First off, we wanted to announce the winners of the Amazon.com gift certificates. Thanks to everyone who submitted materials for the contest.

The winning ESL materials are:

by Elahrairah

by wolfpackgrrr

And the two runner up materials are:

by Justin!

by meganp

New Features

We've been busy adding features to help you find and share ESL materials more easily. Here are a few of the biggest changes:

• Download points: The biggest change is the new download points system. To encourage everyone to share great materials and help us build a fantastic resource for ESL teachers everywhere, we added a simple point system. Everyone starts with 5 points. It costs 1 point to download a material. And you get a point every time someone downloads a material you've contributed. See the about page for details.
• Much larger preview images: To make it easier to quickly figure out whether a material is something you want to download and check out.
• Favorite teachers: If you stumble upon a teacher whose materials you like, add the teacher to your favorites to more easily access their materials and find out when they share new ones.

Beta testers needed

We're hard at work on some really cool tools that will let you manage your class and school schedule as well as plan and organize your lessons online.

We're planning on releasing them in about a month and are looking for some beta testers to help us take the tools for a spin and provide feedback on how we can make them even better. If you're interested in helping out, please get in touch and let us know. Use "Beta testing" for the subject line of your message. We'd love to hear from you!