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
New Horizons Looming…Feedback Requested Personal by Joel Wagner - January 28, 2008July 2, 20106 I will begin setting up and writing in a Music Education blog soon. The idea was to include Music Education content on this blog, but I think that might alienate a handful of the readers and that is the last thing I want to do. So when it gets up and running, I will link to there from here and link from here to there. It's exciting! When that happens, the posting frequency over here may dip a little bit, but I will continue to add great content regularly. I have noticed a change in my posting habits lately as well. It seems that I have begun to find myself on a mission to create more edubloggers. I love what
So You Want To Teach 2008 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - December 31, 2007July 2, 20100 I have been working for about a month now on redesigning So You Want To Teach? I want to make it even more reader friendly. I'm excited about the changes that will be coming this week. In fact, the redesigned site has now made its debut! If you're reading in a RSS reader, come check it out. Let me know what you think. Wow, look at the colors! I have changed the color scheme and the heading graphic a little bit. The goal is to add some more color and make the site more inviting and more reminiscent of actually teaching children. Why is there a question mark next to my comment? Because you haven't set up a Gravatar! Go
The Loneliest Articles of 2007 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - December 23, 2007July 2, 20100 In the Christmas break, I am looking back at this blog's growth and development. I began writing a little bit for the blog in February, but didn't officially launch it for real until June. Since that time, growth has been pretty consistent. I now seem to regularly get a small number of comments for every article I write, with some eliciting more than others. As I look through the blog's archive, it strikes me that there are some articles that have either been buried deep in the archives, or for whatever reason, have gone unnoticed by my readers. So I am giving all of those articles a chance to redeem themselves, come up to the light of day. Here is
10 Tips To Stay Motivated And Love Teaching Inspiration by Jane Little - December 3, 2007June 30, 20105 This is a guest post by Jane Little of My Many Colored Crayons. Jane teaches third grade in Los Angeles, CA. I teach in a school that has more than it’s share of challenges. Low morale is just one of them. About a year ago I started blogging with this post. It was a raw and honest account of a low point in my teaching career. The problems some of my students faced were heartbreaking to say the least.I had to chuckle when Joel said, "As I read your stuff, I just imagine you being someone who wakes up each morning with a smile on your face. I'd like to see how that plays out in reality a little bit
Less Stress: Declutter Your House Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - October 11, 2007July 5, 20101 Well, this is one of my weakest areas. I have my work environment very organized and neat, but my home is not. Part of my problem is that I know what to do and how to do it, I just don't seem to find the energy after working 11-16 hour days to come home and do it. And in the marching season, many of my weekends are taken up traveling out of town to football games and/or marching competitions. During the rest of the school year, I am generally pretty good about it, but still not perfect. Why is a clean home important? Again, the same as a clean desk provides peace of mind, so does a clean home. The goal is to
Less Stress: Declutter Your Desk Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - October 8, 2007July 5, 20104 I have written about having a clear desk before in passing, but here is a little bit about why to do it as well as how to do it. This is a real picture of my half of the office at work. Imagine coming to work each morning and having a nice, calm, clear workspace. Do you think it would help jump start your work day? I know for me, I am able to get to work, sit down in my (clearly uncomfortable) chair, and relax. We've all read the sign atop a messy desk: "A Clean Desk Is The Sign of a Diseased Mind." That is an excuse given by people who don't want to bother with coming up
Personal Update Personal by Joel Wagner - September 23, 2007July 5, 20102 No weekend wrapup last week. No weekend wrapup this week either. I'm sorry. I am being overwhelmed by work commitments as well as personal commitments. On a personal note, I preached in church last Wednesday and will preach again this Wednesday. That takes a lot of focus and study time, which really seems to make this blog suffer a bit. In addition, there are just a whole lot of things on my plate right now in the personal life. I'm doing fine, but I just need to take a little bit of time off from posting on here. Don't worry, much more good stuff will be coming back again in November and beyond. This is definitely turning out to be
The State of the Blog: 08/01/07 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - August 1, 2007July 5, 201011 I took out nearly every advertisement from the site. The exception are links to books on Amazon, and a couple of Text Link Ads. Why? They're simply not making money and they cause screen clutter. So away they go. I additionally got rid of the SnapPreview display that had been popping up every time a user hovered the mouse over an external link. It's extra CPU time and can be annoying quickly. It's great to know how to do that kind of stuff, but brilliance is shown by knowing how to do something and choosing to not do it! Blogging guru Lorelle also left me a comment advising me against it and I trust she knows a little bit about
How To Polish Your Resume To Rack Up Job Interviews General by Joel Wagner - July 16, 2007June 19, 20160 Polishing The Resume So you have just graduated from college and ready to enter the teaching field. Or maybe you are in the midst of your final days, weeks, or months of college education and want to know where to start. Or maybe you are simply looking for greener pastures. The deal is, nobody gets a job unless they first have a job interview. That's pretty obvious, right? So how do you get a job interview? There are a few ways, but the focus for today will be getting out the old resume and preparing to be interview bait. Some sticking points to remember are that everybody else applying for the job has a resume also. Yours has to jump out of
Habit 4: Personal Habits Personal by Joel Wagner - July 12, 2007July 5, 20109 This is the fourth in a series of articles entitled 5 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers. What are some of the personal habits that are important to me? Personal Procedures What are some of the personal habits that are important to me? As I'm sitting here in the middle of the summer writing this, I realize that some of my structure has left my life. I stay up too late, and I wake up too late. I take longer than normal getting ready in the morning, and I sit and read a lot more now than I do during the school year. But disregarding that, here are some of the things that are important to me to keep my sanity
Invalid Reasons Teachers Quit Why Teachers Quit by Joel Wagner - July 7, 2007July 5, 201020 For another look at quitting teaching, see my article 9 Reasons To Quit Teaching (And 10 Reasons To Stick). One of the most popular search queries that has sent people to my blog lately has been "why do teachers quit?" Doing a quick search of my site tells me that I have a number of articles that reference this idea, but have not yet explored exactly why it is that many teachers choose to quit teaching. This weekend, I will write two articles on that very topic. Today, we'll consider the question Why Do Teachers Quit? and explore some invalid reasons they do so. Tomorrow, we will consider the same question and explore some of the valid reasons for quitting.
The Best Time To Be A Teacher? General by Joel Wagner - July 1, 2007July 5, 20105 Check out the video at the end of this post! It'll make you feel better. I was reading some over at TeacherLingo.com and came across a post by Howard. In it, he writes: Here's what I've learned in the last 16 years... Teaching is only as enjoyable as the principal you work for. Good principals are the exception, not the norm. The best time to be a teacher is June through August. Whereas I only have five years of experience, when I read this, I am sad. Perhaps these comments will be helpful. If you agree or even if you disagree, then leave some comments and let's start a dialogue about these issues. I don't think that Howard is the only
Questions That Will Save Your Career General by Joel Wagner - June 13, 2007August 6, 20171 This article features links to other articles in a series called "Questions That Will Save Your Career." These are all considerations that I have made as a teacher that helped me stick to it and survive in the business when I was first starting out. As I have mentioned before, my priorities as a first year teacher were a little bit off. It wasn't until the end of my second year before I began to really "get it." I still don't get it, but I have begun to. What I learned in the last two and a half months of that second school year was that I needed to ask questions. But not just any questions. Over time, I have learned that a lot of