It has been a while since we have made a blog post. With christmas break over and the new year beginning we wanted to talk about new things that have been going on. As you know, we both teach business and computer/technology classes. With teaching these subjects many teachers know that technology changes constantly. There seems to be constant new updates on software, devices, websites, etc. which can be overwhelming to most people. We try our best to stay up to date with the newest resources that can be used in our own classrooms and our fellow teacher's classrooms. Over the past 8 months we have added a lot of new websites, technology devices, etc. to our pages for you to try out in your classrooms. We also have created many more lesson plans, assignments, projects, and semester courses! Continue reading to check out some of our newest resources that we would like to share with you all! 

During the school year we have wonderful daycare providers who also are educating our girls daily. If you are like us and are an educator we have summer break around the corner and that means we will be home 24/7 with our girls for the next 3 months. 

​Being home with our girls during the summer is one of the many perks to being a teacher, but along with that we want to make sure we are providing our girls with a summer full of love, happiness, laughter, activities, and stimulation.  The love and happiness is an easy task for us to meet, however we aren't early childhood educators so we decided to do a little research on what we can use around our households, neighborhood, or city to entertain and educate our growing little girls. 

This is why we created an daily activities list to differentiate the activities with the girls. The list includes activities for indoors and outdoors around our households. Then there is an additional list of fun, and creative activities to take the girls to in city that we live. This document is completely editable for all parents to change to meet your personal household needs. Along with the activities we have listed what skills the activities are meeting for the kids. We also have a checklist box next to each activity so we can mark when we have completed that activity so we don't repeat activities often.

We wanted to share this document with any parent, family member, daycare provider, or educator who feels like this could help them as much as it has helped us. Hopefully it will give you plenty of ideas to stimulate and entertain you active kiddos this summer! 

Feel free to download this document below and edit it to your household needs. (Tip: We printed these and laminated them. Then we placed them in our house hold where we can write on it with a expo marker). Hopefully you get some use out of these documents and enjoy your wonderful summer with your family and kids! 

We are beyond thrilled that Teachers Pay Teachers advertised our resource this week as a flash freebie! Our Internet Safety Unit Plan is one of our top sellers on TPT and we are offering it as a free download this week only.

A new school years means our creative juices are flowing when it comes to creating lesson plans. Thanks to this we have created 2 new semester courses for fellow teachers to purchase. Our semester courses are our top sellers and teachers all around the country are teaching our courses in their classrooms, pretty neat! The two new courses we have create are Business Essentials and 9-12 Computer Applications. We have taught these courses for years and have perfected our lessons enough to make an entire course. Shown below are information over each semester course.
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If you know our products you might have already seen that we sell a 6-8 Computer Applications Semester Course. That semester course is our best seller and is a great product but it was designed for the middle school classroom with 45 minute classes. We now created the 9-12 Computer Application Semester course that is designed for the high school level. With the content being high school level we now have many more unit plans for this class since the classes are 75 minutes and and 18 weeks long.  If you have previously purchased our 6-8 Computer Applications Semester Course and would like more unit plans please do not purchase this semester course because there are some similar materials. You can purchase the 6-8 Computer Applications Semester Course Extension Bundle. 

Us Tech Twins learned our passion for technology and education from our parents. Our parents have been our role models and we are proud to announce that our parents have started a consulting business known as "JTI Consulting". Their business is all about helping educators with any of their technology needs. 
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Right now their business has tutorial videos available on Teachers Pay Teacher's website. Their amazing video tutorials are over popular and new technology that us educators are using,  Right now on Teachers Pay Teacher's website they have a FREE tutorial video over Google Mail Preview Pane and it can help you and your fellow coworkers. Check out the free tutorial by clicking on the picture below! 

Below are some more of their tutorials. 

Here is some more information on them and their background in education and technology. 

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Julie Jensen is the Exec. Dir. of Curriculum for El Dorado Public Schools and an Apple Distinguished Educator. Doug Jensen is the Executive Director of Technology and also an Apple Distinguished Educator, we organized a 1:1 Laptop Initiative for the district high school thirteen years ago, a middle school 1:1 Mini iPad initiative eight years ago, and 1:1 iPads for the four elementary buildings over the last four years. Both the middle school and the high school have been recognized as Apple Distinguished Schools. We both have been educators for over 30 years in K-12.

TEACHING STYLE
Blended Learning with the the integration of technology.

HONORS/AWARDS/SHINING TEACHER MOMENT
​Both Doug and Julie are Apple Distinguished Educators

EDUCATIONAL HISTORY
Bachelors of Education from Emporia State University Masters in School Administration and Superintendent Certificate from Pittsburg State University

