Introducing: edYOUcator

You may have seen the chatter on Twitter about a new search engine designed especially for educators, called edYOUcator. edYOUcator provides quick and easy access to lesson plans, units and other instructional materials. It aggregates content from many educational resources across the World Wide Web and provides a centralized tool to find information based on subject area, grade, keywords and more, and is only going to get bigger and bigger, especially with YOUR help.

Now, let me take a few minutes to really explain.

How can you gain access?

While the new search engine will launch tomorrow (Feb. 10, 2011), not everyone will be able to access it...yet. We will be selecting a few random users of the #edYOUcator hashtag per day to gain the first access to it - so...

• If you want to be entered into the random drawing, you must use "#edYOUcator" in your Tweets.
  
• I'll be announcing when the drawing will happen throughout the day - I am estimating around 5 per day (give or take) - so follow @allofek12 and pay attention on Monday-Friday between 9-6 CST from Feb 10 - Feb 18.
  
• If you're selected, we'll mention you from @allofek12 and ask you to send us a DM with your email address so that we can send you some information on how to log in.

If you really want to go above and beyond, you can request access by sending a really nice email to edYOUcator@allofe.com and we'll see what we can do. After Feb. 18, there will be a sign-up for a request to gain access.

First adopters that either get selected for access, or request access will be the first to get new features that will be given to account holders, such as tracking favorite lessons, rating lessons, and things like that - so keep that in mind.

Another thing to remember: we are going to be indexing more and more resource-rich websites as edYOUcator grows, and since it's a free service, we WANT contributors (if you would like to be a lesson contributor to edYOUcator, please email edYOUcator@allofe.com).

Our goal for the roll-out process is to solicit feedback from educators about the search engine - what they like, don't like, and suggestions. That way, as we roll it out to more people, we'll put our best foot forward. This really is a work-in-progress and as it grows, we want to know what you will benefit most from.

The History

We have vast experience in working with educators across the nation to build the most comprehensive suite of intuitive, web-based applications for K-12 schools to manage everything from curriculum to online assessments to student information to staff professional development. We have worked with administrators and teachers to provide online tools that help them in their everyday lives and better communicate with students, parents, and the community. We've found that there's a void in terms of an easy way for teachers to find really good resources quickly and easily. edYOUcator is our way of filling that void.

The Future

We hope by using edYOUcator.com that teachers across the world will have easier access to the instructional materials they need to learn better and to teach better. It aims to provide focused content to K-12 teachers by indexing relevant content from across the web combined with high quality educational material from our own dedicated educators.

We want to build a network of educators that share and contribute to this learning repository - so as the search engine grows, there will be more and more opportunities to contribute your own instructional materials and share them with the world.

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We are excited to be able to offer this to such a wonderful group of educators we've come to know and love - and we're even more excited to see what you think! We'll be putting out new information as we go, so definitely keep in touch and let us know of any questions you have.