The following video discusses the features of two iPad mounts that I have used with my students in the classroom.  

Most trainers and coaches find it hard to combine their super busy schedule with customer acquisition. They always tell me how, towards the end of a job, they start worrying about getting their next assignment. So, on top of delivering a training session, they now start making phone calls and send out emails to follow up on leads. Too many things to do at once. How can you fix this problem? It’s not necessarily a problem that acquisition takes time. Marketing always takes time. But it would be nice if you had more options on when to spend that time, instead of frantically trying to make a few more phone calls during lunch hour. In this post I want to show you how you can employ online marketing to generate new business and free up your schedule a bit. Yes, I know, you’ve already got a website. But putting a website online is like hanging out your shingle. It’s just a statement that you’re in business. The shingle basically says: "We’re in business" You don’t just need a website, you also need a strategy for how to use that website in your online marketing efforts. Now, online marketing is not a magic bullet. It’s just a form reactive marketing, meaning that customers call you instead of you trying to reach out to them all the time. The question is: how do you get customers to contact you? Just ask them! Make it an actionable item on your website. In the remainder of this post, we’ll dive into getting traffic for your site, converting visitors into prospects, and converting prospects into customers who contact you. Getting Traffic Get your potential customers to talk about you. How? Well, first of all, don’t just try to sell them something, offer them valuable advice. Establish credibility as an expert first, and people will come to consider you an authority. Next time they’re dealing with a problem you’ve discussed before, they’ll call you for a solution. How do you reach that goal? By separating the expert part from the selling part. Let’s start with the expert part. There are several means you can employ to establish credibility as an expert: Create a mailing list: at a regular interval, send out nuggets of information, useful tips and hints. Deliver a presentation for a conference - you don’t even have to be super experienced to do this. People always like to hear a "lessons learned" story. And this creates an online presence too, because videotaped conference talks are almost always put online after a few days (e.g. on Youtube). Create a presence in social media (Facebook, LinkedIn). Tell little stories about how you helped out a company in your target market. Keep a blog and post free but valuable advice. But watch out: your blog is not the same as your commercial website. As a matter of fact, try to keep them separate. Write a book. This is the number one way to establish yourself as an actual expert. It provides instant credibility because your expert status has been validated by a publisher. In all instances mentioned above, it doesn’t hurt to drop your company’s name. Just don’t try to sell anything - that’s what your commercial website is for. The goal here is to establish yourself as an expert. If you also give away freebies, e.g. free but valuable advice, people will start referring you. This is when you start noticing new visitors on your commercial website. Who you will track using  a (free) tool like Google Analytics. By the way, your blog is also a place where you can measure results: Keep track of how many people visit your blog. See how many visitors sign up for your email list (because your blog is the place where you invite people to do just that: "Sign up for the mailing list and receive a fact sheet on common but easily avoidable mistakes people in your business make"). Measure how many people click through to your commercial website (but again, don’t push them, keep a clear separation between "selling" and "establishing authority"). To summarize, "getting traffic" starts by establishing credibility first. Selling comes much later. Converting Visitors into Prospects We have talked about two websites: your blog and your commercial website. Your blog is where you turn visitors into prospects. Once you have established your credibility as an expert, people are more receptive to your advice. Including advice on hiring you for training sessions. Now, let’s stress this point one more time: do not try to sell people anything on your blog (or in your email news letter). Instead, simply mention the options people have when it comes to solving a problem you happen to be an expert on. For instance, if you are an expert on crime prevention training for shops you may want to announce the dates for new training sessions on securing shops against shoplifting. Don’t do that. Instead, offer specific advice ("ask a friend or relative to visit the store, act suspiciously and find out how alert personnel are") and then mention that you also provide additional training on this topic. At that point, it’s okay to say something like: "Check out my website, yourwebsite.com, to find out more", in your newsletter. On your commercial website, make sure there’s a landing page specifically for the training you discussed. The internet address you printed in your newsletter should actually be a hyperlink pointing to that landing page. For instance, if your landing page for your shoplifting training is yoursite.com/training.html, then the code for the link in your email news letter should be: <a href="http://yoursite.com/training.html">yourwebsite.com</a> Once a visitor clicks this link, they are fully qualified prospects. In other words: they are now potential customers. Converting Prospects into Customers The next step is to convert your prospects into customers. To facilitate this, put a clear "call to action" on your commercial site. Following the example of the crime prevention trainer, you should include a mini form titled "Enroll into training" on your landing page. Collect only essential data: information you need to get back to the customer as soon as possible to actually subscribe them to the training session. At this point, you should use all means available to maintain a high level of trust. On the selling page include your: address phone number (preferably a land line) an email address containing your full name (e.g. john.adams@yoursite.nl) Also think about including your Chamber of Commerce registration number (if you’ve got one) and vat number (for Europeans). Getting Expert Help What if all of the above sounds too cumbersome? Then just hire experts who know all about this stuff. They will advice you on specific software for each part of the online marketing we just discussed. Here are a few tips about what tools you could use: WordPress for writing and publishing your blog MailChimp for managing your email newsletter Google Analytics for keeping track of your site’s visitors There are even agencies who specialize in dealing with all of the above for you. A final piece of advice on hiring experts: nobody knows your customers as well as you do. So make sure that the experts’ recommendations are applicable to your specific situation.