ADDITIONAL BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
​-List of Presentations Mid America Computers in Education, 1994, 1995, 1996,1997, 1999, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016
-Apple Leadership & Learning Panelist, Wichita, KS, 2005, 2014 K-12
-iPad Initiatives & Implementations, Kansas State University, 2014;
-ISTE Conference in Philadelphia, PA, 2011
-KSDE Conference in Wichita, KS, 2011
-Greenbush Education Technology Conference, 2005, 2010, 2011
-United School Administrator Conference in Wichita, KS, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012 -Kansas Dropout Prevention Summit, Wichita, KS, 2009
-Governor’s Mentoring Conference, 2008
​-Apple Video Conference Briefing, 2008; for Lexington, NE
-Apple Headquarters Briefing, Cupertino, CA, 2007; for Kansas City, KS
-Apple 1:1 Digital Learning Institute in Cupertino, CA, 2007; for Kansas City, KS
-Apple 1:1 Digital Learning Institute in Chicago, IL, 2007; for Battle Creek, MI
-Apple Leadership and Learning, Wichita, KS, 2014
-Apple Technology Learning Institute in Lake Elmo, MN, 2007
-Apple Video Conference Briefing, 2007; for Cedar Rapids, IA,
-National North Central Accreditation Conference in Chicago, IL, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2006
-Kansas North Central Accreditation in Wichita, KS, 1996, 1999, 2005, 2006
-Kansas Association of School Boards, Topeka, KS, 2001, 2003, 2006
-TAKE Conference in Topeka, KS, 2003, 2006
-Apple Education Leadership Forum, Chicago, IL, 2005
-Kansas Technology Leadership Conference in Topeka, KS, 2000, 2003, 2005
-Universal Professional Development Day in Wichita, KS, 2001, 2005
-Connecting Education Conference in Wichita, KS, 2005
-South Dakota TIE Conference in Rapid City, SD, 2005
-VPL Conference in Wichita, KS, 2005
-Wichita Public Schools/Friends University Technology Fair, 1997
-Kansas Association of Secondary Administrators Summer Seminar, 1996
-Kansas Regional Association of School Boards, 1996
-Southeast Kansas Service Center, Greenbush, KS, 1994, 1995

Last year we both started new teaching positions at the 9-12 high school level. With these new positions came new content that we had to create for our classrooms. Between the two of us we taught Computer Applications, Entrepreneurship, Digital Design, Accounting, Web Design, Game Design, Success 101 (Business Essentials), Marketing, Business Management, and Digital Marketing.

Naturally you would think that we would of been overwhelmed but we both were thrilled to be able to teach new content. We love creating lesson plans that are personalized for our students and classrooms. With the new classes we taught we had our creative juices flowing and created over 50+ new unit plans, activities, semester courses, etc.

Now all these new materials are available to all teachers who are interested on https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Tech-Twins. Total we have over 130+ Lesson Plans, Activities, Projects, Whole Semester Courses, Training, PowerPoints, etc…Covering topics from Business, Technology, and Computers. ANY TEACHER CAN BENEFIT FROM THESE PRODUCTS! Us tech twins have been hard at work and updated all of products to make sure they are the top quality! With all of our products there is absolutely no prep needed for the teacher! 

Shown below are a few of our newest products we have posted in our store. Click the button below to access our store. 

​As teachers we want to make sure our students are still receiving a proper education even though we aren’t personally in the classroom to educate them. Long-term subs are great and we understand that once they are in the classroom they are now the teacher. However, us Tech Twins like to provide our long-term subs with all the materials to cover our class with little stress. It can't be easy to walk into a classroom and take over multiple classes, for 6-12 weeks, without any resources and curriculum to help them. That’s why we created the Maternity Leave Bundle for other secondary educators.

We did a lot of research on Maternity Leave and most of the information we found was for Elementary teachers, not Secondary teachers. Therefore, after a lot of research, time, and effort we feel very confident leaving our classes to our long-term subs. We want to share what worked for our planning with fellow secondary educators who too are in the same position as us.

As we all know babies can make a random appearance at anytime, so its best to be prepared. Samantha teaches a total of 6 different preps at her high school. All but 2 of her classes are 9 weeks long. Samantha’s maternity leave fell at the end of the 3rd 9 weeks and the beginning  of the 4th 9 weeks. Because of these circumstances she had to make sure the long-term sub could take over at any point in her 3rd 9 weeks classes and begin her 4th nine week classes. Nichole teaches 4 preps at her school and she has to plan an entire semester worth of materials for all of her classes. This is because her due date falls at a time where she could be gone towards the beginning of the semester or be gone the 2nd half of the semester. Preparing an entire semesters worth of materials allows the long term subs to be able to pick up where ever we left off in our classes. 

Here is what we provided for our long term subs.

1. A video over how we organized our lesson plans for all our classes.
2. Video of what the binders look like when it’s all put together!
3. A binder for every class taught, the following documents are included:
   1. Instructions on how the class works, and what’s included in this folder.
   2. USB Drive with all digital materials.
   3. Class syllabus.
   4. Class objectives outline.
   5. All the course unit plans, lessons, and activities in order.
      1. In the unit plans we have found that leaving very detailed lesson plans really helps the subs be successful. This way they know exactly what is to be taught. This will take some time to prep for all your unit plans but in the long run it will leave you and the sub stress free. 

​ 4. A “Maternity Leave” Binder with the following documents in it:

1. Cover
2. Thank You Page
3.  Long-Term Sub Information
4. Class Schedule
5. Classroom Calendar
6. School Information 
7. Logins & Passwords
8. Grading Information
9. Sub Plans
10. Class Roster/Seating Charts
11. Student Information
12. District Calendar
13. Printers
14. Any other documents you find important for your sub to be successful in your room.

​If you too are going to be taking maternity leave in your near future and are interested in having these materials, you can purchase this bundle by clicking on the tab below. And congratulations to those those expecting!

Summer break is right around the corner and that is definitely something to celebrate! As a teacher it is easy to end the last few days or weeks with playing videos, games, etc., but it's still vital to make those last few classes count. We have learned you can still end your class on a fun note while keeping students engaged  with rigorous lesson plans. Listed below are some tips to help you end your semester smoothly. 
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Activities
This can range from computer scavenger hunts, cross word puzzles, video reflections, website explores, article reviews, etc. These are great activities to have students learn other useful information that might not be tied into a unit plan. Shown below are a few activities of our products that you could purchase.
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​End of Semester Reflection
These are activities or projects you can create to have students reflect on the knowledge they have gained during the semester. Students are also being innovative with an computer application such as word, power point, etc. Click on the picture below to check out the projects we have in this area. ​