Guest article

Here's a guest post from one of my dearest internet buddies, Mich. Her site, "Let's go virtual" is a very interesting and informative one. Don't forget to take a peep. Click here.

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Online Teaching: Another way to Earn Online

The internet is indeed an ocean of unlimited possibilities.  Included in the list is the ability to earn.  There are plenty of ways to earn online and one of them is to teach the English language to ESL (English as a Second Language) learners.






The past decade was a witness to the surge of South Korean and Japanese nationals to the Philippines and their main purpose was to study English.  They came here to learn the language in a traditional classroom set-up with the Filipinos as their English teachers; usually one-on-one.  In this field, we call it man-to-man.  I don’t know why the method is called man-to-man; I’d rather call it one-on-one.  Anyway, it was in 2001 when I started to teach man-to-man to Korean students at Doosol Language School.  I stayed there for a few years but it was in 2008 when I discovered a much better and convenient way to teach ESL; to teach it ONLINE right at the convenience of my home and at my most convenient time.  Pardon my redundancy, but it really is very CONVENIENT.





I only discovered it in 2008; little did I know that it has been happening for quite a while already.  Here are the things that you’ll need to get you started:


Desktop or laptop with good specs (good enough to carry a voice and video call)
Good Headset (preferably with noise canceling feature)
Good webcam (Some students require you to be on cam, especially the children.  Some don’t care whether you’re on cam or not.)
Reliable internet connection (at least 1mbps and should be wired; NO wifi)
Quiet working area (students hate noisy background)
Skype account

Skype is a widely used medium of communication in teaching online.  Some online schools may use their own platform or video conference application during the class proper.  In my case, we use Homemeeting/JoinNet as our virtual classroom.  Despite using another application, we still use Skype to communicate with the management of the online school.

When doing private classes, Skype to Skype is the way.  As a home-based teacher, I am still considered a freelancer despite working for a particular online school.  Thus, I can still accept private students outside my shift.

Homemeeting/JoinNet(  http://homemeeting.com/en_US/index.html  )   is not a free application, so for my Skype to Skype classes, I use Twiddla http://www.twiddla.com/home.aspx  for my whiteboard and joint web browsing needs.  It has premium accounts for more features but the free account is good enough for me.


E-books
For Skype to Skype classes, the scanned books are sent to the student in advance so they have a copy during the class.

For classes done using another video conference application, just upload the pages of the books on the whiteboard where you can annotate and do joint web browsing.


Paypal account
Just like in most online transactions, PayPal (https://www.paypal.com/ph ) is also widely used as the online payment system in online teaching.  Xoom  ( https://www.xoom.com/sendmoneynow/home?receiveCountryCode= )  is also an option, but the transaction fee is too high, unless you have a bank account in the USA.

Fee
The average fee of a Filipino ESL teacher is $5.00 per hour.  Some teachers charge higher, some charge lower.  It really depends on the teacher.  It also depends on the nationality of the students.  The above mentioned rate is mostly for Asian students like South Koreans, Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese.  The students from Russia, Europe and South America pay higher.
This is just an overview of the ESL online teaching world.  Another reason why I am proud to be a Filipino, English is not our mother-tongue but people from other countries come to us to learn it.  The main reason, of course, is because we charge much lower than the native English speakers, but still, the fact remains that we CAN teach English to other nationals.

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You might also like to check updates in my other website: http://wwwcreatingwealthphilippines.blogspot.com

Who packed your parachute?

Here's a heart-warming story i picked out from the web.




Who Packed Your Parachute?


Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience!


One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”
“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.
“I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!” Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”


Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat; a bib in the back; and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good morning, how are you?’ or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.” Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.


Now, Plumb asks his audience, “Who’s packing your parachute?” Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. He also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory – he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.


So it's true what they say: No man is an island.

Also, that we tend to forget to really meet and greet the people in our lives. We do not know it but they may be packing our parachutes this very minute.

PS
Did you like the story? Feel free to comment below.
You might also like to check out my other website: http://wwwcreatingwealthphilippines.blogspot.com for updates on creating wealth in the Philippines.

I am making a bold decision very soon

Image via WikipediaThe long weekend (holy week 2011) had been such a blessing. Because i had more free time than usual, I was able to do some research and found quite a number of reasons for me to really focus on my internet career.

I cannot tell you everything yet but i promise to do so when i'm ready. But here are a some of the things i've been working on lately:

Backlinking. I asked some other blogger-friends of mine to help me out with this one. What i did was i ofered my service to them. I wrote in theit blogs as a guest contributor, in exchange for them linking back my site. This way, their readers will get to visit my site, thus improving traffic.