This is a recap of my observations and notes at a mathematics workshop in Pasadena, CA. This was by far the best math workshop/conference that I have ever attended. One of the primary reasons I felt this workshop was elite was the way it made me feel and act as a professional educator. The main catalyst of the presentations that I attended was Juli Dixon (@thestrokeofluck) who is a dynamic speaker and thought provoker. The information received mainly revolved around how to develop a strong math PLC at work. When team building sign-up for a duty that compliments your #passion Be aware of sellout stories when building strong learning communities. Stay away from phrases such as ‘nothing I can do,’ ‘it’s not my fault’ and ‘it’s all your fault.’ Here are what high leverage teams should be saying: What do we want students to know, how will we know they know it, how will we respond? Checking for understanding without meaningful feedback for the student is diagnostic not formative Students need to take action on feedback so there is growth and learning If you give homework, make it formative so students get feedback that goes beyond diagnosis Focus on strategies for struggling students in math. Fluency takes a back seat for the moment & will support all learning over time Model the mathematics by mathematizing the lesson. This means use math language Time to come back to the math practices and use them during instruction We have an understanding that word problems make math more difficult when in fact it makes it more believable & supportive To make sense of a student explanation and check for understanding, ask students "what did he/she say." If you dont hear what you need to hear in a discussion, guide the conversation w/ "I heard…" Even if you did not hear it from them at least the students have a buy in You have to ask students questions when students are right, not just when they are wrong Scaffold questions to students, don’t bail them out too quickly Create enough imbalance that a student gets back to equilibrium w/o turning the student off When creating math tasks, make sure that you keep common errors in mind to treat the misconception. During every math lesson choose only one or two math practices to focus on. Others will be there, but keep the focus! Dont teach students to use key words in math. Allow them to think abstractly & quantitatively In Summary, create high level cognitive demand questions balanced with lower level cognitive demand questions that grade level teams agree on. Introduce more word problems as tasks to teach math strategies. Finally, support place value, fact strategies, addition and subtraction with re-grouping and fractions as a basis for math fluency.

You are a professional trainer who has, over the years, delivered hundreds of training sessions about more or less the same topics. Maybe you are even renowned for one specific topic. In that case, you are probably always booked full. If you had a duplicate, you would have no trouble at all delivering twice as many training sessions. So, why not create that duplicate? Or rather, an automated version of your most successful training. No, using a computer to deliver your training does not create the same experience. Your personal presence and interaction with your trainees adds irreplaceable value. This is because during every training session, you know how to address the customer’s unique needs. But think about this: you know so much about your specialty, that even a training addressing the lowest  common denominator of all your customers’ needs is still very valuable. Let me put that in other words: you have been to so many customers, that you know which problems they all have in common. So, I am going to tell you that you should distill your experience in an online training. In this training, you address the problems all of your customers have experienced. After having completed the training, your customers’ employees will now operate in a level playing field. This will do two things for you: Create an independent source of income Increase demand for your expertise Wait, why would you need that last bullet point? You were already overbooked, right? Yes, but now you can refer your customers to your online training for their basic training needs. During your live training sessions you can focus on the unique needs that set one customer apart from the other customers. In other words, you first help them enter a level playing field (with your online training) and then you assist them in creating a strategic advantage by leveraging their internal strengths. Let me give you an example: suppose your specialty is in training supermarket cashiers. All of your customers (franchise owners or higher management operating supermarket chains) require that you train their cashiers in operating the cash register. This is what I have called the lowest common denominator. You should create an online training which contains a simulation of a cash register and a line of supermarket patrons. Yeah, I know, an actual simulation would require hiring a programmer - but it’s the idea here that counts. (And given enough customers, the return on investment demands that you actually hire that programmer). Now you are free to focus on the unique requirements of each supermarket. Maybe one supermarket has a focus on providing excellent customer service to the elderly and disabled. So your training for this particular client focuses on these aspects of the job of the cashier. Another supermarket chain wants to emphasize the "no questions asked refunds", so you incorporate that into your training. In short: you have just productized (a part of) your training. Selling your training as a product allows you to create an independent source of income. While you are away delivering a training for a specific customer, the employees of ten other customers are concurrently taking the online training. In another blog post I have addressed the software and online tools you can use to productize your training, specifically through e-learning. If you already have experience using online training to complement your live training sessions, I’d love to hear about it in the comments section.  

