Teachers Pay Teachers

7/10/2014

Side Note: This is dual blog post for my EdTech 357 course at Boise State University

From the Teachers Pay Teachers website

"We believe that real teachers create the most relevant and engaging educational resources. Our open marketplace model supercharges resource quality, quantity, and availability.
Bringing educators together forms a powerful community that shares best practices, raises the bar for all, and compensates our best curriculum developers (sometimes spectacularly).
In the end, everyone wins, especially students. And that's what it's all about."
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/About-Us

I am sure this post will not make me popular but I am not here to be popular. I am here to change education. I have a big problem with Teachers Pay Teachers. As a teacher, I know we are under paid and we don't usually have enough time to prep and plan for our lessons. So while the premise of teachers sharing the best work is ideal, paying for it is not. In this age of open curriculum and open education, I feel Teachers Pay Teachers contradicts this openness. While yes, it is good to make a little on the side, are we not hurting more students by keeping these resources behind the walled garden of TPT? If these teachers truly wanted to help more students, then why isn't their material in an open forum where more people can have access to it?

6 Comments

Kaelyn B

7/11/2014 06:56:34 am

Great thoughts. One of the perks of being a connected educator is that you really don't need the TPT site. Fellow teachers of Twitter are always so willing to share.

7/19/2014 11:54:28 am

I agree completely Kaelyn. The more teachers share the better we all can be. Why does someone have to profit? If we all shared, we could get rid of textbooks all together and create a more dynamic learning environment.

Stacie Barker

7/11/2014 12:45:21 pm

Interesting thoughts. I would love to have free access of all the great stuff on teachers pay teachers. However, I have never uploaded or sold anything on there, so I guess I can't argue the other side. I will just stick to downloading the "free" stuff on there.

7/19/2014 11:57:15 am

Hello Stacy,

I have only downloaded one free document to help a friend out. I remember one of my college teachers telling me that a teachers motto is "beg, barrow, and steal." While I am not a fan to stealing anything, how are we to barrow great resources, especially if we have to alter them to fit our classes, if we don't have access to them? That is why I like Twitter, G+, and OER better.

Bryan Wiedeman

7/14/2014 04:05:53 am

Hi George:

Very interesting topic. I'd never heard of TPT before and I agree with what you are saying about teachers working very hard. However, I don't really have a problem with this concept. I feel that if someone wants to work hard and create great content then they should have the choice if they want to monetize it.

In fact I think this creates a good new niche in the market. I usually create all my own content because I really don't enjoy spending a ton of time searching around free sites looking for exactly what I want. If I knew there was a place that I could go, pay a small fee and find high quality resources then I might use that option once and awhile. I don't think this will prevent people from sharing content for free who would have done so before.

7/19/2014 12:03:52 pm

Bryan,

I too create all my own content, because textbooks are horrible. Especially since my class was developed by me. My biggest issue is that most of what I have looked at on TPT WILL have to be altered to fit my class. Most free educational sites have junk on them. However, places like Edutopia, Edudemic, Free Technology for Teachers and the other sites Richard runs, Google+ and Twitter communities, give you access to better free resources.

I agree that teachers are underpaid and that needs to be changed. I know many teachers who have to work two jobs just to make ends meet, any one is free to use this site and pay, you just wont find me contributing or purchasing anything.

Teachers Pay Teachers

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