The First Ever Music Education Blog Carnival Music Education by Joel Wagner - July 1, 2008July 1, 201012 Welcome to the very first edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival! I have sorted through the submissions, weeded through them some, and now present to you some absolutely terrific articles here! We'll start out by sorting things out a little bit. The articles came in basically three categories: Practice, Practice, and more Practice, Teaching Tips, 21st Century Music Resources, and The Life of a Music Educator. Practice, Practice, and more Practice Without a doubt, the common denominator between all musicians is the practice experience. Love it or hate it, we all must do it if we are to get better. We need to do it even if we simply want to stay where we are. The two most entertaining
A Community Is Developing Here! Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - June 19, 2008July 1, 20104 If you haven't been keeping up with the comments on here, shame on you. Fortunately, I have been. Let me fill you in. You see, I have installed a new plugin that allows people to reply to comments that others make. The reply will include a link directly to the comment that was left. It's working out pretty well for me. I have noticed that as I reply to some of the comments, many of you have subscribed to receive other comments. And so my replies go to your inbox. And then sometimes people reply back. It's working out well. Recently, Stephanie posted a comment on my article No Child Left Behind: Doomed To Fail? In her comment, she suggested
The Music Education Blog Carnival Music Education by Joel Wagner - June 17, 2008July 1, 20104 On July 1st, 2008 the very first Music Education Blog Carnival was featured on So You Want To Teach? This is something that Joseph Pisano over at MusTech.Net and I had been discussing for a couple of months, and we finally got around to starting it up. What is it? Much like the Carnival of Education, the Music Education Blog Carnival features blog articles from around the blogosphere. These articles all focus on music education and topics that might remotely be interesting to music educators. What do I do? I want to encourage anyone who has an article somewhere in their blog's archives that might relate to submit it. It doesn't have to be a recent article even.
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
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 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
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
April 2007 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - April 2, 2008July 2, 20102 By the way, yesterday's article about quitting? Not true. April Fools. Thanks for all the wonderful comments. And I'm sure most of my regulars figured it out. But, as Waski pointed out: The things [I] describe do turn many good teachers off on teaching. With some of the silliness I’m presented with, I wonder at times why I bother putting up with it. Of course, most jobs have the silliness and ridiculous paperwork in one form or another. I love teaching. As Betty points out, teaching is so much a part of me. No matter if I leave the "education profession" or not, I will remain a teacher and will always find myself teaching in some capacity or another. I
The State of the Blog 03/30/08 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - March 30, 2008July 2, 20105 Wow, it has been over five months since I have done this kind of thing. I've written some informal blog updates from time to time, but nothing formalized like this. I have noticed that So You Want To Teach? seems to be entering a new phase of its life and want to ask you for some help. There's also a completely unrelated video at the end. But first, the latest blogging news from SYWTT. I revamped my Links page today and only put those blogs that had commented or emailed me back in January. Keep reading for info on how to get your link added there. We reached 100 subscribers for the first time on November 15th. We reached
Carnival of Education #163: Spring Break 2008 Edition Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - March 19, 2008July 2, 20107 I know some of you have already had spring break, and others haven't yet had it. Whatever the case, spring actually breaks tomorrow as the Vernal Equinox happens. In honor of the new season, you'll notice a handful of spring-like pictures. I hope you enjoy. I am spending my time off catching up on housework, doing my taxes, playing with my dogs, and doing some general maintenance with the blog. I surely don't want to waste my spring break, the time is too valuable! So instead, I decided to host the Carnival of Education. What was I thinking?!?!? Before I go, I wanted to mention that I have been reading a lot more blogs lately and I came across an
Whitespace General by Joel Wagner - March 15, 2008July 2, 20106 Have you noticed that People really don't like As I prepare my bands for the UIL Concert & Sight Reading contest that is now less than a month away, I have noticed that they seem to have a big problem with rests. For the uninitiated, rests in music represent silence. If I reduce the amount of noise that I make, my students will be more likely to hear the important things I tell them As I was talking with one of the classes on Friday about the incredible importance of the rests, I made a correlation about how we don't like rests because people really don't like silence. In the visual arts, typography, and graphic
An “Online Magazine Rack” Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - March 13, 2008July 2, 201011 I recently got an email from Guy Kawasaki, the noted Apple evangelist. He writes: Yesterday we announced a website that is a collection of "single-page aggregations" organized by topics such as Fashion, Celebrities, Sports, Gaming, Macintosh, Science, Green, and Autos. Here people can find odd news from dozens of sites, side-by-side, at a glance--think of it as an "online magazine rack." I hope that you will like it and will spread the word. I'm not exactly sure how So You Want To Teach? ended up in the list, but Alltop recently added an education category. Somehow, they have decided to include this blog in their list of 75 or so. Somehow somebody somewhere decided that my writing is
Entering the Twittersphere Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - March 8, 2008July 2, 20104 If you use Twitter, add me. I have been quickly glancing over blog posts about it lately, but never paid much attention. I see that more and more bloggers seem to be doing it. As I look at it, it seems much like Facebook and MySpace's status updates, so I'll go for it and see what happens. Some questions I have for my readers: Do you use Twitter? What do you do with it? Do you use it in the classroom? How?
Catching Up Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - March 8, 2008July 2, 20100 I have had quite a few sites link to me lately and I have not returned the favor. If you have linked to me at any point, please trust that I will be linking to you within the next three months. I'm telling you, this site will go crazy after the school year is over. I may be able to do some more catching up over spring break in a week or so. We'll see what happens. Joseph Pisano has posted the latest Official List Of The ME Bloggers. jd2718 added me to his March link updates. He also said I'm a great idea and very helpful. Awww, thanks! Wow, where has the time gone? I've been featured in a