Elfster Makes Holiday Gifting Fun and Easy!

Thanks for tuning in to the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast, where each week we talk about a free piece or two of technology that you can use in your classroom. I'm your host, Shanna Martin. I'm a middle school teacher, technology instructional coach from my district.

And I'm her producer and husband, Fuzz Martin. And I like podcasting because it helps boost my elf steam.

Wow. That's cute. Cute. So, this is 99. 5. 199.

5. 199. 5,

oh my goodness. 199. 5. For my new listeners, for my old listeners, every once in a while, there's like a little one that we just kind of throw something out at you, but it's not a full episode.

It's a mini elf episode.

It's a little mini elf episode.

Elf sized.

Cute. So with this, we are throwing out there something that's helpful for the holidays. It probably would have been helpful like two weeks ago, but we are throwing it out now because you can use it now. You can use it forever. And I'm going to point out too, that this site. It is meant for like educators and your co workers or your family or your friends. This is not something you'd actually use with your students, but would really save you some time during holiday season, whatever it may be. It also, as I was thinking about this site, it would be really helpful for other times during the year. Yeah. Like, we always. I shouldn't say always, let's be real. Often, or sometimes, we have gift exchanges at the holiday times. But really, as an educator, you know when gift time would be awesome? Like February. Yes. Or like. May 1st,

indeed,

or June 12th. So the site we're talking about today is called Elfster,

Elfster,

E L F S T E R. com. And it is meant for gift exchanges, but it takes all the work out of it. Like you don't have to do like the biggest thing I was thinking about was like, who's going to coordinate it? Who's going to pass out the names? Who's going to set the list? Who's going to do it? And this one, it's so cute. It's like, okay, what's your party going to be? What dates do you want to send it out? Who do you want to invite? What's your gift limit? And then each person makes a little wishlist and it's linked to a bunch of different sites, but like Amazon and sites like that. And. Through that then, you can like make a little list and then people can order things and then shop for each other and it's cute and it's easy and it even says like pick your image to set your party and it gives you the images. It does everything for you. So, I learned about this from you, because you've been using this at work.

We have. It makes, it makes gift exchange, like,

fun and

easy, and like you said, it, it takes a lot of the work that one person normally has to do to, to run it. Yeah, because

usually that's what you have to think about is, um, you know, like, you want to give to other people, and I am a, that's my thing, like, I love to share things with people, I love to gift people, but also, You also have to like work your job and do all of the other things as well. And as a teacher, you're always like doing all the things times a hundred and trying to help people. And

yeah,

just takes that time out to just stick to the fun part where it's just coordinated for you.

Exactly. And It's cool because everybody can go and shop for things added to the list. It doesn't have to be on, you know, necessarily on any of the sites. You can add, you can add stuff offsite as well. And then,

and you make your own wishlist. So like you build your own wishlist as a person and it's based on like, you can set the little budget for whatever you want it to be. Um, and. It's just cute. My top guy, my top little five things, I kind of jotted down like why this is super cute. And number one, it's super easy to sign up. I did it in like five minutes or less and it's just like click boxes and it sets it all up for you. It's free. It gets you into any holiday spirit. So I was thinking too, like they always do teacher appreciation week, which is awesome. And this makes an easy way for if you've a PTC

or a

PTO or a PTA, whatever your district has, this would be really easy for teachers to create their little classroom wish list for families to notify them or things like that, or like just different ways of that. You know, celebrating people in a fun, easy way without having to like, do that extra step. I don't know. I just think about like that. Anyway, it makes it easy. Um, there's other ways to use it. I was thinking outside the box, like December, all the things always happen, but why couldn't you do like a little fun Elfster? In October and do a booster.

There you go. A booster. A booster.

See?

Yep. Gotcha.

Uh, so just like different ways to use it. And it only takes a few steps for plant. Like there's not one person that has to do all the work, which is kind of what takes away from it sometimes is one person's like wants to do it and they want to support everybody, but also like, Oh my gosh, I've got this giant to do list of all my own stuff as well. So, it makes it really easy.