When teaching English as a second language it can be challenging to make your students read or even write something. But when reading becomes an adventure, then... learning gets better! When it comes to reading you have many options. One of them, for common books reading, is explained in my other article the reading corner, which may be more appropriate for students inclined to books.The other option is a game type called text adventure game. In it you have to go through many landscapes, houses, dark spots, castles… all described in pure text. And your actions are introduced likewise, typing text. Nowadays it’s not easy to find such jewels, as technology has given game developers complex tools to produce close to reality games. So, what’s the plan? Easy, we have to use an emulator, playable in a computer and in a mobile device.Let me introduce you to ZXSpectrum, my first computer (yes, I’m 40). For this device tons of text adventures were developed. It happened the same for other contemporary computers, like Amstrad, Atari, Commodore… Some nostalgic people have generously maintained a website called World of Spectrum with an abundant  archive of games and a list of emulators for your computer.But things get easier for you and your students. Forget about installing, downloading and executing anything when you can do it automatically with this marvelous android application: USP - ZX Spectrum Emulator. It not only emulates, it also has an integrated game downloading system.Follow these simple steps:Start the application.Pop the menu (left button), and click on Open File.Choose the WOS tab and select a game.The RZX tab is for showing how to complete a game! It’ll give you a glimpse of what to do if you get stuck. The app will download the game and make it run. From that moment on use the keyboard to control the flow. Look at this video. I’ve used the RZX option so the game goes ahead on its own. Just relax and see how these games are played.Now think a plan for your lessons:Make your students play for a week or so to see who goes farther.They’ll record words they didn’t previously know (e.g ColorDict).The same for collocations, expressions, etc.They’ll have to rank the game.After playing for some time they’ll write theirs (I’ll explain it in a future post).As you can see it’s fantastic to go back in time to find resources for your classroom.

There is absolutely nothing like engaging with motivated educators, sharing ideas and making a stronger workforce of teachers. It is evident of a teacher’s will to improve on their craft when they arrive early on a Saturday morning, either towards the end of their school year or in some cases already on their summer vacation. The 3rd Annual Think, Create, Share Conference at Cal State Fullerton was kicked off by the very engaging and inspiring poetry of Taylor Mali . Mali is a former classroom teacher who can now be found speaking all over the world, reciting his poetry and supporting the teaching profession. It is the teaching profession and the educators who make the wheel of learning go round and round, that inspire me, to care enough to share ideas and make a forward moving difference in education. This is a simple message to all teachers. Care enough to know that teaching….   is demanding is rewarding is not following a step-by-step procedural textbook is not over when the last bell rings requires you to be open to new ideas requires you to love children requires you to differentiate requires you to be early and leave late requires you to stop making excuses requires you to create or find solutions requires you to engage with technology requires you to seek out the latest teaching strategies requires you to love teaching Thank you to all educators who inspire me and thank to all educators who care enough to know what teaching is!

This infographic paints a very interesting picture on the relationship between social media and our students. This provides more justification on why we need to teach the proper ways of using social media to our students.

