Contact Unique Teaching Resources
and Frequently Asked Questions

You will find a Contact Me Form at the bottom of this page. If you have a question, concern, or comment, please fill out this form in order to contact me.

My "hours of operation" are from 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. (eastern standard time), Monday - Friday. During these five days of the week, I check my e-mail at least three times a day.

I tend to be a bit of a computer geek and workaholic. Consequently, I am often working in the evenings and on the weekends, so you may also receive a prompt reply from me during those hours and weekend days as well.

Frequently
Asked Questions:

Below you will find a list of the questions that I am most frequently asked by the teachers who write to me using my Contact Me Form, which is found on the bottom page.

I have tried to write detailed and informative answers to these questions so that if you have the same question, hopefully, you will find the answer to your question on this page.

Before you write me, I would appreciate it if you would scan through the titles of the questions below to see if I have already answered the question that you plan to write me about. If you write me regarding a question that is already posted and answered on this page, I will likely copy and paste this exact same response in the letter that I write to you.

1. Recommending a
Book to Heidi

If you are contacting me to recommend a novel, or a read aloud book, that you would like to see me develop resources for, I will add your book recommendation to my "to do list." If I have not read the book, I will also add this book to my "books to purchase list."

Depending on my workload at the time, I may not have the time to write you back and personally thank you for recommending a book to me. I want you to know that I appreciate that you took the time to write and tell me about a book that you have enjoyed reading with your own students.

This information is very important to me and it helps me to decide which new projects I should plan to work on during the upcoming months.

2. Why Hasn't My Order
Arrived In the Mail?

About five times each month, I have teachers who write me and they are wondering why it is taking SO LONG for the resources that they ordered to arrive in their mailbox.

I do not mail any of the materials on Unique Teaching Resources through the U.S. Postal Services.

Instead, all resources are sent to teachers through download links. About 20 minutes after your purchase has been confirmed by Paypal, Paypal will send you a confirmation e-mail. This confirmation e-mail contains the links that you will use to download your resources immediately.

Instead of waiting a week for a resource to arrive through the slow mail system, you are able to download, save, and print your resource the same day that you purchased it!

On every page of my website, if you look above the "Add to Cart" button for each resource, you will find that the following information has been provided:

I have written this message above each resource's ADD TO CART button to remind teachers that the resources on my website are not mailed to them.

Instead, teachers are sent a confirmation e-mail from Paypal and this e-mail contains the download links in it.

3. How and When Do I Get
the Resources That I Purchased?

About 20 minutes after your purchase has been processed and confirmed by Paypal, Paypal will automatically send you a confirmation e-mail. Please be patient and wait for at least 20 minutes before contacting me regarding your download links. Sometimes this confirmation e-mail is sent 5 minutes after your purchase, and occasionally it takes longer than 20 minutes. This is an automated response from Paypal, and I am not involved in this process.

Your confirmation e-mail will be sent to the address that you used at the time of your purchase. If you used your work, personal, family member's, or the e-mail address associated with your Paypal account, your confirmation e-mail will be sent to that address. Please check for your e-mail in these accounts.

When you receive your confirmation e-mail from Paypal, it will contain the name of the resource(s) that you purchased. Directly underneath the product's name, you will find a link to click on in order to download the resource.

I highly recommend that when you download your resource that you do not just choose to open and print the resource that you purchased. Instead, save the resource to your computer's hard drive. Be careful that you see which area (folder) of your computer that you have saved this file to, so that it is easy for you to find this resource on your computer at a future date.

By saving the resource to your computer's hard drive, you will have a copy of the resource for the rest of your teaching career. I also recommend that you make a back-up copy of the resource on a disc or zip drive, as computers have been known to crash.

4. My Download Links Have Expired!

When you make a purchase on Unique Teaching Resources, about 20 minutes after your purchase, you will receive a confirmation e-mail from Paypal that contains your download links in it.

The download links in this confirmation e-mail from Paypal will only be active and available for approximately 36 hours, so it is very important that you download your resources as soon as possible. I do not set up this time frame, it is controlled by Paypal.

If the time frame on your download links has expired, open up your confirmation e-mail that you previously received and click on the download link. Clicking on this link will automatically take you to a new page on Paypal that will contain the following information and a short form for your to fill in:

Simply write me a short note inside the form's text box and click the button that says "Request Additional Downloads." Paypal will then automatically send me an e-mail with your request and I will reply to it as soon as I check my e-mail.

