Top Notch Teaching has Launched

The day has finally arrived, the launch of my new blog.  I have been so excited!  My goal today was to try and create as much ‘buzz’ as possible.  So I have been diligently hitting all of my networks to encourage people to come on over and take a look.  If you haven’t done so yet, then please come over to Top Notch Teaching and let me know what you think!

I must say that I don’t think I would have been able to get this all up and running, if it wasn’t for the support and encouragement of my family, particularly Stevie and my Mum.  I know that Stephen has probably been hoping for this day for a while, so that I’ll stop asking him questions :-D.

I’ve also been enrolled in a course by a guy called CorbettBarr.  I read his blog ‘Think Traffic’ and get lots of good ideas about blogging.  Earlier this year, he launched a new course called How to Start a Blog That Matters.  I know that if I hadn’t enrolled in this course, I probably would never have gotten this far.  If anyone out there is thinking about starting up a blog, I would highly recommend this resource.  He provides weekly lessons, with easy to follow checklists to help keep you on track.  I was pretty chuffed today when I realised he tweeted about my launch!!!

So some more stats for you, I now have 87 followers on Twitter and 17 people like my Facebook page.  I also have 2 people subscribed to my updates.   I’m happy with these numbers and am interested to see how I progress over the coming weeks.

Quick trip to Melbourne

Well I’m sitting in my hotel room writing this blog post.  I’m in Melbourne staying at the Rendezvous Hotel.  I’ve been flown here by my work for a meeting and have planned to stay for an extra day to do some shopping and catch up with my Grandma.

But, low and behold, I have caught a dreaded cold.  I woke up this morning with the body aches and my ears are still all blocked from the flight in.  I managed to do a little shopping this afternoon, but just found it too exhausting so now I’m resting in my room.

Things are motoring along nicely with my new blog.  It’s not long now until launch day and I’m working hard trying to get everything done that I wanted to have done before this day.

I’ve been hitting the social network scene.  I’m actually finding Twitter really addictive and am being acquainted with many new ideas and resources that I was unaware of.  I’ve now connected with quite a few people and have over 50 people following me.  I really need to work on getting my Facebook page going a bit more now.

I’ve been thinking back to last year when I first started this blog and to where I am now.  I’m pretty happy with how things are progressing and I feel like I’m doing what I really want to be doing.  I had a friend say to me the other day, “you must be following your passion because you’re spending so much time on your blog and not getting paid!” 

All of my spare time is going in to developing Top NotchTeaching.  It’s the first thing I think about in the morning, and it’s the last thing I think about in the evening.  I wonder if getting so into this will last?

Top Notch Teaching begins to take shape

Well it’s been a busy couple of weeks, not only am I super busy at work and with spending time with Emily and Stephen, but I’m also madly trying to set up my new blog.  I have so much to do and so little time!

But instead of complaining ;-P I thought I would share with you some of the things I’ve been working on in the past couple of weeks.

I have been learning how to use Paint Shop Pro (this is similar to Photoshop), which has been a pretty steep learning curve.  I didn’t really know too much about layers and vectors and rasters, but have slowly bumbled my way through. 

I have wanted to know how to use a product such as this to help with my drawings.  All of the lessons, posters and worksheets I design as part of Top Notch Teaching (TnT) I want to add my own graphics, rather than using Clipart or mass produced graphics.  So I have been playing around with a hand drawn picture, and then adding the colour etc in Paint Shop Pro (PSP).  I’m not really having too much luck yet though!

I have however used PSP to make a very simple banner for my new blog (see below).  It’s nothing flash, but I thought I would go for the clean, simple look.  I also designed a welcome landing page for my TnT Facebook account.  Again, it’s quite basic but gives people an idea as to what I’m all about. 

Banner

Facebook Landing Page

So if you’re interested in education and/or teaching then please follow me J.  You can follow TnT on Facebook here and Twitter here.  I’m also more than happy if you want to share these links with any other people you think may be interested.

It’s only 29 days until TnT launches.  I have a countdown clock at the web address: http://topnotchteaching.com, with links to my Twitter and Facebook accounts.  However, you may be wondering; ‘why on earth would I be interested in following Top Notch Teaching’?  Well.....

Because Top-Notch Teaching will provide you with practical, time saving tips and resources so that you feel inspired, empowered and willing to build a richer learning environment, thus making a better classroom.  

Because Top Notch Teaching will:

• Write about being a reflective teacher;
• Write about the importance of developing planning skills;
• Share lesson ideas and lesson plans;
• Delve into the various teaching strategies that teachers use and how these can be practically implemented in the classroom; and
• Explore management skills.

If you have any other ideas about what you think would be good to include, please feel free to share.

