TeachAde currently offers four TeachAde/NEA MB Groups:

21st Century Skills
Do you have a focused 21st Century Skills curriculum? Is it vital for students to learn these skills in school? Our online community of teaching professionals debate whether schools should teach 21st century skills or stick to a core curriculum.

Budgeting Your Money
Recently we’ve all learned the importance of tracking where our money goes. Discover ways your peers have succeeded in budgeting their money. Coming soon … our exclusive Blog with NEA MB’s Certified Financial Advisor with regular updates on ways to save more of your hard-earned money.

Elementary Online Resources
Calling all elementary school teachers! Join this Group to share lessons and activities, as well as tips and tricks to get the most from your students.

National Board Certification
This community group is dedicated to helping teachers decide whether or not to pursue their National Board Certification, with resources on the merits of Certification as well as everything you need to know before you start the process.

TeachAde will be integrated into the newly revamped NEA MB Web site to help members connect with each other, share best practices, and access invaluable resources with a click of the mouse. The collaboration is part of the Web site’s intentional focus on the most important subjects to members: Money, Everyday Living, Health and Wellness, Professional Resources and Travel and Leisure.

“Our goal is to partner with the best programs and services to engage and support our members,” said Mark Stevens, vice president of Professional & Web Solutions, NEA Member Benefits. “Partnering with TeachAde will help educators connect with one another on a personal and immediate level about important topical issues such as National Board Certification, 21st-century skills and curriculum and instruction. TeachAde provides our members with a means to easily share their expertise, resources and tools with colleagues across the county.”

TeachAde, which currently has over 17,000 educator participants, enables educators to collaborate within grades and subjects and across schools, districts and states. For example, through TeachAde, the best math teacher in California is able to connect with and help a new math teacher in central Ohio. Once a teacher specifies their subject/grade, TeachAde’s robust database regularly sends useful and customized teacher-created resources directly to the educator. The NEA MB-TeachAde partnership provides NEA members access to a vast database of proven resources overnight and will ensure courses remain rigorous and engaging.

“As a special education teacher, I have found TeachAde to be an invaluable support tool, allowing me to reach out to other teachers in my school district as well as communicating with my students’ parents to keep them updated on their child’s progress,” said Donna Meyerhoeffer, special education teacher at Staunton River High School in Moneta, VA.

“Because each feature was designed and tested by educators, TeachAde’s interface is easy to use and intuitive,” said Michael Pearce, founding partner of TeachAde. “Collaborating with NEA MB allows us to go further to reach greater numbers of educators, which will increase the services to existing and future TeachAde members and demonstrates our commitment to improving teaching and learning.”

NEA members can access TeachAde through the new NEA MB Web site.

There are tons of benefits for both teachers and students in tutoring arrangements.  As a teacher, you can keep sharp on your teaching techniques, try out new ones, and stay up-to-date in your subject area.  You might have found that after summer break, you feel a little rusty in the classroom – summer tutoring can be a great way to stay current and avoid this.

Helping a student who finds a particular topic elusive can be an emotionally rewarding experience in itself; and tutoring also provides the opportunity to earn extra money to put towards your well-deserved vacation or further education costs.  Cash-flow can be a problem during the summer months for teachers, so tutoring is a great way to ensure you can keep paying the bills – and you’ll gain valuable experience while doing it.

Tutoring provides you with the flexibility to determine your own schedule, the amount of hours you wish to work, and where you work.  If you love to travel and are adventurous, teaching English as a second language in a foreign country can be a unique experience.  Or, stay at home and work with local kids to contribute to your community and prepare them for the upcoming fall semester (and enjoy the short commute!).  Working with parents as clients can also be a satisfying experience as you get to know more about the community and the kids you teach during the normal school year.  Many students who receive tutoring in addition to regular class time during the school year build lasting relationships with their teachers and often credit them as having a hand in their future successes.

Working over the summer as a tutor has the added benefit of allowing you to deviate from your typical subject area:  maybe you teach English during the normal school year, but you have a hidden passion for math that you miss utilizing.  Tutoring at a basic level can give you the chance to exercise some of those neglected muscles.  Teachers are also in demand for adults and children for whom English is a second language. This chance to experience variety and make an important difference in someone’s life can be greatly appealing.

To re-cap, teachers who tutor enjoy the following perks:

• Increased cash-flow/compensation for lost pay during summer months;
• Rewarding relationship with students and parents;
• Opportunity to set your own hours, work from home, work locally or even travel abroad;
• Chance to try new things; keep your skills focused, and work in areas you might otherwise not have the chance to during the school year.

Visit Tutor Match to build a tutor profile and register to be linked with a student who needs your expertise this summer.

So what is Environmental Education Week?

The goal of Environmental Education Week is to increase the number of environmental education hours that K-12th grade students receive in both formal and non-formal educational settings.  In 2008, over 1,850 schools and non-formal educational institutions across the country organized Environmental Education Week events.  Collectively these organizations served millions of students with environmentally-themed lessons and activities that positively impacted the environment and encouraged environmental stewardship among young people.

TutorMatch is proud to be a sponsor and partner of EE Week.  Why not help us out?  There’s a number of ways you can take action during EE Week:

Join with NEEF, EPA and other teens to do your part for climate change and children’s health.

Do you know a teacher who stands out among the rest? Someone who takes their passion for the environment and brings it into the classroom, inspiring students to learn and engage in environmental issues? Consider nominating the outstanding teacher for a Richard C. Bartlett Award. 

Be part of the nation’s largest single day for improving and enhancing the public lands we enjoy through our National Public Lands Day home page.