I will always confirm your request for additional downloads. If you use the steps above, it takes me about one minute to respond to your request and Paypal will send the new download links to you promptly.

If you contact me directly by writing me a letter, or using my Contact Me form, I will have to take the time to look up your purchase order on-line through Paypal. If you have not provided me with specific details regarding your order, I often can not locate your order using just your e-mail address. Then, I have to write you back and ask for more information regarding your order. This is a time consuming process for both of us. If you use the steps that I have outlined above, you will receive your new download links ASAP and this will save us both a lot of time.

I highly recommend that when you receive your download links, that you do not choose to just open and print the resources. Instead, choose to save the resources to your computer's hard drive. Be careful that you see which area (folder) of your computer that you have saved these files to, so that it is easy for you to find these resources on your computer at a future date.

By saving the resources to your computer's hard drive, you will have a copy of the resources for the rest of your teaching career. I also recommend that you make a back-up copy of the resources on a disc or zip drive, as computers have been known to crash.

5. Help, I Can't
Download My Resources!

First, look in your e-mail box to see if you received your confirmation e-mail from Paypal. It usually takes around 20 minutes for Paypal to send you this letter.

Your confirmation e-mail will be sent to the address that you used at the time of your purchase. If you used your work, personal, a family member's, or the e-mail address associated with your Paypal account, your confirmation e-mail will be sent to that address. Please check for your e-mail in these accounts.

Occasionally, this confirmation e-mail will arrive in a teacher's spam/junk mailbox and the teacher will not see the letter, so please check here also. Please be patient and wait for at least 20 minutes before contacting me regarding your download links.

Sometimes, teachers are not aware that they will be receiving this confirmation e-mail, and that the confirmation e-mail is important because it contains their download links in it. Some teachers do not open the e-mail (or they delete it) because they do not recognize the address that it was sent from.

Second, once you have located and opened your confirmation e-mail, you should find the name of the product that you purchased. Directly underneath the product's name, you will find the download link for that resource.

Click on this link and follow the prompts to save the resource to your computer's hard drive. If you choose to only open the file, you will not have access to that resource at a later time.

Third, once the resource is saved on your computer, locate where you saved this resource on your computer. This resources is a zipped file and you will need to unzip it.

Most computers these days have zip software installed on them and your file should automatically unzip when you double click on the icon for that resource. If the file does not unzip automatically, "right mouse click" on the icon, and that will often give you the option to unzip the resource.

Fourth, now that the resource is unzipped, you will see a folder with the resource's name. Click on the folder's icon to open the folder.

Inside the folder, you will see the names of the different PDF files included for that particular teaching resource.

All of the resources on my website are formatted as PDF files (except for Powerpoint Presentations), so you will need PDF software installed on your computer. Now a days, almost every computer has PDF software installed on it already.

If you are still having difficulty opening your resources, it is likely because you are having problems either unzipping the file or opening the PDF file. It is likely that the computer that you are using does not have a zip/unzip program and/or PDF software installed on it.

At this point, you are likely very frustrated. Since I can not be there in person to help you figure out the software problems on your computer, I would suggest that you try opening these same files on a friend's, family member's, or school computer.

The new computer will most likely have different software installed on it (or not installed on it). The majority of teachers who write me that have encountered a problem opening their resources on one computer, are then successful when they try opening the exact same resources using a different computer.

For example, I've had teachers who have written me that had problems using their home desktop computer to open a resource. Five minutes later, they tried to open the same resource on their own laptop, and they were successful. Computers can be frustrating pieces of equipment at times. If you are successful at opening the resources on a second computer, now you know that you likely need to update either your zip or PDF software on your own computer.

If you are trying to open a resource, and you get an error message, or a page opens and the writing looks like it is Egyptian hieroglyphics instead of English, it is because your computer is trying to open this PDF file using the wrong program.

Do not use Microsoft Word to open any of the PDF files that your receive from Unique Teaching Resources. If you attempt this, you will get an error statement, or the document will not be able to be read.

If your computer opens the resource file using the wrong program, by default it will keep trying to open the resource using this wrong program until you select the correct program yourself.

