I had the pleasure of attending a free workshop at the Capital Area Intermediate Unit on January 27, 2009, for business or economic teachers, “Preparing for Success in Business: Entreprenaurs, Economics, and the Business Plan.” A good sampling of districts were represented (Harrisburg School District’s Career and Technology Academy, Susquehanna Township, West Shore, Middletown, Cumberland-Perry Vo-Tech, Milton Hershey Schools, Big Springs…that I can remember). The workshop presenter was Carolyn Shirk, Vice President of Economics PA. Each participant received numerous materials, a curriculum notebook and CD of the power point presentation. Though I do not teach economics or business, I am hoping to bring the materials to the community and virtual world. In fact, I have plans to network with a Twitter colleague, Angela Maiers, who is collaborating with another Twitterer about financial literacy curriculum for MS/HS students. Twitter networking just never stops amazing me!
Even though I was not a business or economics teacher, I was able to make a helpful contribution by sharing two internet resource links to workshop participants. (I even shared what Twitter was with one teacher that I sat near who had never heard of Twitter!)
The one internet resource is an Hourly Rate Calculator. A teacher had asked if there was a resource that shows students where all the money goes. This calculator does just that. Students can input their fictitious business monthly expenses like rent, office supplies, pensions, insurance, healthcare, savings, marketing, advertising, travel, etc. It’s a genius tool for students and adults going into their own business! Thanks to Katy Whitton and her book Managing Web Projects: How to Manage the full project lifecycle with minimum hassle.
Another internet link resource that I shared with participants is a link to help the students know their business market location. This site has…
“over 63,000 city photos not found anywhere else, graphs of latest real estate prices and sales trends, recent home sales, home value estimator, hundreds of thousands of maps, satellite photos, stats about residents (race, income, ancestries, education, employment…), geographical data, state profiles, crime data, registered sex offenders, cost of living, housing, businesses, local news links based on our exclusive technology, birthplaces of famous people, political contributions, city government finances and employment, weather, hospitals, schools, libraries, houses, airports, radio and TV stations, zip codes, area codes, air pollution, latest unemployment data, time zones, water systems and their health and monitoring violations, comparisons to averages, local poverty details, professionally written city guides, a forum and a social network with 450,000 registered members and 6,000,000 posts, 5,000+ user-submitted facts, 14,000+ exclusive local business profiles with photos, and more demographics.”
Look up your area. It is definitely a good read! You’ll know more about your neighbors than you really care to!
Pottieger Learns and Networks 