I also submitted my website to various booksearching sites in hopes of improving my traffic.

I haven't joined the other social networking sites as i didn't have time to do so. But i joined a lot of writers' forums.

I discovered that you can write for sites like ezine and infobarrel and earn money from them, so that's exactly what i did.

I haven't finished my ebook yet. Sigh! I will soon. I didn't quite find time for it.

I discovered so many useful sites. I'll blog about them real soon.

I also found ways to make other income from the internet. No payouts yet, just e-cash. The moment i receive cold hard cash, i will blog about it so YOU GUYS can also start earning. I promise to share what i'll learn, didn't i?

So there. What a fun weekend, huh?
Image via Wikipedia  
PS. I also updated my other blogs.
You might like to check out: http://wwwcreatingwealthphilippines.blogspot.com

Source of joy

I'm veering away from my usual topics today as I decided when I woke up this morning to make a post about this GOD-sent creature which has brought my family such joy and happiness since arriving in Dec, 2010.

Guys, meet my dog, BOGZY.

Isn't he the cutest thing?

He's a Lhasa Apso. When we got him, we thought he was a shitzu because he was so tiny, he fit in my hand.

I am no dog expert. But you know what? I was able to train him to do so many things:

He obeys orders like "STAY" (he'd stay put and not move until I say "OK"); He won't touch his food or water until I say "OK". He recognizes the word "Stop", and "Go", and "Come".

I taught him how to "Sit" on command; and "Lay down"; and "Touch" (he touches with his nose anything i point my finger at); and  "Shake hands" (he offers his paw for you to shake).

I love it that he knows how to FETCH. I throw anything, and he'd fetch it on command. He'd return it back to me if i say "Dito". Or on his stubborn days, I'd need to ask him to "Drop it" or "Release", and he'd do just that.

BUT THE BEST PART?

He is toilet-trained. As in he goes "wiwi" and "pupu" all by himself on his litter box inside our bathroom. Because my wife does the wiping, he'd let her know he did his deed and thus now needs to be wiped by barking at us. He is not a barker. So the very few times he does so, we know in our household that something needs to be cleaned. Hehe

(Note: I used the crate-training method I discovered in the internet. It took me close to 2 months before finally allowing him to roam around the house unsupervised)

He is my alarm clock in the morning, almost always knowing it's time for me to wake up. Not barking or whining at all, he'd nudge me with his paw, to let me know he's already awake. He's an affectionate fellow who loves being cuddled and attended to. He is such a sweetheart. He seems sad everytime me and the wife leaves him for work, but gets real excited and happy and ecstatic when he hears us at the door after a day's work.

If we have to take him along with us for any travel, he is so behaved inside the car. Just looking out the window, maybe asking for pedestrians and people outside for attention. Or when sleepy, crawls on our lap to snooze.

He loves fruits and vegetables. Not a picky eater at all. He loves it when you hand-feed him, rather than him eating on his plate. He loves peanut butter, and hopia and rice cakes.

He does not play around with the electrical cords inside the house, but lovs playing with shoelaces. I cannot fathom how he does that. Like he knows the cords aren't toys.

He loves his bouncing ball and his squeaky toys, and his panda bear stuffy.

I have seen strange things in my lifetime. I never thought i'd experience this. We've actually fallen in love with a dog.

Here are some more pix:

He sits this way. So funny. Only one leg is stretched out.

 Ponytails to the rescue. So he'd see better.

He's amused at seeing his video for the 1st time

Sleeps like a person

Always behaved inside the car

 Sleepy puppy

Essential Internet Marketing Tools and Products

I'm committed to sharing what I know (and continue to learn) to all readers of this blog. Allow me to further this quest with this post.

As a newbie in the internet business, have you ever experienced being overwhelmed by all the information fed to you about the world wide web?

Like me, i'm sure you have stories to tell. Ever wondered why there is no one single website that will guide you SLOWLY throughout your baby steps? Wouldn't it be nice to know you can go to one website for information and NOT suffer info overload?

Here's the thing: I just created a site for us newbies. It's name is:

My APPS + Internet Marketing Tools + Philippines


Check it out by clicking this link!

Announcing the birth of this site. It is for all Pinoy newbies in the internet marketing world.

For my 1st post, i am introducing to you readers ways (i learned) to earn thru ad placemements in your blogger sites OTHER THAN adsense.