I felt it was such a valuable site that I sent the owner, Linda, a few questions to answer about the site so you could get a better idea about what GrammarNOW.com is all about:

Please tell our audience a little about what GrammarNOW.com is all about:

GrammarNOW! is a site dedicated to offering resources that help with grammar and writing. I offer a Q&A Club that answers individual grammar or writing questions, a Tip of the Week by email, an editing service, and a wide variety of resources for all kinds of writers: students of all levels, teachers, business professionals, fiction and nonfiction writers, and many others, including those who are just curious or have a nagging grammar question. In addition, there are links to language discussions (e.g. jargon), and software or other products I have researched and think will be helpful to my visitors.

When did you start GrammarNOW.com and why?

I began the site in 1998 because I saw a need to help people with grammar. I originally just offered free answers to questions, but eventually I had to begin the Q&A Club because the demand became overwhelming. The site has evolved over the years to offer the many resources that it does today.
 
Please tell us a little about yourself, and your background:

I taught English at the high school, junior college, and mostly university level for 25 years, primarily composition and literature. After that, I began freelance copy editing, which I still do, and enjoy very much. I have clients from around the world and get to read a wide variety of materials. My resume is online at http://grammarnow.com/resume/. (I also have a web design and development business that began about the same time as the grammar site. When I started teaching writing students to create simple web pages for their personal or collaborative writing projects—this was in the early days of creating web pages for all of us – I learned html myself and, well, things just took off after that in unexpected ways.)

What kinds of service does grammarnow.com offer for students and/or teachers?

Aside from the Q&A Club, which offers immediate replies to individual grammar and composition questions, both students and teachers will find very helpful relevant links in my Resources list and in the software offered on the site. I am very selective when choosing resources, trying to make sure that they are useful for my visitors. Just to reassure teachers, my copy editing service is not available for students who are graded on composition or for essay writing classes. It is only available for upper-level students in fields other than English or for graduate students.

How often do you update the site, and where do you get new content and ideas from?

I update it whenever new content becomes available. People write to me asking to be included in my resource list or to advertise on the site. I analyze my stats in detail so I know where my visitors are coming from and what they’re looking for. So when someone new requests inclusion on the site, I research them and consider whether they’ll add value to the site, and then add them if so. Otherwise, I may update my resume or testimonials. Just this week, I added a new resource (yours!) and a new advertiser to the site to provide more value for visitors. I am always updating the Tip of the Week. Sometimes I consider redesigning the site, and have done so once, but who has time?

Are you planning any new additions or features to the site?  What’s next for grammarnow.com?

The next big step is my searchable CD of grammarNOW! Tips. Right now, visitors can sign up for a free weekly grammar Tip of the Week by email. I am working toward putting about 200 of them on a CD that can be searchable by word or phrase. Anyone who is signed up for the Tip of the Week will receive a notice when the CD is ready for purchase.

Q. Please tell our audience a little about what TeachersServant.com is all about:

Teacher’s Servant is a web-based service for self-employed teachers and tutors. The luxury of being your own boss requires the burden of wearing many hats.  Not only are you the tutor but also the accountant, scheduler, marketer, and sales representative. Teacher’s servant steps right there and minimizes managing overhead of tutoring. Teacher’s Servant provides easy student, class, schedule, payment and expense management services. We offer a free plan, so teachers and tutors could start using Teacher’s Servant without any commitments and expenses right away. Our integrated schedule gives an ability to have personalized schedule linked to student and classes. On top of the “typical” scheduling capabilities Teacher’s Servant helps keep track on attendance, payments and expenses. Teacher’s Servant also gently “reminds” with notes from the previous lessons and helps stay organized with integrated To-Dos. Reach reporting functionality gives teachers and tutors instant outlook on any data that they might need – from simple invoice for a student to a complete “Income vs. Expense” report that would minimize tax preparation or just help analyze financial performance.

Q. When did you start TeachersServant.com, and why?

The idea of the service belongs to my wife Marina, who is a private music teacher. She was overwhelmed with papers, spreadsheets and calendars and was looking for a simple to use integrated solution to manage her teaching data. After extensive marketing research we’ve discovered that this need is really unaddressed despite substantial interest from the tutoring and teaching community. So, we’ve decided to fill this niche and in August 2008 Teacher’s Servant was launch.    

Q. Please tell us a little about yourself, and your background:

I have more than 15 years of experience in IT industry where I worked as a developer, architect and for the last 10 years as a project manager delivering customized solutions to my clients. Recently, I have established my own company – ZoomOnTime, Inc. The first product ZoomOnTime launched was a web-based timesheet solution for small and medium size businesses. ZoomOnTime also provides time management consulting.

Q. What kinds of service does TeachersServant.com offer for students and/or teachers?

Teacher’s Servant is oriented for teachers and tutors. We currently don’t provide direct services for students (however, they could receive automated lesson reminder from tutor’s calendar).

Q. How often do you update the site, and where do you get new content and ideas from?

Being relatively new service, we have new releases quite often (usually once or twice a month). Teacher’s Servant is customer oriented service, so majority of ideas are coming from our customers – teachers and tutors. We receive direct request/ideas from our users and also periodically reach out them soliciting feedback. Also we are actively working with local tutors and teachers in one-on-one and interest group set-ups to better understand their needs and challenges.

Q. Are you planning any new additions or features to the site?  What’s next for TeachersServant.com?

We have a number of minor additional features in our pipe-line that are scheduled for roll-out in the next 4 months. Among them are email reminders for To-Dos, reminder integration with SMS, automatic student invoicing and a number of reports. For mid-term future we are considering to provide our users with personalized web-pages, student collaboration services and lesson plans integration. We a looking for our teachers and tutors to help us prioritize these additional features so we can deliver what is mostly needed first.