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Ok, it's time to turn off some sites:

• http://www.teacherwebservices.co.uk/  --> never going to happen
• http://www.justrestoration.co.uk/ --> too busy to work on it and do it justice
• http://www.scienceinplainenglish.co.uk/ --> Now my wife has returned to full time work, we're both too busy

Gone, but not forgotten.

G

It's that time on the weekend when I am trapped between it being too late to do anything personally fulfilling, and too early to go to bed (without feeling guilty).  So after a weekend of ferrying children about, watching football in the rain and generally grouching at them, it's finally time for some "quality" me time.

What that means is, planning lessons, reading the 40+ emails I should have on Friday and putting in the brain time to run a Science department.

Achieved Last Week:

1. Exam entries for November (just)
2. Sat on the interview panel for new teaching assistants
3. Took an assembly on Black History Month
4. Wrote to some parents
5. Taught my Year 7 form and various 9, 10 and 11 years

Failed to:

1. Have a faculty meeting after school (number 1 daughter was ill)
2. Put the exam entries in for Jan 09
3. Attend a meeting (I plain forgot)
4. Get to bed before 2pm all week
5. Not shout at my kids

So, the big plan for this week is PLANNING  <--  I must sort through all my nebulus stuff and order it into a serious plan for the week.

Watch this space.

G

It always amazes me how quickly things move on, especially when you promise good things / ideas.  So I got promoted this year to head of faculty (Science), which just about put the complete stop to all my other "extra" curricular activities.  You know the score; too much work, too little time.

Balls -- when teacher moan about all that, lets not forget that we get 13 weeks holiday and can be home by 3:30pm if we choose (meetings not withstanding.)

So far this (school) year:

• Head of Faculty
• Joined the Year 7 tutor team --> we have reduced the teachers of year 7 and now I am teaching the majority of the curriculum to my form group
• My wife has a new job
• My children have gone to a new school
• I am about to start on an EdD

I am slowly "turning off" my other projects and cutting things back to the bone.  Oddly I seem to have this problem all the time -- too many (often naff) ideas and not enough time.

I guess I need to win the lottery.

Laters

G

After much faffing round looking for a reseller acount that I can use to host FreeWeb4Teachers.co.uk, I think I have hit on a solution.

When the DNS resolve, hopefully my free web sites for teachers project will be up and running.

The deal:

• Free subdomain
• 250Mb space
• WordPress (plus many other scripts)
• Email and FTP access
• Free
• Donation ware supported (small add at bottom of page)

Finally, got some time to draw together the template and the content for www.yeis.co.uk

The site has been launched, but we still need to work on:

• Products (have 2 ready to go)
• Payment (Google, PayPal dilema)
• Policies
• Staff

Back to school now to form a board and get the project truely launched. 

Due to the success of my photograph restoration service, I thought it was time that I created a unique web presence.  So after much deliberation here it is.  Photograph restoration by Just Restoration.

The basis for the site is a "no fixed fee", "honour based pricing" scheme -- ie the customer sees the finished work and then pays whatever they want to.  From £0, zip, nothing -- up to, well that's up to you.

>>>> Click here for photograph restoration and repair service <<<<

Hot on the heels of yesterdays idea, comes the little brother -- free web space and hosting exclusivley for teachers. 

The plan -- offer free space, hosting, email/webmail  and Nucleus / WordPress / Moodle -- and then use that to leverage a small fee / donation for additional services.

• The service will be open to verified, UK teachers and support staff only
• Limited support via BBS / Forum
• Either own domain (via DNS servers) or possibly free subdomain
• Some form of link / advertising (maybe not!!)

Update:

• Domain registered: freeweb4teachers.co.uk (not running yet)

Watch this space.

After creating sites for the school (www.scienceatbettws.org.uk) and working on a new idea (www.yeis.co.uk), it became clear that cheap hosting for teachers was not easily available -- at least if you were only passingly interested in the technology.

So after a quick think:  www.teacherwebservices.co.uk was born.  This accelerated development (less than 24 hours so far) has led to a site and a hosting package aimed at teacher.

If you are a teacher in the UK and are looking for cheap hosting and blogging then have a look at www.teacherwebservices.co.uk

New year, new sites and a plan - at last!!

Some background info on me/this site.  <Skip if easily bored>
Back in 2000, I was a part owner in a startup internet business selling digital flash memory products.  I was the techie, geek, nerd, webhead responsible for coding the stie, SEO and driving people to the BUY button.  It was moderately successful and allowed me to learn some PHP, play with SEO skills and generally keep up to date with current trends in technology and "the web".

Around 2002 I started to get that "mid life" crisis thing - you know; what have I done, who cares, what legacy am I leaving etc etc.  So I sold out and took a year off to retrain as a science teacher (physics).  Now 3 years into a developing career, I have a direction in life and am totally enjoying it.

Only problem is that teacher and ICT is stuck back in 1999 - no joined up thinking, email still has "wow factor", blogging needs to be explained and the SEO is unheard of.

As a result, I kept my hand in, developing sites for friends and family, and playing with current technology.  That was Nerklegroup as was.  This spawned some interesting projects: 

• http://www.scienceinplainenglish.co.uk/ --- science tuition
• http://www.justrestoration.co.uk/ --- photograph repair and restoration
• http://www.physlog.org.uk/ --- a blogging site for physics teachers
• http://www.scienceatbettws.org.uk/ --- Bettws High School web site
• http://www.aflinscience.org.uk/ --- A site dedicated to AfL in Science education

Some sites fell by the way side: (not active links)

• http://www.5th-way.co.uk/ --- Business idea about "networking" teachers
• http://www.baby-bargains.co.uk/ --- price comparison site for baby cothes
• http://www.cheap-flash.co.uk/ --- price comparison site for flash memory

I've played with Affiliate marketing (never made any money), Amazon product feeds (never sold a book) and eBay - sold lots, major pain though.

<Start reading again>

So, it's 2008 and I need to consolidate my projects.  I need a plan:

• 1) Re launch Just Restoration
• 2) Tidy up Science In Plain English
• 3) Change Nerklegroup to be a "project" homepage
• 4) Monetize Nerklegroup
• 5) Create new killer site to make £xxx residual income (!!!)
• 6) SEO current websites.

The nice thing about Nucleus is that it's not stuffed to the gills with functionality that you will never use.  Ok, that means that you have to actually add in the eye-candy, but thats nice.  I like to be in control.

Just downloaded and integrated a WYSIWYG text editor for creating posts.  Excellent stuff.  Just install, set 1 config option and off you got.

See:  http://wakka.xiffy.nl/tinymce2?s=tinymce