Welcome to the shiny new Teach42

Welcome to the new theme for Teach42.com! This is something that’s been in the works for quite a while now (far too long), but I’m thrilled to finally switch over to it today. I’d been thinking about getting myself a new theme since I started seeing other blogs using the same one I’d be using. I’ve always wanted to have something completely original, but in the past must of the custom ones I’ve used have had issues on the backend. I finally decided to take the plunge when I saw the EFL Geek’s new theme which completely blew me away. So I emailed Sean and asked him if he’d be interested in creating a custom theme for me and he mentioned that he was creating his own design company and would love to work together.

Heh, I have to give him major credit. Between conferences and family and this that and the other thing, I haven’t been the easiest person to work with. But he’s always been a true professional and fit the development around my crazy schedule. From brainstorming ideas out, to graphic design to creating a complete custom wordpress theme with all the features I wanted, he did an absolutely phenomenal job.

I have to admit, at first I balked a little bit about paying someone to create a theme for me. After all, it’s just a blog… But then again, it’s also something I’ve invested five years of my life on. It’s gotten me my current job, and introduced me to thousands of educators world wide. It’s my identify online, my resume, my cv and my permanent record. And once I started thinking along these lines it seemed almost odd to me that I hadn’t invested more in it already. So I took some of the money this blog generates from Google Ads and I set it aside to have the new theme created. I wanted something somewhat whimsical, and yet geeky. I love the computer cables strewn about everywhere in the sidebar widgets and such. Usual web 2.0 tools are integrated in as well. Gravatar user images are thrown in for commentors and so on. I also have a few plans that we didn’t stick in yet but may be added in the future.

I hope you like it! It’s funny but this theme has been ready to switch over to for a few weeks now, but I kept putting off making hte change because I wanted to do a proper introduction for it. However, in the meantime, I kept putting off blog posts because I wanted to wait to post them until the new theme was ready! And while waiting for that to happen, I just didn’t post anything. I should have taken the advice I always give to other new bloggers. JUST DO IT. Don’t wait for bigger and better, don’t waste time with things to come. Do it now, as you can always add more and improve later.

So with that, I hope you like the new digs! Leave a comment and let me know what you think. And if you decide to do something along these lines yourself, I personally recommend you reach out to Sean. He was a true professional and great to work with.

6 Comments

Sean
2/9/2009

Welcome to the shiny new Teach42 – by @teach42 http://tinyurl.com/ajlmln custom @wordpress theme by me!

Create
2/9/2009

Glad you like the theme Steve. It was a pleasure working with you and I have to give credit to my graphic designer, Derek who did an outstanding job in photoshop. Unfortunately Derek doesn’t yet have a web site, but we’re working on that.

Mike Maddaloni - The Hot Iron
2/9/2009

Congrats on the redesign Steve!

mp/m

Mike Maddaloni – The Hot Iron´s most recent blog post.. Next likemind Chicago on Friday February 20

Thejesh GN
2/11/2009

Congrats on new design. It looks Geeky. Now I am forced to think about a new design..

Jan Nordgreen
2/15/2009

Right column at the bottom. What is “Sponors”?

RJ Stangherlin
2/28/2009

Absolutely love your new blog! I posted about it with your logo, and about your post on Digital Dossier. You are the best! How do you get the social bookmarking icons on your document?

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