it’s spam or not. I got one such comment today and actually got a chuckle from it.
Nice. Very nice.
But I like your guestbook the most.
Unfortunately there’s too much spam in it.
I may not have the guestbook, but I like the idea of a spammer complaining about there being too much spam.
Hey, it made me smile as I deleted it. If you’re going to be a splogger, at least have some fun with it I guess. Or don’t do it at all. That’d be even better.
Related Reading on Teach42
I don’t post too much about my personal life on this blog, but this I gotta share. My sister has gotten engaged! Her fiance, Andy, should definitely feel privileged because she has incredibly high standards in everything that she does. From food, to clothes, to theater, and apparently in husbands, she knows how to find the best. I couldn’t be more happy for the two of them!
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Video Wishlist
There’s a great little conversation going on about what sorts of things you’d include on a Video Wish List!. Hall listed some of his gear of choice, and several other people have chimed in with their own contributions.
From my days as a tech director, we found ourselves sort of reinventing the wheel, trying to figure out what we needed and where we should be ordering it from. We spent a ton of time trying to find the right equipment and often started off going about things the wrong way. This list would have been a huge resource to us.
Check it out and add a few of your own suggestions if you notice anything missing.
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