If you want to see what my goals are for the next fortnight, then check out my Accountability Journal.

Photo Shoot

I decided that as I will now have an online presence through my blog etc, I needed to also have a better picture of myself.  I looked through all of my photos and couldn’t quite find what I was after.  So I arranged a bit of a photo shoot with my sis Shells over the weekend.

This was pretty good fun, and little Em also had a ball.  She loves getting her picture taken and as I posed for shots she did as well.  So below I have the best couple of pics Shells got of me that I will use and also some of Em, cause I think they’re sooo cute J.

This one is okay, but looks a bit formal!



I like this one better, looks a little less formal with the greenery! Although Stephen thinks I've got a cheesy grin :-)



Maybe not...



She loves wearing her Dad's shoes!

It’s so exciting…..I have a name!

Well at long last, after much procrastinating and being indecisive with my new blog name, I have finally settled on one that I really like.  It’s funny how you can play around with so many different names and be unsure, but when the ‘one’ comes along you just know it’s a good fit.  So introducing:

‘Top Notch Teaching’.  I have bought the domain name and have a web host.  So if you type in http://topnotchteaching.com/ you will find my new blog!  I’m so daggy as this was just so exciting for me ;-)

I didn’t actually come up with the name myself.  I follow a blog called ‘Passive Panda’ and in the last week they wrote a post about coming up with the perfect name for your business.  It was really good timing for me, as I have been struggling with this for quite some time.  After reading through all of the suggestions and playing around with a few different options, I decided to leave a comment to see if anyone reading could help.  James Clear, the author of the article wrote back with a few suggestions, one of them being my name.  As soon as I heard it I knew it was just right!  If you want to check out the post or my comment and the reply, click here.

I still have no tagline.  I’ve had a few people suggest some different options, but I’m not really sold on them yet.  Stephen thinks that I should try not to be too clever and go for something that is a little more descriptive. When searching, the tagline will come up with the name and it will describe what the site is about and hopefully encourage people to click through J. 

Possible taglines that have been suggested so far include;

- Top teaching tips for the truly awesome teacher

- Teacher's tools a notch above the rest

- Top notch tools of the trade

- Tools of the trade for any teacher

- Total tool packages for the top teacher

- Online tools to support your teaching

- Online tools for tip top teaching

- Burst to the top of the teaching ranks!

- Dynamite teaching tips (so good, they're almost dangerous.)

Do you like any of those, or do you have any other possibilities for me?

I have much to do, but am looking forward to really getting to work to get it all up and going.  I’m hoping to launch the new site before Easter, but we’ll see how I go.  If you want to know what my goals are for the coming fortnight then check out my Accountability Journal.

Nearly there, refining my topic and developing a tagline

So I have been further working on defining my topic and thinking about my goals as I haven’t really been that impressed with what I have come up with so far.

My ultimate goal is to help make the life of a teacher easier, saving them time by providing quality resources, ideas and tips that will help them with their teaching.  I would like to help teachers build a richer learning environment, thus making a better classroom.  Personally, I would like the blog to challenge and inspire me.  I want to research and talk about educational issues, and connect with other educators from around the world.

My point of differentiation will be to provide practical, time saving tips and resources for teachers.  This could be related to lesson planning, classroom organisation, behaviour management and how to implement different teaching strategies.  I also have many connections with experienced/expert teachers who would also love to share their time saving tips and resources.

So with this in mind I have further thought about a name for my blog and a tagline.  What I have come up with so far is:

• Teacher Saving - Saving teachers time (although Stephen seems to think this sounds too much like a bank!)
• The Thinking Teacher – Thinking about a better classroom
• The Thinking Teacher – Work smarter
• The Thinking Teacher – Work smarter, not harder
• The Thinking Teacher – Saving teachers time

(According to my little sis I shouldn't use 'the'.  So I have checked and Thinking Teacher is availalbe as a .net and .com.au.  So that would also work).

What’s your preference?

Blog Names Continued.....

I’ve slowly been compiling a list of possible names for the new blog.  Thanks to the family the other night; they helped me brainstorm some other names.  It was rather fun coming up with suggestions, and my favourite so far (and it’s available) is ‘Give a shit teacher’.  But probably not quite right for what I’m after J.

Below is what I have so far….

Me and my lesson plans	The teachers tray
Innovative lesson plans	Click a lesson plan
Carry on teaching	Stress less teacher
Teacher attitude	Hot spot education
Teacher fountain	Perth teacher
Teachers bookmark	Swan teacher
Education project	Committed teacher
The aussie teacher	Teaches well
Teachers esky	Teaching hq (new)

Are there any there that really stand out?