There are a lot of teachers who remember how sharing dominated the internet before teacherspayteachers became the way teachers share their work, resources, and lesson plans online. Some of these teachers still want to share with other teachers. They care less about somebody making laminating copies of their work. These days, there are a few teachers who do not jump on the bandwagon of selling online. They still maintain their blogs and websites where they share what works for their classroom free of charge. They share their lesson ideas, favorite links to websites and more. They continue to post their presentation for free. They care more about helping fellow teachers free of charge. They state that they are not in it to make a few bucks. By giving for free, they do not force their fellow resourceless and inner-city teachers to make copies because they cannot afford to continue buying resources.
Teachers do pay teachers because they continue to care about creating great content which they give for free. They feel that the internet remains one of the best tools that can address children as well as adults in a better way. No wonder that MOOC or Massive Open Online Courses, Massachusetts Institute of Technolgy or MIT OpenCourseWare or OCW, Coursera, FutureLearn, MTx educators offering great materials are creating a new educational education. Without these free materials, people who would not have had access to great textbooks start sharing how this revolution has changed their lives. For sure, famous university professors are giving their materials to the rest of the world for free. Materials covering health, business, math, engineering, science, marketing, advertising, computing, Internet etc are offered for free online. Teachers have shown the importance of the freemium-based educational system that breaks down the past walls.
The birth of the Freemium Economy: Teachers Who Give Far too much of their Time, Materials, and Money
Teachers are the best entrepreneurs in the world. And the rest of the world has known this for a long time
TeacherspayTeachers, Teacher-authors or TPT sellers do give freely. They just do not give all their work away for free. Even MOOC, Coursera, MIT OCW and others want to make some money in the future. Actually, they get some income. It may not be much, but thanks to donors and the sales of textbooks or ebooks at a markup, they have been able to keep the educators who are teaching these classes freely or giving their materials for free. What many teachers including Deanna Jump have realized is that the Internet is a good place to try new things. They have realized that the Internet is a good place to practice or engage in the “freemium economy.” They are not going to be poor if they share some of their works, resources, materials for free. If anything, they will build an audience who will get used to these materials. Needless to say that many TeacherspayTeachers authors are entrepreneurs who create and invest a lot of their own time in their own small business. We have read the stories of teachers who were fired or lost their job during the hard times of the economy, but thanks to the Internet they’ve been able to create and sell their books or ebooks. By doing so, they help not only homeschooling parents but also classroom teachers who have to develop attention-seeking lesson plans. Furthermore, teachers from kindergarten to high schools are able to share. Now remember that the majority of these teachers are females. In most cases, they are single parents. Selling their materials online either at Nookpress.com, Kdp.amazon.com as in Kindle Direct Publishing, Smashwords.com, YouTube.com, Scribd.com and on various blogspot blogs has become a life-saving grace for many teachers. A few great creators have been able to solve their problems by replacing their broken vehicle, paying medical debt, surviving divorces, buying a home for their kids, and paying for their children’s education. Many of these teacher-writers/authors give half of the resources they spent hours on freely. They only ask those who want to purchase them to pay a small amount to keep them going.
Thanks to the Internet, TPT or TeacherspayTeachers, KDP, NookPress, and many other sites, teachers have become entrepreneurs who are proud of talking about their small business. Creating materials is not an easy work. Usually, teacher-authors spend time away from other activities to create. They go through the same pain that most writers go through. They constantly update their files in contrast to the regular publishers who use the traditional publishing platform. By updating their resources, they add more materials in the original version. That’s a way to give away freely. With the launching of common core materials, teachers are called to create additional resources and standards for their grade. It is great for them to find a place where they can find much needed resources for their classroom. If some teachers want to create cute materials, it is their idea, but what counts is the content itself. What’s wrong with cute materials to be used in a cute classroom as long as the teachers do not go overboard. I have visited many classrooms all over the state and world. Teachers who have a cute classroom know they are going to spend more than 10 hours a day, five days a week during the school year. For sure, they want to be in a nice room. They pay attention to the décor according to the season. Their students benefit from this kind of environment too.
Teacher-authors are using all the social media and other resources these days. They will tell you that is their way to reach out to their students.
Posted Guest Teacher-Author on TeachersdopayTeachers.blogspot.com