Why would you be interested in niche marketing? Because marketing to a very specific audience is a lot easier - and cheaper! - than using a scatter shot approach. Working in a niche means you will be an expert sooner. This is because all your customers face the same kind of problems that they want to see solved by your training sessions. In no time at all, you’ll be able to advise new customers based on what you’ve learned from your existing customers. Now, put the advice online, publish recommendations on your website or blog about it. Wait, putting advice online for all to see? Completely for free you say? Well, yes. You are a trainer, your added value comes from your face-to-face training sessions. Sure, people could implement your advice without your involvement, but they wouldn’t be completely sure if they did it the right way. So don’t be afraid that people will take your advice and run without paying for it. If you’re really specialized, your online recommendations will definitely be valuable to all people who fit in your niche. Let’s look at an example. Suppose you’re a trainer who decides to specialize in presentation training. From that moment on, you no longer have to compete with all the other "general" trainers. I mean, look at it from the customer’s perspective. I’m a CFO and I want to prepare my quarterly results presentation. Who do I turn to? I’ve got two ads in front of me: one is from Ted the Trainer - for all your training needs. The other is from you, the trainer who is specialized in presentations. I’ll pick you over Ted of course because you’re answering my specific need. It’s even better: nowadays everybody looks on the Internet. And there, I don’t even get to see Ted’s ad, because I’ve typed in "presentation training" in Google. I get to see your ad - but only if you’re specialized in what I need; if I’m a customer in your target niche. How to Find a Profitable Niche If you’re already specialized and your training business is running well, great, your niche has been validated. You can skip this section. But if you are still casting a wide net, stay tuned. Where do you find a profitable niche? On the Internet of course. Start with some customers you’ve had pleasant experiences with. Who are they? What are they doing? Also important: did they pay you well? Once you’ve got a specific niche in mind, your first task is to find out if it’s the right fit for you. This is where the Internet comes in. Is the Market Large Enough? Go online and simply check the Yellow Pages website (or the equivalent in other countries), google for "trends and figures" in combination with the name of your niche. See if the niche is large enough to support a trading magazine. If you actually decide to pursue this niche, you may even want to place ads in the trading magezine, later on (after all, not all marketing needs to proceed through the Internet). Is There an Inexpensive Way to Reach Them? Can they be reached by building an audience such as a mailing list, or a blog, or through search engine optimization? We’ll discuss these topics in more detail in other blog posts. You may also want to consider looking at forums, trade organizations’ websites and LinkedIn groups. What are the advertising prices there? Do They Have Problems Which You Can Solve? Reaching out to a target audience is easier if you are able to actually help them. So, revisit the forums, blogs and LinkedIn groups of your niche and write down all the issues they’re discussing. Is there a pattern? Do they have problems which you can solve? Create an Audience Once you have chosen and validated a niche, you need to reach out to them. Help out your customers. Build trust and an expert reputation by consulting your customers in a very real way, with advice derived from your experiences with existing customers. Use your blog, website and mailing list to actually present the advice. You can also go out and post tips on forums, LinkedIn groups and blogs from the members of your target audience. From there, you can also link to your own blog, when appropriate. Just remember one thing: you cannot be a specialist in everything, not even in a niche market. So choose your topics with care and empathy.

The Internet usually looks like a mare magnum for young students. So many things, so less time... They end up wasting their energy looking for resources, being absorbed in social sites or playing silly games. The solution? Make them curate their own PLE. Personal Learning Environment, that’s what PLE stands for. And the process of building one is called curation. Everyone has ever done something like this, in fact bookmarking interesting websites for any kind of personal growth is to curate, and that especial folder you keep with several useful links for your work is a sort of a PLE.Nowadays there are many tools to fabricate a PLE, but if you are going to choose one be sure that it is social media friendly, i.e, that you can share and find others’ works in the Net. I used to use Delicious, but I didn’t find it student-friendly enough, so I decided to change it for Symbaloo. This last one’s main advantage is its ease of use and its board-like interface.As PLEs deal with many different things (presentations, social networking, documentaries and videos, research, production, publication, citation, collaboration, storage, project management, coding, augmented reality, virtual worlds, gamification, gamecodization...) you can also curate different boards according to the subject you are working about.Let’s see an example. This is a board I use to teach the concept of PLE to my 13-year-old students. Everything is mixed but visually arranged. As it’s obvious there are hundreds of applications and this is but a mere mini collection.There are some points to bear in mind about a PLE:It’s dynamic. A link which used to be valuable can be unuseful all of the sudden. Keep some, discard others.It’s flexible.It has to be social: make it be known and know others’.It’s not only about school: whatever you do you should have your own personalized one.It’s curated: you have to invest time and effort to make it of good quality.It’s a magnifying glass to focus on certain aspects of the Internet and avoiding wasting time.It’s a productivity tool.

                                          Here is an activity that can be a class starter or center or a stand alone assignment that allows students and teachers to incorporate technology and writing. Have the students go out with their iPad or mobile device and capture two images that they they believe compliment each other. Next, using a photo blending app such as the iOS app Photoblend, edit the images to their liking and have them use the image as inspiration to create a poem. Students can save their edited image to their camera roll and them import into a writing or presentation app that allows them to combine their image with their writing that they can then share with the teacher and the world! Here is my example poem: On The Tracks When I’m on the tracks I can go where I want I dream Arizona, Boston or even Vermont When I’m on the tracks I feel the movement of the train With every forward bump and sway there is excitement to gain When I’m on the tracks it reminds me of my past As kid putting pennies on the track to get smashed Most of all it just peaceful with lives moving about At the end of their journeys with with families no doubt