If you are having problems downloading or opening a resource on your school computer, please be aware that often the person in charge of the school's computer network places blocks on the entire computer system.

These blocks by the school's computer network administrator could be causing the problems that you are encountering. Ask your school's computer network administrator if he/she has placed blocks on allowing teachers to download files onto the school's computer system.

Many teachers who have difficulty opening or downloading a resource on their school's computer, find that the resource easily opens on their home computer.

6. How Do I Make a Purchase
On Unique Teaching Resources?

When you find a resource that you want to purchase, you should click on the "add to cart" button for that resource. This will take you to your "shopping cart" page, where you will see this product listed and the price for the product.

You can buy more than one product at a time, so after this, you could continue shopping and add more items to your shopping cart. I do not advise this though for your first purchase.

For your first purchase, I suggest that you just purchase one item. When I am purchasing something from a website that I am not familiar with, I usually just buy one product to "test" how the whole website works. Then, once you know that everything works well and you are pleased with the product, please return again! I have had teachers who have bought over 25 resources at one time on Unique Teaching Resources.

After you have placed the one item in your shopping cart, click on the button to proceed to check out. At this point, you will have two options: pay using your credit card or pay using your Paypal account (if you already have a Paypal account set up).

If you pay using a credit card, please be very careful when you enter your e-mail address, as this is where the download links for the resource will be sent.

If you have a Paypal account established and use this payment method, the download links for the resource will be sent to the e-mail address that you have already set up with Paypal.

Whichever method you choose (credit card or Paypal), Paypal securely completes this transaction and I am not provided with any of your credit card details by Paypal. The only information that Paypal sends me is the teacher's e-mail address along with the name of product(s) that the teacher purchased.

It will take about 20 minutes for Paypal to process your purchase. After this, Paypal will send you a confirmation e-mail. In this confirmation e-mail, you will see the name of the resource that you purchased, and directly underneath the resource's name, you will see the link to click on to download this resource to your computer.

7. Is the Method of Payment Safe
On Unique Teaching Resources?

All of the purchases on Unique Teaching Resources are processed by Paypal, which is one of the most widely used companies to process credit card payments on the Internet.

After you have placed an item in your shopping cart and you click on the button to proceed to check out, you are likely not aware of it, but you have left my website and are now on Paypal's secure website.

Paypal securely completes the rest of your transaction and I am not provided with any of your credit card details by Paypal. The only information that Paypal sends me is the your e-mail address along with the name of product(s) that you purchased.

Paypal will provide you with two payment options. You can make your payment using your credit card, or you can pay using your Paypal account (if you already have a Paypal account set up).

If you pay using a credit card, please be very careful when you enter your e-mail address, as this is where the download links for the resource are sent.

If you have a Paypal account established and use this payment method, the download links for the resource will be sent to the e-mail address that you have already set up with Paypal.

If you have problems with your credit card being declined by Paypal, I am not able to help you with this step, and you should contact Paypal directly.

8. I do not live in the United States.
Can I purchase items on Unique Teaching Resources?

All of the resources on my website are sent as download links and are not mailed by surface mail.

The resources that you purchase will be made available to you via the download links that will be sent to from Paypal.

In order to make a purchase, you will need to have a credit card or a Paypal account.

For more information on how to make your first purchase, please see the information posted under Question #6 above.

9. Do you accept school purchase orders,
personal checks, or customized orders?

I apologize, but at this time I am not able to accept school purchase orders, personal checks, or make personalized discs of materials and mail them to teachers.

10. Making Copies of
Materials Purchased on
Unique Teaching Resources

It does not matter if you have one student, or 25 students, you only need to buy one copy of a resource on my website.

For example, if you buy one copy of a spelling award certificate, you can make 25 copies (either color or black and white) of the spelling award and present it to all of your students. You can use the same award for the following school years as well.

Please feel free to make as many copies of a resource as you need for your own personal use and your students use.

I encourage you to make back up copies of the resource by saving the resource on a disc or zip drive. Please feel free to make a copy of the resource to take to school to use with your own students.

Basically, print as many copies as you need for your own students, and for as many years as you are teaching. Save the resource using as many different means of technology as you need for yourself.

All that I ask is that you respect my copyright policy and that you do not share the printed, or digital, copies of the resources that you purchased on my website with other teachers.

