Technology and the knowledge of it are becoming more and more important every single day. As home-schooling parents, you may or may not be well versed in new technology and expanding uses of the internet. However, as home-schooling parents, you are in the unique and enviable position to use your dual role as a parent and teacher to learn technology skills along with your child. Build upon those skills to make your home-schooling experience that much better. Technology is, in short, important to incorporate in your home-schooling curriculum and design.

The first step for home-schooling parents to incorporate appropriate technology into their lesson plans is to buy a computer and read the instructions carefully. You may even consider signing up for a class or seminar at you local university or community college. It is important to get the basics down if you don’t already know them before introducing the technology to your children. Although you may need to learn the basics from someone else, you and your home-schooled children can do a lot of exploring and learning together. Recent research shows that 97% of teachers learned something new about technology and computers while they were teaching their own students how to use them. You too can use the teaching experience to learn something about technology yourself.

Another great benefit of appropriate technology to home-school and home-schooling families is the time management benefits. It is faster to research topics utilizing internet libraries and databases than it is to drive to the library for research projects and papers. Word processing on a computer is also faster and neater than on a typewriter. This can be utilized by your children and by yourself as you keep records of your home-school activities and home-schooling lesson plans. Indeed, over 75% of traditional classroom teachers reported that technology helped them improve classroom management and nearly 90% said that technology helped them improve lesson planning and instruction. Home-schooling parents and home-schooled children can both benefit from this increase in productivity. You can focus more time and attention on learning the content and doing hands on activities and spend less time on paper work. Furthermore, learning to use technology will help your home-schooled children keep up with and surpass their peers in traditional schools.

The thought of making money online is appealing to many, mainly because of the benefits it offers. Two key incentives are motivational factors here: The money making potential of the internet as well as the personal freedom that comes with working without a fixed schedule or under a less than supportive boss. Indeed, why make £6 an hour working in retail a counter when you can easily earn the same amount by spending 10 minutes to write an article on your blog? Even if you’re not looking to work full-time at home, the internet offers a viable source of money which can help to supplement your regular income.

Different Ways to Make Money Online

A basic Google search will expose many ways to make money online and most of the websites listed in the search results pages all seem to focus on similar methods of making money. Over the next few articles I will list and discuss profitable strategies to make money via the internet. As time progresses more methods and examples of how to make money online will be added to this list, which can be considered as a work in progress.

1. Set up a Website or Blog for Profit

One of the easiest ways to make money online is to create a website or blog which allows you to earn money from the display of advertisements such as Google AdSense or via the sale of products and services.

There are many various types of money making blogs, which will assist you to make money and you’ll need to pick a system that suits your interests, schedule and skill levels. A simple no frills blog will allow you to easily pull in at least several hundred dollars in a month through the use of paid blogging websites alone.

I am now going to cover in more detail how to successfully set up a profitable blog in four key steps.

Step one

Select a topic for your blog. I would advise you to choose something you are passionate about because you’ll be able to discuss it at length and not get bored of it. Also make sure that your topic is interesting to other people too. Use your keyword tool of choice such as Google’s external keyword and input your site’s topic to see the monthly search volume. If it is fewer than 10,000 searches per month, you might want to reconsider the topic. There is also an option to show advertiser competition. If it is high, there is money to be made, a very good sign.

Step two

Set up your blog. Blogger.com is great for beginners I would highly recommend. Once the blog is set up choose an effective theme for your topic.

Step three

Populate your blog with content. If you selected a topic that reflects your passion, this will be easy. If you selected a topic that will make you money and you don’t know much about your subject, search article directories such as Ezine and Goarticles for articles covering your topic. Most will allow you to republish their content as long as you keep the original author’s links intact. Ensure that the blog is informative and concise. People generally want to digest 250-500 words at a time.

Step four

Arrange for adverts to be displayed on your blog, Google AdSense is a great way to make money, you receive a payment every time a person clicks on one of these adverts, which are displayed on your blog. The more traffic you drive to your blog the more people that click through onto the Google adverts.

Please keep an eye open for the next part of this series, which will be covering Affiliate Marketing one of the most profitable Internet strategies.

James Curtis BSc writes on how to make money online and advises on some of the current online scams. If you are having difficulty making money online you can learn more by visiting my blog: How to make money online:
http://howtomakemoneyonline-jcurtis80.blogspot.com/

More and more people are setting up home businesses these days. Some of them may have been laid off from work. Others may have found difficulty finding employment. Still others may have chosen to change careers midstream after finding their true passion and deciding to make a living out of it.

Setting up a home business gives you much more freedom than regular employment. You are now your own boss. It gives you more time with your family and for yourself. It eliminates the stresses of the workplace and the fatigue of commuting to and from work. This redounds to better physiological, psychological and emotional health and greater productivity. It is also a good way to start going into business because of the lower start up costs. You save a lot on overhead expenses by having your office in your own home.

Despite the low start up costs of a home business, it is not a free ride. You will definitely still need some additional capital as you go along. The good news is that you can start very small and, because of this, you need not approach those intimidating banks and financial institutions for small business loans. After all, it is common knowledge that not only is the process of applying for small business loans lengthy and complicated, but approval is also mostly withheld anyway.

What you should do is approach a merchant service, instead, and apply for credit card services. What has this got to do with your need for small business loans? A lot. Through the same merchant service from whom you get your credit card services, you can get cash advances that are just like small business loans, albeit with lower ceilings. That would not be a problem given your smaller capital needs.

But what are credit card services? Is this the same as applying for a credit card? No. It is actually the other end of the equation. Credit card services allow you to accept payments through credit or debit cards in person, through the internet, by phone and by fax. The merchant service provides you with terminal equipment for physically swiping the cards and the software and high speed IP solutions necessary for all kinds of transactions.

Having credit card services is actually necessary for practically any home business that is involved with sales. The ability to accept debit and credit card payments will boost your income. Having multiple payment options, such as person-to-person, online, phone and fax payments, will further attract more customers.

Most merchant services require only a short minimum period to determine your business’ capability to generate credit card and debit card sales. Your average monthly income through your credit card services will be the basis for the amount of cash advances you will be allowed to make. You will not be required to put up any collateral at all. It is like getting pre-approved small business loans. But there’s more good news. You need not scrimp and save to muster enough cash for loan repayment every month. All you need to do is attend to your business and its profitability. As your credit and debit card payments roll in every month, a certain percentage is automatically paid to the merchant service for your loan. You need not worry about it since you will always be able to afford your payments. Your customers will ensure that.

As your business grows and your sales multiply, you may qualify for bigger and bigger cash advances that you can use to further expand your home business. And you’re on your way to the big time.