Announcing New Features:
The team here at TeachStreet is pleased to announce a suite of new features to help people find the best classes, experts, and instructional content. Whether you’re currently an expert, or you’re aspiring to become one, these new features will help you connect with the resources you’re looking for.

What We Did:
In addition to search results showcasing top-rated classes and instructors more prominently, articles are now featured throughout the site, including on the TeachStreet homepage. These articles can be published by TeachStreet members and personalized using embeded videos or uploaded photos.

• Articles
• Comments
• Lists
• Search & Browse

Site members can also join in conversations by commenting on their favorite articles, sharing the subjects they want to learn and connecting with others who have common interests.

We hope you enjoy the new and improved TeachStreet — www.TeachStreet.com

The Dow Is Falling!

Ten Ways TeachStreet Can Help

So let’s start with this; as far as the stock market is concerned, HOLY COW! Schnikes, I haven’t seen so much red streaking a screen since I went to that horror-film marathon last Halloween. OK, OK, so I know; it pretty much sucks. TeachStreet can’t turn the market around (believe us, we’d love to…), but we can help you out. You’re saying, cmon. Give it a rest. TeachStreet is awesome, but how can you possibly ease my pain in the greatest financial crisis of the past half-century? See below for the answer.

10. Obviously, personal finance classes are a great way to start coping with today’s chaotic economic situation. They’re all about money and money management. Couldn’t hurt, right?

9. Got kids? Try in investing in some standardized test prep classes - for exams like the ACT and SAT prep – to help them nail that big scholarship and get some of the burden of tuition off of your back!

8. Perhaps you might want to prepare for a career shift as the economy continues to spiral…well, there’s always a demand for street musicians! How about an acoustic guitar lesson to get yourself a headstart on busking for a buck?

7. In preparation for potential food supply shortages, get ahead of the game! Bring out your green thumb and take some gardening classes.

6. Savings, mortgages, bills, layoffs, unemployment, stock prices, gas prices…This whole thing can be a bit much to handle. For those times when the stress gets to be just too much to take, sign up for an anger management course to help you keep your cool.

5. Don’t get stuck in the dark! A candle-making class should help protect you in the event of a gas or electrial cutoff.

4. But what does it all mean, anyway? What’s the point? Maybe your thinking needs a little bit of a kickstart. Try studying up on philosophy. Even if it doesn’t answer your questions, just trying to understand what’s being said should take your mind off your stock portfolio for a while!

3. Relax! It’s going to be okay. Life’s not just about material things. Take a yoga class and put some balance back in your world!

2. Cut costs on things you can do yourself! Don’t go out to eat; take a cooking class and make a gourmet menu at home…Or, save yourself a trip to the bike repair shop, and learn to tune up that finicky gear shift in your own garage.

And the number one way TeachStreet can help you out in this situation:

1. We have a wide selection of beer brewing, beer drinking, wine making, wine appreciation, and bartending classes. Let’s face it; sometimes the only thing you can do is drown your sorrows. TeachStreet is here to help. In fact…we might be right there with you.

If you liked this blog post, please recommend it to a colleague and/or click here to get updates via email or RSS.

You’re stranded on a desert island. It’s just you. There’s no Gilligan. No Skipper. And Mary Ann is out to lunch. What would your picks be?

Photo: Cook Islands Beach | benedict.adam

For me, my one movie would be “The Shawshank Redemption,” my one book would be “The God of Small Things” and my one CD would be Journey’s greatest hits. We all have guilty indulgences, right?

The other day, we posed a similar question to members of TeachStreet. If you were stranded in your Seattle neighborhood and you could only take one class, what class would you take?

Well, the ballots are in and the hanging chads have been counted. Alphabetically by subject, here are the top “Desert Island Classes” for 10 Seattle area neighborhoods.

• Boot Camp Class (Magnolia Life)
• Cooking Class (Downtown)
• Flamenco Dancing (West Seattle)
• Home Buying (Queen Anne)
• Hot Yoga (Laurelhurst)
• Kids Modeling Class (Eastlake)
• Knitting Class (Madison Park)
• Music Lessons (Fremont)
• Stained Glass (Wallingford)
• Swing Dancing (Capitol Hill)
• Tennis Lessons (Ballard)

What about Portlanders? What’s your desert island class?

Also, for those Seattle-ites who’re in TeachStreet’s neighborhood (we’re just off Westlake and Denny), check out the South Lake Union Community website. You can even add a link to your favorite website: TeachStreet!

If you liked this blog post, please recommend it to a colleague and/or click here to get updates via email or RSS.

TeachStreet is a place for learning, yes. However, the site wouldn’t be much if it were just teacher listings. Classifieds and directories can, and do, fit that bill.