11. Teaching Experience:

As a fellow teacher, I love to help my colleagues. If you write me with a question related to your curriculum, I will do my best to share what has worked well for me with my own students.

When I write back and respond to you, it will be in an informal matter, as if I was having a cup of coffee with you. I do not profess to be an expert in any area of education, and my reply should be viewed as sharing my own teaching experiences and opinions with a friend.

I have over 22 years of teaching experience in the areas of elementary and special education. There are many fields in education in which I do not have any teaching experience. The following are areas in education in which I do not have experience, so if you write me about these topics, I am sorry, but I will not be able to provide you with any helpful information.

• Early Childhood
• High School
• Adult Education
• Home Schooling

12. Sharing Your Experiences and Opinions:

Using Materials From Unique Teaching Resources
With Your Own Students

I love to receive letters from teachers that describe how they have used a resource from my website with their own students.

Since September 2010, I have been working from home on my website and not teaching in a classroom. Although I enjoy working on my website and designing new resources, there are days when it can get just a wee bit lonely and I miss being able to go into the teachers' lounge for a coffee break and talk with my friends.

When I receive a letter from a teacher describing how she has successfully used a resource from my website with her students, it feels like I am once again in the teachers' lounge having a cup of coffee with a colleague.

There are times when I feel a bit overwhelmed at my decision to start an educational website when there are already so many wonderful teaching websites on the Internet. When I receive a positive comment from a fellow teacher using my Contact Me form, it helps to boost my self-confidence and remind me that maybe my little ole website is providing a valuable service to some of the teachers and students who live in various countries around the world.

Filling in the e-mail address box is optional, but you will need to provide this information if you want me to reply to your question or concern.

Please check that you have typed your complete e-mail address correctly. Occasionally, I receive letters from teachers and when I write the teacher back, the letter is returned to me because the e-mail address does not exist.

1. The name of the person who ordered this resource. I have had teachers who have used their spouse's or parent's credit card and the order is not in the teacher's name. This makes the order very difficult for me to locate.


2. The e-mail address that you used for this purchase. Sometimes teachers use their work or spouse's e-mail address to buy the resource, and they contact me using their personal e-mail address. This makes it hard to locate their order.


3. The names of all of the resources that you ordered. If you supply me with this information, I do not have to take the extra time to log onto my Paypal account and look up this information. By knowing the types of resources that you purchased (PDF or a powerpoint), it helps me to figure out what may be causing your problem.


4. The date that you placed this order. If you are writing me about a resource that you purchased 7 days ago, it is very hard for me to locate your order if I am assuming your purchase was made today.


5. The type problem that you are having. Examples: download link not sent, download link not working, saved the resource but it won't open, etc.


6. Finally, check that you have typed your e-mail address correctly in this form. The address that you type in the form below will be the address that I use to respond to you with. Please check to make sure that you have not made any typing mistakes by accident.

My goal is to make sure that every teacher who purchases a product on Unique Teaching Resources is pleased with his/her purchase. I will do everything that I can to help you with your problem so that it is solved, and I understand how frustrating computers can be at times.

I sold the first resource on my website on October 25, 2009. Since that date, a lot of teachers have contacted me because they encountered problems downloading or opening their resources.

Even if it has taken a few e-mails back and forth, I have always been able to help the teachers who have written me about a problem. Since the time of my first sale, I have only had two teachers who have requested a refund. One was for a 0.50 certificate and the other was for a teacher who purchased the same resource two times by accident.

Do you have a comment or question? Please note that all fields followed by an asterisk must be filled in. First Name* First Name* E-mail Address* E-mail Address* Country* Country* Country United States Canada ---------------- Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory British Virgin Islands Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic East Timor Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard and McDonald Islands Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Ivory Coast Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribadi North Korea South Korea Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Federated States of Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Monserrat Morocco Montenegro Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Island Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Reunion Romania Russia Rwanda S. Georgia and S. Sandwich Isls. Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa Spain Sri Lanka St. Helena St. Pierre and Miquelon Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu U.S. Minor Outlying Islands Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam US VIrgin Islands Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Yugoslavia (former) Zaire Zambia Zimbabwe Grade and/or Subject(s) That You Teach Comments or Questions:* Comments or Questions:* Please enter the word that you see below.