Truly, information is key ! And may I add, IT SHOULD ALSO BE FREE!

PS
You might also like to check out my other website: http://wwwcreatingwealthphilippines.blogspot.com

PPS
Here are nice e-books you might want to check out:
Click Here!
Click Here!

Backlinking

Image via WikipediaAnother eureka moment: I just realized why backlinking is important.

What is Backlinking?

Backlinks are basically the links from other websites pointing to yours. 

Why is it important? 

• The more backlinks you have from other websites to yours, the MORE POPULAR your website gets (Google will see this and will rank your page high).  
• Building backlinks is one of the essential elements in External Search Engine Optimization to be able to start ranking high in search engines. ( I just learned this as lately i've been reading / researching HEAVILY on SEOs and internet marketing)

TIP? I need to post links in all social sites i already know, PLUS the following sites na hindi masyado popular sa Pinas:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Stumbleupon
• Reddit

A lot of work ahead, huh?


I hope i'll still have time to post in my other website: http://wwwcreatingwealthphilippines.blogspot.com


Visit this site too.

PS.
1. This e-book should be useful: Click Here!

2. I'm promoting this self-improvement e-book. Click Here!

My 4th week into internet marketing - lessons at this point

MY 4TH WEEK INTO INTERNET MARKETING


Time flew fast. I believe a lot has happened since 7 days ago. Let me try and write them down:

• I experimented: I have stopped advertising on FB (but i kept on posting). I did this to know whether or not my readers will "miss" me. Guess what? They did. I learned a valuable lesson there.  

• My VAs (for my internet marketing work) left me: LOL! This is funny. I have 3 - one got pregnant, one got measles, one took off with her bf. Oh well, life goes on. Natatawa na lang ako. 

• I tried audio books, e-books, and e-zines: Boy did i get addicted! I can't get enough of them. Really, i'm like a kid opening his gift on Christmas day whenever I come across reads I'm interested at. I just wish I had more time.

• I now have a grand master plan on how I can utilize the internet to sell / endorse my future products and services. Notice i said "master plan" because i'm looking at several months or even years to turn it into a reality. I realize it will be lots of work. I have started my baby steps. With God's help, I hope to get there one day soon.

So there readers. Lessons learned. Mistakes to correct. Stuff to do. What a life!

PS.
Updates on my other activities are here: http://wwwcreatingwealthphilippines.blogspot.com

I'm addicted to clicking "monetise"

I'm a bad person. I keep on clicking monetise to check how much my sites have been earning.

Here's the thing, readers - I read from somebody else's blog that ADSENSE frowns at bloggers who reload and click monetise a lot. How true could this be?

I'm mentioning this so readers may be warned. Not that i'm exempted from it or anything.

I'm so guilty. I'm an addict.

My newest project

I cannot believe i have started working already on my e-book. I cannot imagine i am capable pala of authoring my own book.

My third week into internet marketing

For the first time, i am lost. Mukhang i've hit a brick wall.

Here's what i've been up to since Mar 19.

• I have hired my VAs. All 3 have no idea where they're going coz I myself am not sure what my objectives really are. 
• I have also created additional blogs. I aim to stop at 10.
• My hubpages is now running. I've just had my 1st real comment from a foreign hubster.
• I have become a little talkative now, even finding ways to start a conversation with total strangers. All because i believe in my Creating Wealth Philipines website. My mission of one soul to wake up each day is in full swing. I have become obsessive in preaching my site's content.

To date, i am most proud of my "creating wealth philippines" website. It's total worldwide views is now 900. I aim to stop checking at 1,000. 

My adsense account continues to earn everyday. I don't exactly know how and why it is so. However, I still don't know how i can get rich here. My adsense income will never be enough to compensate my everyday expenses.

Anyone dare give me something to get excited about?

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PS
I wrote this post during a bad day. I am not deleting it as this shows the more human side of me - one of capable of mixed feelings  / emotions.

I'm over the hump as I update this. The passion is still there, don't be misled. I am more determined now than ever.

Breakthrough PART 2 - Information is key!

This is part 2 of my Breakthrough post for our April theme blogging activity. As mentioned in Part 1, again, this is addressed to my batchmates (of Jomar Hilario's Mar 2011 breakthrough seminar).

  

Guys, let me clarify. My adsense application got approved 1 day after Jomar’s seminar. Don’t’ ask me why and how because I do not know. Before that, I have been running my 2 blogs for about a week already. Both only had 2 short posts each, and both I think I have not updated since the seminar.

But first things first. Let me tell you what happened