The Value of A Great Teacher General by Joel Wagner - March 3, 2011March 3, 20110 Back in January, NPR's Planet Money podcast ran an episode entitled How Much Is A Good Teacher Worth? On the episode, they argue that the difference between the best teachers and the worst teachers is huge in terms of earning potential of the students over the course of their careers. While some of the findings may be questionable as far as correlating grades and test scores with future success, as a general rule, I think the concepts do hold true and definitely worth a listen. On today's podcast, we consider a plan to dramatically grow the U.S. economy. The plan has nothing to do with banks, stimulus, tax cuts or the Federal Reserve. Instead, the plan focuses entirely on — public school
Super Powers General by Joel Wagner - August 18, 2010August 18, 20107 This totally has nothing to do with teaching, but it's an interesting question. If you had one super power, what would it be? How would you use it? If you're wondering where this question comes from, I was listening to the latest podcast of This American Life about Superpowers and it struck me as something interesting. I thought I'd see what my readers thought. Plus it's a nice change of pace from the beginning of school and inservices and all of that stuff. Go check out more about the podcast here. So again I ask; if you had one super power, what would it be? How would you use it? Discuss in the comments...
Words Inspiration by Joel Wagner - August 15, 2010August 15, 20100 I just listened to a recent podcast of Radiolab entitled Words. They included a bonus video along with the podcast. Powerful images and sounds here. The video is below. If you haven't listened to Radiolab, now is a great time to start. As I approach my ninth year of teaching, I have begun to wonder about the effectiveness of my classroom management plan. A brief summaryWhen I first started out, I allowed way too much stuff to go on. In the middle of my second year, I cracked down like nobody's business and began what I might term my "dictator days". Basically, I was a bully and made sure I was in charge of my classroom. I still wholeheartedly believe
7 Steps To Financial Freedom [VIDEO] Personal by Joel Wagner - November 2, 2009June 30, 20103 This is a video of Dave Ramsey presenting his 7 Baby Steps. Following the summary video are 10 more videos with more specific details. If you haven't heard Dave Ramsey before, you need to subscribe to his podcast. Now. The Baby Steps Intro Budgeting Baby Steps Debt Snowball The Emergency Fund Retirement Investment College Savings Pay Off Mortgage Be A Giver Build Wealth Live Like No One Else
20 Great Websites for Teachers Blogging & Technology by Karen Schweitzer - June 14, 2009June 30, 201010 This is a guest post by Karen Schweitzer who writes about online colleges for OnlineCollege.org. Teachers who are interested in implementing technology in the classroom and in their own personal lives can find plenty of free resources online. Here are 20 websites worth visiting today: Shmoop - Shmoop is a great new site that is becoming very popular among teachers. The beta site dedicates itself to making reading and writing more fun for both students and teachers. ClassMarker - Teachers can create professional looking online quizzes on this website. The quizzes can be taken and graded online. LectureTools.org - This site can be used to create student-friendly slide presentations and lectures. Other interesting features include the ability to check