About

What is Teaching Resources? Who is Laura Candler? How did this site develop? If you’ve ever wondered, this is the place to find out! To begin, I’m a classroom teacher who has spent years writing books and developing a huge collection of free online printables. If you visited this page to learn more about my qualifications, you can visit Laura’s Bio for general background information and a list of my published books. If you want to learn the Teaching Resources story, read on!
 

The Evolution of Teaching Resources

Before the Internet

I’ve been teaching for almost 30 years, and I’ve always loved to collaborate with other educators and share teaching ideas. I enjoy attending workshops and learning new strategies, and when they work for me, I want to share them. The most powerful workshop I attended was a cooperative learning workshop by Laurie Kagan of Kagan Cooperative Learning. Those strategies revolutionized my teaching, so I submitted a book proposal that combined my lesson ideas with Kagan’s cooperative learning methods. My proposal was accepted, and I eventually wrote six books for Kagan; those books are still in print and available from www.kaganonline.com.

Creation of Teaching Resources

A few years later, in 1997, I logged onto the Internet for the first time. I immediately loved its collaborative spirit. I joined an active discussion group and enjoyed learning new ideas and sharing materials online. I knew I wanted my own website, so I taught myself FrontPage and created Teaching Resources. I needed a way to organize all the activities I wanted to share, so it seemed natural to create an online File Cabinet organized with file drawers for each subject. Through the years I added other webpages with strategy information such as Cooperative Learning, Literature Circles, and Mastery Learning

From Amateur Site to Online Business

For the first 10 years of my website’s existence, everything was free. It gives me great pleasure to share my blackline masters with other teachers and I love getting emails from teachers who used my materials in their classrooms. Earning money from my site wasn’t even a consideration at that point. Then reality hit in 2007 when I realized that my two teenage daughters, Wendy and Amy, were getting close to college age and my teaching salary wouldn't cover the cost of their education. I decided to turn my website into a business by writing some books and offering them for sale on my site. I hoped that if people liked my free materials, they might be willing to pay for additional materials that were more comprehensive and complete. Thankfully, I was right!

Becoming an Entrepreneur

As a teacher without any business experience, learning how to turn an amateur website into a business was quite an experience. Quite by accident, I connected with just the right person at just the right time - someone who guided me through the whole process in a step-by-step manner. Soon I began sending out Candler’s Classroom Connections, my email newsletters, and I wrote my first Power Pack. I also had to figure out how to put a PayPal button on my site, but all of these learning experiences were fun! Later I moved my newsletter to Constant Contact which allowed me to reach even more educators. I’ve been amazed at how much money it takes to run a website as a business! It takes several hundred dollars a month to pay the basic expenses, but book sales have kept my site online and kept me in business.

Time for a Change

After a few months of operating as a business, I took a long, hard look at my site. I realized that the whole website needed to be overhauled and rebuilt. It was like an old quilt that had been patched together in too many places, and it needed a fresh new look. By following links from a site that I liked, I found Doug Brown Design, a company located right here in North Carolina. Doug came up with the design for this site, and I loved it immediately. But it took many more months and many thousands of dollars to create all the pages, move all the content, and link all the files. I’m pleased with the final result, and I hope that you will find the new site easy to navigate and a pleasure to use.

Teachers Pay Teachers

More recently, I've discovered another way to provide useful content and help pay the expenses of keeping free content on my site. I learned about TeachersPayTeachers.com, a site where teachers can sell their lessons and printables online. What I like about TPT is that I can put together a nice, detailed lesson and sell it for a few dollars. I don't have to spend months writing a book, and teachers can find just what they need without spending a lot. If you have a bit of the entrepreneur in you, I highly recommend setting up an account!

Thanks to My Supporters!

Thanks to the thousands of teachers who visit Teaching Resources every day, my site remains profitable. In fact, I’ve been able to pay for Wendy's first year of college without going into debt! I am so grateful for the teachers who use my site regularly and share it with their colleagues. My subscriber list for Candler’s Classroom Connections has grown to over 19,500 members! Every time you purchase a Power Pack or buy one of my TeachersPayTeachers items, you are helping me to keep the Teaching Resources site online and full of free content. Thanks for your ongoing support!