Interview Tips General by Joel Wagner - May 25, 2008July 2, 20108 I have a friend who is interviewing for jobs this summer. What are some of your best tips for interviewing for a teaching job? How would interviews be different for elementary or secondary?
Expectations Comic General by Joel Wagner - May 25, 2008July 1, 20100 Scott Walker over at The English Teacher has been building up a little collection of comics he has drawn during staff development sessions (and a few others). I like his work, and enjoy reading his blog even when it has words and no pictures. I am featuring one of his comics a week here on So You Want To Teach? once a week (every Sunday sounds like a good plan) until I run out of them, or until he complains and asks me to stop sending people to his blog. I highly encourage you to go spend some time exploring his blog in the mean time! Leave him some encouraging comments also!
5 Things To Do While Taking A Break General by Joel Wagner - May 19, 2008July 1, 20103 There come times in life when we need to find something to do. There come times in life when we need a break. There come times in life when we need to cut back some things so we can find that perfect place. This is one of those times for me. With the end of the year approaching, I am so busy with school and concerts and trips and contests and planning and everything else that goes along with it. In addition, I am playing trumpet in a mariachi now, so that is starting to require individual practice time as well as rehearsals and gigs. Plus, I have been doing quite a bit of preaching in church lately too. So
9th Grade English Comic General by Joel Wagner - May 18, 2008July 1, 20101 Scott Walker over at The English Teacher has been building up a little collection of comics he has drawn during staff development sessions (and a few others). I like his work, and enjoy reading his blog even when it has words and no pictures. I am featuring one of his comics a week here on So You Want To Teach? once a week (every Sunday sounds like a good plan) until I run out of them, or until he complains and asks me to stop sending people to his blog. I highly encourage you to go spend some time exploring his blog in the mean time! Leave him some encouraging comments also!
The Blog Revolution On Hold General by Joel Wagner - May 12, 2008July 1, 20103 For reasons beyond my control, my blogging time will be extraordinarily limited this week (lots of concerts and exhaustion has begun to catch up on me). For these reasons, I will be putting the Blog Revolution Project on hold for this week. It will presumably resume again on Monday the 19th. Thanks for bearing with me. While you are waiting, I invite you to check out these outstanding blogs that have linked to my articles recently: Betty's Blog : Friends Resource for Bloggers Carnival - 12th Edition | My lucky number 13 Tag: I’m It! Guitar Building, The Daily Grind and a Lottery Wish at www.matthewktabor.com : Education and School Issues, News and Analysis A Little Personal « The
Lollipops Comic General by Joel Wagner - May 11, 2008July 1, 20102 Scott Walker over at The English Teacher has been building up a little collection of comics he has drawn during staff development sessions (and a few others). I like his work, and enjoy reading his blog even when it has words and no pictures. I am featuring one of his comics a week here on So You Want To Teach? once a week (every Sunday sounds like a good plan) until I run out of them, or until he complains and asks me to stop sending people to his blog. I highly encourage you to go spend some time exploring his blog in the mean time! Leave him some encouraging comments also!
How to Make the Most of Your Summer Vacation: 7 Simple Tips General by Heather Johnson - May 10, 2008July 2, 20107 This is a guest post contributed by Heather Johnson, who is an industry critic on the subject of university reviews. She invites your feedback at heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com. For those of you who are not on summer school duty this year, you are probably bursting at the seams in anticipation of your three-month break. Yes, you need to get through final exams first, but the end is nigh and you couldn't be happier. There were many altruistic reasons that you became a teacher. However, there is no shame in counting three more amongst that list: June, July and August. In order to get the most out of your highly anticipated vacation, heed the following tips for teachers: Decompress – It might
The Blog Revolution: Day 5 – Stay On Target! Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - May 9, 2008July 2, 20100 As we continue the Blog Revolution Project, we come to the final day of our focus on writing. Today's article will focus on keeping your blog focused. One of the main reasons I unsubscribe from a blog is that the content changes from day to day, and things aren't what I expected they would be. This comes when the blogger doesn't have a specified topic of concentration. Another advantage to focusing your blog is that you will convert more of the search engine referrals into regular readers. One of the coolest features of WordPress.com and WordPress.org software is the "Related Posts" type plugins or features that can be added. These add links at the end of the post to allow
The Blog Revolution: Day 4 – Develop Your Writing Voice Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - May 8, 2008July 2, 20101 As we continue the Blog Revolution Project, we come to day four of our focus on writing. Today's article will focus on crafting your own personal style, develop your writing voice. Newer bloggers may have a struggle with figuring out exactly what approach they want to take with their blog. Think of your writing voice as your brand name. Lea Schizas has written some on this topic at Writing with Passion and Developing Your Voice and Brand Some common questions may include: How do I want to attack each post? What kind of a tone should I assume? What kind of audience should I expect? These are all normal. Let's look at these three questions a little bit
The Blog Revolution: Day 3 – Keep ’em Coming Back Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - May 7, 2008July 2, 20102 As we continue the Blog Revolution Project, we come to day three of our focus on writing. Today will look at one of the best ways to keep readers coming back each day. It also happens to be one of the best ways to bring in traffic much further down the road. We'll focus on the art of the series. Just as we looked at how writing lists can be very popular on Monday, another great way to encourage traffic to return is to write lists, but extend them over a period of a few days or even a few weeks. Essentially writing lists of articles, or a series. Some of the pivotal points in this blog's history have revolved
The Blog Revolution: Day 2 – Keywords Are The Key Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - May 6, 2008July 2, 20102 As we continue the Blog Revolution Project, we come to day two of our focus on writing. Today will not really focus on one specific writing project, but an overall vision for your blog. Most traffic that comes to blogs comes as a result of search engines. The vast majority of searches happen on Google. If we can optimize our Google search result ranking, we can greatly increase the flow of traffic through our site. The more visitors your site gets, the higher in the results you can go. So how do we optimize our Google search ranking? Keywords are the key Everyone who comes to a site through a search engine types in keywords to get to your page.
The Blog Revolution: Day 1 – Add Truckloads of Great Content Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - May 5, 2008July 2, 20106 Today is the official beginning of the Blog Revolution Project. The plan is to transform your blog entirely from something that simply holds some information to a valuable resource for others. Each day, I will write a brief article, end with a mission. Some missions will be things you can accomplish in a matter of minutes, while others will take a while. Today's topic is probably the most important, and ultimately should be the mission of your blog every single time you write something. Add great content If you want people to visit your blog, they will need to have a reason to visit. If you want people to return to your blog, they will need to have a reason
Research Comic General by Joel Wagner - May 4, 2008July 2, 20101 Scott Walker over at The English Teacher has been building up a little collection of comics he has drawn during staff development sessions (and a few others). I like his work, and enjoy reading his blog even when it has words and no pictures. I am featuring one of his comics a week here on So You Want To Teach? once a week (every Sunday sounds like a good plan) until I run out of them, or until he complains and asks me to stop sending people to his blog. I highly encourage you to go spend some time exploring his blog in the mean time! Leave him some encouraging comments also!
The Blog Revolution Begins Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - May 1, 2008July 2, 201015 So what exactly is The Blog Revolution? We'll start with some background. I am a nerd. I am a huge nerd. I was co-president of the computer club in high school, went to the Texas State programming competition. I know a thing or two about computers. I have been reading blogs for the past year and a half. I've been reading blogs about blogging for the past year and three months. I began blogging about the same time. I began blogging regularly in June of 2007. As I got into the EduBlogosphere, I noticed a few things about a lot of smaller blogs. Many don't do a lot of the things that bloggers tend to recommend for growth Many