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Tips For Teacherpreneurs: Enhance Resources With Clip Art

This summer, I will be releasing all 20 Teacher Creator’s Toolbox videos here on the Core Inspiration blog. Teacher Creator’s Toolbox is a comprehensive guide to help you succeed as a seller in the TPT marketplace. If you are interested in watching these video tutorials in chronological order, visit my video index here. What You’ll Learn (00:18) Clip Art Considerations (00:37) Building A Clip Art Collection (02:04) Clip Art Integration Techniques (02:24) Layering Clip Art (06:53) Sizing Clip Art (07:30) Line Drawing and Greyscale Images (08:10) Converting A Color Image To Greyscale (08:30) Tips For Finalizing Resources With Clip Art (09:25) Sharing Favorite Clip Art Artists Tool 10 Transcript Clip art is one of the best ways to add style and visual appeal to your resources. I certainly cannot create a tutorial on how to choose the right clip art because that all depends on the resource you are creating,

Tips For Teacherpreneurs: Polish Your Resources With Backgrounds

This summer, I will be releasing all 20 Teacher Creator’s Toolbox videos here on the Core Inspiration blog. Teacher Creator’s Toolbox is a comprehensive guide to help you succeed as a seller in the TPT marketplace. If you are interested in watching these video tutorials in chronological order, visit my video index here. What You’ll Learn (00:25) Why Add Backgrounds? (00:46) Adding Backgrounds To Reproducible Resources (01:17) How To Add a Digital Paper (Patterned) Background (02:42) Copying Slides With A Background Attached (03:05) Frames (Not Backgrounds) For Reproducibles (03:32) Adding Backgrounds and Frames To Reusable Resources (05:33) Adding Solid Backgrounds To Preview Pages (06:50) Background Reminders (07:17) Sharing Favorite Background Artists Tool 9 Transcript In this tutorial, I will teach you about using backgrounds in three types of resources – resources with reproducibles, full-color reusable resources, and resource previews. Backgrounds can really help bring life and style to a resource

Tips for Teacherpreneurs: Communicate Clearly With Unique Readable Fonts

This summer, I will be releasing all 20 Teacher Creator’s Toolbox videos here on the Core Inspiration blog. Teacher Creator’s Toolbox is a comprehensive guide to help you succeed as a seller in the TPT marketplace. If you are interested in watching these video tutorials in chronological order, visit my video index here. What You’ll Learn (00:31) Why Presentation Sells (01:01) How the 5 Design Tools Help You Master Presentation (01:17) Pairing Fonts (01:26) Font Pairing Mistakes To Avoid (01:50) Selecting A Body Font First (02:28) The Graphic Designers’ Font Rule (02:42) Achieving Font Concord (03:24) Creating Font Contrast (04:58) Avoiding Font Conflict (05:37) Where To Find Free Unique Fonts (06:40) Create Your Own Fonts (07:02) Where To Find Paid Unique Fonts (07:20) How To Download and Install A Font (08:29) Sharing Favorite Fonts Tool 8 Transcript The number one priority in building a successful classroom resource is high-quality, unique

Tips for Teacherpreneurs: Secure Your Intellectual Property

This summer, I will be releasing all 20 Teacher Creator’s Toolbox videos here on the Core Inspiration blog. Teacher Creator’s Toolbox is a comprehensive guide to help you succeed as a seller in the TPT marketplace. If you are interested in watching these video tutorials in chronological order, visit my video index here. What You’ll Learn (00:32) The Risks Of Non-Secure PDFs (00:53) Avoiding Risks Using Password Protection (01:02) Using Adobe Acrobat Pro To Secure PDFs (03:36) Confirming Your Document’s Security (03:48) Updating Secured Resources (04:18) The Benefits of A Secure PDF (04:32) Alternatives To Adobe Acrobat Pro Tool 7 Transcript This final legal tool will teach you about one of the most important parts of being a Teacher Creator – protecting your intellectual property. Many creators who are new to the game do not realize that securing their resources in a password protected PDF is essential. The Risks Of

Tips for Teacherpreneurs: Embed Links In PDF Documents

This summer, I will be releasing all 20 Teacher Creator’s Toolbox videos here on the Core Inspiration blog. Teacher Creator’s Toolbox is a comprehensive guide to help you succeed as a seller in the TPT marketplace. If you are interested in watching these video tutorials in chronological order, visit my video index here. What You’ll Learn (00:32) Are Your Links Actually Live? (01:23) Adding Links Over An Image Or Text In A PDF (02:16) Link Settings That Create A Polished Look (04:24) Checking For Live Links (04:40) Use Links To Connect To Online Content or Blog Posts Tool 6 Transcript During this tutorial I am going to teach you how to embed links into a PDF document. This is an important step to take when finalizing your Teachers Pay Teachers resources for publishing because it allows for linking back to the stores of the artists whose work you

Tips for Teacherpreneurs: Give Credit To Font Designers and Graphic Artists

This summer, I will be releasing all 20 Teacher Creator’s Toolbox videos here on the Core Inspiration blog. Teacher Creator’s Toolbox is a comprehensive guide to help you succeed as a seller in the TPT marketplace. If you are interested in watching these video tutorials in chronological order, visit my video index here. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN (00:26) Keep A Record Of The Artists You Use (00:53) Credits Page Template (01:18) Creating Your Own Credits Page (01:46) Modifying Previous Projects To Increase Efficiency (03:26) Credits Page Text and Calls To Action (04:05) Adding Logos To Create Link Backs (04:50) Using A List of Contributors (07:35) Saving A Document As A PDF (08:05) Tips For Establishing An Efficient System Tool 5 Transcript In this tutorial, I am going to teach you how to properly give credit to the graphic artists and font designers whose elements you incorporate into your resources. Or as

Tips For Teacherpreneurs: Follow Commercial Use Guidelines

This summer, I will be releasing all 20 Teacher Creator’s Toolbox videos here on the Core Inspiration blog. Teacher Creator’s Toolbox is a comprehensive guide to help you succeed as a seller in the TPT marketplace. If you are interested in watching these video tutorials in chronological order, visit my video index here. What You’ll Learn (00:24) Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due (00:43) What Is Commercial Use? (01:10) Following Commercial Use Guidelines (01:35) Finding Commercial Use Elements (02:21) Avoiding Copyright Infringement (03:39) Emailing Artists To Request Commercial Use (04:27) Detailed Information About CU and Copyright Tool 4 Transcript Welcome to Legal Tool 4. During this tutorial, I will teach you all about what commercial use is and how to ensure you are following commercial use guidelines. The most important thing to remember when incorporating clip art, fonts or any design elements into your free or paid products is : if you did

Tips For Teacherpreneurs: Protect Your Resources With Terms of Use

This summer, I will be releasing all 20 Teacher Creator’s Toolbox videos here on the Core Inspiration blog. Teacher Creator’s Toolbox is a comprehensive guide to help you succeed as a seller in the TPT marketplace. If you are interested in watching these video tutorials in chronological order, visit my video index here. What You’ll Learn (00:23) Abiding By Copyright Laws (00:40) Writing Your Terms of Use (03:31) Creating A Copyright Stamp (04:20) TOU Template Download TOOL 3 TRANSCRIPT Welcome to the Legal Tools! When designing Teacher Creator’s Toolbox, I decided to teach you all the legal guidelines you need to know as a Creator before teaching you how to promote and design products. That’s because these tools will ensure that everything you will soon design is properly secured and created with copyright laws in mind. To start, I am going to show you how to write Terms

Teacher Creator's Toolbox Preparation Tool 2

Tips For Teacherpreneurs: Organize Your Digital Files

This summer, I will be releasing all 20 Teacher Creator’s Toolbox videos here on the Core Inspiration blog. Teacher Creator’s Toolbox is a comprehensive guide to help you succeed as a seller in the TPT marketplace. If you are interested in watching these video tutorials in chronological order, visit my video index here. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN (00:27) Outline For Digital File Organization (00:50) Creating Your Classroom Resources Folders (01:28) Design and Legal Tools Folder (03:26) Marketing Tools Folder (04:06) Branding Tools Folder (04:35) Creating Your Own Organization System TOOL 2 TRANSCRIPT In this tutorial, I will give you a few tips about how to get your digital files organized in a way that will make your product upload and update process much more efficient. If you’re like me, you may not have established a streamline system from the get-go. All you have to do is decide what folder names

Tips For Teacherpreneurs: Equip Your Computer With Easy-To-Use Programs

This summer, I will be releasing all 20 Teacher Creator’s Toolbox videos here on the Core Inspiration blog. Teacher Creator’s Toolbox is a comprehensive guide to help you succeed as a seller in the TPT marketplace. When I emailed the Toolbox community to inform them I would be shutting down the site to focus my resources solely on Core Inspiration, I received several encouraging emails from users who inspired me to post the videos here. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Teacher Creator’s Toolbox, you can learn more about it here. As a result of the decision to post all 20 videos this summer, you will notice an increase in the number of blog posts. For many Core Inspiration readers, this content will be irrelevant, for that I apologize. Posting the videos here on the blog is the most effective way for me to deliver the video content to other TPT sellers. My traditional monthly posts

Write To Explain – Your New Favorite Math Routine

One of the best (and most challenging) things about teaching math is guiding students in the creation of clear math models and helping them develop the ability to communicate the reasoning behind their solution. The widely-adopted Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice call for students to make sense of problems and persevere in solving them, reason abstractly and quantitatively, construct viable arguments, model solutions, and attend to precision; among other math skills. Unfortunately, most district-adopted curriculum does require students to exercise these skills frequently enough to achieve a level of mastery. Yes, they may be able to solve several problems that require subtraction with regrouping but can they truly articulate the reason why their solutions are correct? If the answer is no, I have a tool your students can start using tomorrow that will immediately challenge them to develop these essential math skills. I call this tool Write To Explain.

iPad Student Training and Management Tools

For the first year ever, I decided not to spend too much time teaching iPad routines during the first weeks of school. I went over basic care and safe web searching, but didn’t go into nearly as much detail as I had in years past. Which was fine…until it wasn’t. Around January, I noticed all things iPad unraveling before my eyes. Precious iPads were left unattended on the floor, students were sharing their passwords, logging in to one another’s accounts, and I dreaded every tap on the shoulder because I knew it would likely lead to a child letting me know they accidentally dropped an iPad… but “It’s okay because I only dropped it on the carpet.” On the morning that one of our iPad screens turned a scary green color from being dropped “only on the carpet” too many times, we had a class meeting. The iPads were tucked away, I went home and revamped my broken iPad management system to meet