The secret sauce in the TeachStreet pudding (if we can call it secret), actually has nothing to do with databases, designs, or any of the free tools available on the site. It has to do with something that’s already here in Seattle: great teachers, in algebra, geometry, belly dancing, sewing, pilates, and hundreds of other subjects.

Pic: School Crossing | limonda

So despite our appreciation for the outpour of teachers and students over these 48 hours (thank you all, really!), we deserve little to no credit. Any credit belongs to the great community of local learning that already exists.

And thankfully, our job is made even easier yet by the fact that we don’t have to report on what’s going on in the Seattle education space either. There are some great local bloggers already doing just that.

Here are 3 great local education blogs, which I’d recommend to stay up on what’s happening locally with respect to schools and neighborhoods.

• The Seattle P-I School Zone Blog: Jessica Blanchard and Amy Rudolph team up to co-write the School Zone blog. which addresses both K-12 (Jessica’s realm of expertise) and higher education (Amy’s forte). Brevity and relevance make their posts good reads.

• Denise Gonzalez-Walker blogs about all things Seattle School District. It’s a reader blog, but Chalkboard has high quality content. Watch out WASL, Denise is opinionated, she’s local, and yes, she’s a Mom.

• The Full Circ Blog: Though her blog has no affiliation with the Seattle P-I, as two others do, Nancy White rounds out this short list. Nancy is a local master of web 2.0, whom I’ve heard only heard rave reviews about. Her consulting biz, of the same name as her blog, Full Circle, is a great resource for local companies looking to build online communities around their businesses.

For a longer list of great blogs nationally, check out this list of the Top 100 Education Blogs.

Though our security advisor here at TeachStreet, Zach the Dog, is no longer a puppy, he once was. And as anybody who has ever had a puppy can attest to, with puppyhood comes a host of other joys for a dog owner, including shedding, teething, and staining, just to name a few.

You might always be stuck with the shedding piece, but there’s always doggy school to take care of the rest. Last week, when a friend, Jessica, who lives in Eastlake, called to ask if I knew any good dog trainers here in Seattle, I was ashamed to admit I responded by saying “No.”

Picture: Jeffk – Creative Commons

In an attempt to give a better answer as to what dog trainers deserve the title “Best of breed,” I conducted a TeachStreet survey. Now, armed with feedback, here is a list of the dog training schools that came most highly recommended.

10 Top-Rated Seattle Dog Trainers

• Diane Rich Dog Training
• Ahimsa Dog Training
• Cascade Kennels
• Sidekick Dog Training
• Seattle Dogworks
• Positive Dog Training
• Miss Lola’s Academy for Wayward Dogs
• Paws-Abilities Dog Training
• Pawsitive Steps
• Mighty Mutt

Also, best of breed bloggers in the dog-o-sphere

• City Dog Blog: Is hosted by City Dog Magazine, whose stand alone site also has a number of good resources.

• Also here in Seattle, Allen and Linda Anderson have a great P-I hosted blog: Angel Animals

• Diane Rich, whose Dog Training school made our top ten list, also has a blog a great P-I hosted blog: Canine Chat.

Hopefully this helps answer your question, Jess. Best of luck training Mitzi!

p.s. Here’s a quick photo of Declan, the owner of our first commenter, Wendy

After I wrote the post last week about Seattle area Mom blogs, which was inspired by my cousins’ search for parenting resources, I was asked by Helen, a Queen Anne Mom, what I thought the best of all the blogs were.

Photo – the_toe_stubber Creative Commons

Despite the simplicity of the question, I ashamed to say I wasn’t 100% sure what the answer was. I said “It really depends on what you’re looking for. Some of the Mom bloggers use their blogs to communicate with family friends and share funny stories about their pets. While others take more of a journalistic approach and write blogs that resemble newsletters or magazines.”

Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between blogs that are geared for smaller audiences and blogs that have a huge readership. One way for you to quickly find out which categories a blog falls into is by checking Technorati ranking.

In light of providing a better answer for Helen as to which Mom blogger she might want to check out, well, here is a top five list based on Technorati rankings of 100 Seattle area Mom blogs.

Top 5 most linked to Seattle Area Mom Blogs (not in rank order)

• An Ordinary Mom
• Mrs. Flinger
• Daring Young Mom
• Princesstinkfoot
• Absolutely Bananas

It’s important to note that these figures do not necessarily indicate the quality of the blog, they simply of how many people find the blog compelling enough to link to. Though this is often an indicator of how active a blogger is, as people seldom have a high rank if they post infrequently, it’s not a perfect measure.

Furthermore, if you’re a Mom blogger and you’re not sure you were among the 100 blogs considered when compiling this list, please let us know at here at TeachStreet and we’ll make sure you’re included in any further listings.