5 Tips On How To Use Freeed

Thank you for being a really important part of the ELT community at Freeed. Whether you're just starting off or are a pro at navigating through the platform, we want every teacher to have the best support to create, discover and share on Freeed. So we put together 5 tips on how to use Freeed, and hope you'll find it helpful.

1. Build your teacher's profile

The ELT community at Freeed is made up of thousands of individual teachers - each teacher with a unique set of skills, experiences and wisdom to share. We want to get to know each one of you and so do your fellow teachers. So, use your Freeed profile to tell your story. There are three ways to personalize your profile page at the moment.

1. Add a profile picture of yourself - It’s always wonderful to see the face of the person you’re interacting with in the community.
2. Add a background picture - This is your chance to give a glimpse of your personality, what inspires you or interests you the most.
3. Add a small bio - Below your name and title you’ll find a "Pen" button that allows you to write more about yourself. You can use it to describe your area of expertise, aspirations or aspects of English language teaching that excites you.

2. Share a lesson plan, article or work in progress

We know you have a wealth of knowledge and experiences to share. Moreover, you might also have plenty of lesson plan ideas you'd love to receive some feedback on. Here is your chance to get the community's support, as well as give back to the teachers who're helping you.

Use the 'Share an idea' green button at the very top of your page, to put your thoughts down in black and white. It doesn’t have to be a 600 word long article. It could be a video you made, a mind map or a reflection of your self-care routine as a teacher. You can save your idea as a draft and publish it when you're ready.  Remember you can continue to make editions to your post even after you publish it.

3. Save and organize the best material you find into folders

One of the wonderful things about Freeed is that the ideas shared will not disappear down a stream of content over time. You can search for a specific topic, and save the interesting and useful ideas you find using the 'save' bookmark. You'll find it on the upper right corner of the idea or at the bottom of the page once you click open an individual idea. The ideas can be saved directly into folders created by you. If you want to save first and categorize later, the ‘Miscellaneous’ folder will come to your help.

4. Recommend and comment on ideas

Compiling a teaching idea and publishing it takes some effort and courage. When you find a post published by a fellow teacher on Freeed that sparks an interest in you, let them know that. Like and recommend those posts, and offer constructive feedback. Explain what you found most useful and any tips on how to evolve the idea even further. Remember to share it on your favourite social media platform and groups, so teachers who're not yet part of the ELT community at Freeed, can still benefit from great material and resources shared here.

5. Use groups to discuss, share tips and collaborate

The biggest strength of the Freeed platform that you leverage, is the ability to collaborate with fellow teachers from around the world. Apart from finding new ideas and creating some of your own, you can also interact with others. Explore some of the groups available, and join and follow those that interest you the most. Go ahead and initiate a discussion, raise a question or ask for tips on a specific topic. You can filter the group comments by checking only the ‘Groups’ box shown in dark green on the main 'Feed' page. Check out the following groups ELT Lesson Jam, Tips For Setting Up An ELT Classroom Online, Freelance Teachers, and EAP Teachers.

How do you use Freeed in your day to day teaching? What features would you like us to introduce in the future? Let us know.