Recently I had a very creative idea. Since I spend a large portion of my work time creating lesson plans for my classroom at school. Being that I have many lesson plans waiting to be used again on my computer, I thought I might be able to sell my lesson plans. Associated Content will, of course, buy your lesson plans, but I was wondering if there were any other sites that would purchase my lesson plans. I did find one site besides Associated Content that will purchase your lesson plans. That site is www.teacherspayteachers.com.
The site was launched in April of 2006. The idea was the brainchild of a New York City public school teacher, Paul Edleman. Mr. Edleman had begun teaching in the middle of a school year and found that he used the lesson plans and ideas of other teachers already established and of the previous teachers at his school. He began to investigate the opportunities for sharing lesson plans on the internet and was unable to find many sites. Mr. Edleman sincerely felt that many teachers deserved to be payed for their ideas that they had spent so many hours creating. Thus the idea for www.teacherspayteachers.com was born. (www.teacherspayteachers.com)
WW.Teacherspayteachers.com advertises their site as an education site where educational professionals can share lesson plans and other educational ideas and information. The premise is that although a teacher’s classrooms and curriculum changes from year to year, the lesson plans that a teacher has worked on are valuable and can be shared with other education professionals and used in the future. This is a site where you can not only sell your lesson plans and ideas, but you are able to purchase other’s work also. The ideas and lesson plans are broken down according to subject or grade level. Although this sounds like a wonderful idea, there is one catch. You must purchase a yearly membership of $29.95. While this is not a huge fee, one wonders how many lesson plans are really sold, and how much of the company’s profits are earned through the membership fees. One thing that was lacking, is through all of my research, I was unable to find if the site pays outright for lesson plans, or pays as they are purchased by other teachers or educational professionals. Also, I could not find the pay rate. It makes one a little wary when information is not given upfront about how the system works or what the payment rates are.
Although the site does charge a minimal monthly fee, you are still able to browse through free downloads. However, at the present time, the site states that there are only 855 free downloads to receive. When I checked the free downloads, a large portion were merely teacher ideas, behavior discipline suggestions, or articles about classroom management. However, there were several valuable lesson plans that I can change to fit the needs of my severely autistic children that I presently teach.
When all is said and done, I think I will still sell my lesson plans to Associated Content. Not only does the site not charge for a yearly membership fee, but you also know what your payment options are, and you know that your material will be earning bonuses for page views for as long as Associated Content still offers their services. I will let other educational professionals gamble with selling their materials to www.teacherspayteachers.com. As for me, I am happy with Associated Content.