Indeed, and also, it's cool because when somebody that is on your gift list, like your, your, let's say this, uh, your person, like that you have to buy for if it's a Secret Santa setup. If they add stuff to the list, you get an email saying, you know, like Shanna added, uh, two new items to her wishlist.

Skinny fine point sharpies and coffee.

There you go. Uh, and um, and so it, it makes it so easy to buy for them and also for them to say what they need and they can add new things up to the moment you buy it, right? I mean, they can edit afterwards, but like it's, it's pretty cool.

It's just like content.

And then they make their money because they'll use a little affiliate code when you buy on Amazon and things like that. You It doesn't add to your price at all, but that's how Elfster gets paid is by

Like through ads kind of thing. So it's free. Like the whole coordination of everything is free. And I will point out it's called like an exchange. So like you used it for Secret Santa. But you could use it like it is labeled for any It's called Elfster, but it also is not like Christmas themed or anything like that. You can use it for plenty of other things. It's just called an exchange. You can label your exchange however you want to, for a party, for a social event. For a white elephant for, you know, like whatever you want it to be. So it's labeled that way. So you just create a little account, Elfster. com, and then you get a little dashboard, like you walk through the first steps to kind of set up your first one. And I put a couple of test ones together to see how it all worked out. And it's very simple. You can choose to email people the link directly from the site, or you can choose to invite them. So if you were to create an event digitally, or you wanted to do something in like Canva, you know, make it all cute and then put the link in there to the gift exchange, it also allows people to sign up that way. You create a little wishlist and then. It also gives you shortcuts, so once you have it set up, you have a little dashboard, you can put your birthday in there, uh, your mailing address can go in, if it's one of those, so that's cool too, you don't have to do it in person, so if you're mailing things. I've seen cool book exchanges before, where you're part of like, um, like a book club kind of deal and you, you gift each other books. And so you could mail them directly to people, uh, they have you add your little wishlist and then you have little friends and then you also can have, um, shortcuts to gifts, gifts you gave, gifts you received. You have like a little family manager in there. You can have friends, birthdays, activities. So you can keep track of all of that stuff on your little dashboard too. And they have a little list of friends you can add in there. If you want to gift your friends things like. West Bend, Kewaskum, Slinger, West Bend, Kewaskum, Slinger, West Bend, Kewaskum, Slinger, West Just trying to save teachers time. This is not a tech tool that you'd necessarily use in your classroom, but you definitely could use it with your colleagues, or with your family, or with your friends, and it's just kind of fun. Yeah, and we know teachers need

things because you don't have enough things in your classrooms and such. Yeah, supplies. The supplies you need, and the, you know. The cool LED

lights that you want, but you don't want to spend the extra twenty bucks.

Or even like, you know, boxes of pencils and Kleenex. fuzz. cc

Yes, all the Kleenex, the Clorox wipes. Yeah, exactly, exactly. All the germified things, you know, we gotta like holiday and cold season.

Exactly.

So anyway, we wanted to share Elfster. It's cute. It's easy. It's free. And it's just a fun tool to have in the back of your pocket to kind of help you out and, you know, share things with people and also save you some time.

Indubitably.

So with that Our next episode will be episode 200 and it will be coming up the beginning of January. So that one should be a fun one to look forward to. It's going to be unique and special.

All

right. Well, thanks for tuning in. We are going to be talking again in 2025, which is crazy because it's going to be 2025.

Like, Two weeks away from 2025.

That's insane. Anyway, this has been the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast. If you ever have any questions, you can find me on Blue Sky, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, at SmartinWI or on, you know, all those other fun social media platforms. And if you want to get more information on the links to the technology discussed on this episode, you can visit smartandwi. com. If you'd like to support the show, please consider buying me a coffee or two. Visit buymeacoffee. com slash smartandwi or visit smartandwi. com and click on that cute little purple coffee cup. Your donations help keep the show going. You are very much appreciated. Thanks for listening. Go educate and innovate.

The ideas and opinions expressed on this podcast and the smartinwi website are those of the author, Shanna Martin, and not of her employer. Prior to using any of the technologies discussed on this podcast, please consult with your employer regulations. This podcast offers no guarantee that these tools will work for you as we've described, but we sure hope they do. And we'll talk to you next year on the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast.