Welcome to My World!
By Ryan Crawley
Best Online Communities for Teachers
By Ryan Crawley
If you are an educator, you probably realize there are several online community sites available to teachers that are said to offer support, guidance, and ideas. These are nice sites to visit since we seldom get a chance to witness what is happening in other classrooms as we are busy teaching in our own. Below are 10 of the top online communities for teachers and the advantages and disadvantages of each. While some are similar, others are very different. The ones reviewed are:
In addition to reviewing each app or site, we also rated its ability to offer a community that allows teachers to discuss and solve teaching problems and connect to create meaningful professional relationships with other teachers in a safe and comfortable environment. We used a scale of 1 to 5 thumbs up.
TeachersConnect 👍👍👍👍 www.teachersconnect.com
Of all the sites that we reviewed, TeachersConnect is the one true teacher community. Its focus is on community interaction instead of selling ads, selling products or selling your personal data. It's not a one way channel like many educational sites where they create all the content and you just consume it. TeachersConnect is an online community built by a group of former and active teachers. It is a place where ideas, advice, and resources can be exchanged freely by educators who are interested in helping one another through the obstacles of education. Here’s what we like:
Twitter EdChats 👍👍 www.twitter.com
With about 350 million people actively using it every month, Twitter is one of the largest social media sites in the world. What about their Twitter EdChats?
Facebook Education Groups 👍👍 www.facebook.com
Just about everyone has their own personal Facebook page nowadays. So joining a Facebook group that discusses educational topics can be quite simple since you are already familiar with the layout.
LinkedIn Education Groups 👍 www.linkedin.com
Think of LinkedIn as like the more mature and professional social media site when compared to some of the other popular ones.
Instagram 👍👍👍 www.instagram.com
People generally know Instagram as the social media site where people show pictures with little captions to detail what is going on with their lives. But millions of teachers are now on Instagram, using it mainly for funny, entertaining or inspirational images and quotes.
Pinterest 👍 www.pinterest.com
Pinterest isn’t only about acquiring the perfect Thanksgiving dinner recipes or pinning a picture of the right style shoes to match that dress you have in the closet.
Edutopia 👍 www.edutopia.org
Created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, Edutopia is a resource for teachers, administrators, and parents who have an interest in education.
TeachersPayTeachers 👍 www.TeachersPayTeachers.com
Teachers Pay Teachers is a website that allows educators to sell their lesson plans, teaching aids, and printables to other educators. Sellers often include some free resources to entice you to review all they have to offer.
Teaching Channel 👍 www.teachingchannel.org
The Teaching Channel has been around since 2011 and is a website that offers professional development videos for teachers.
PBS Teachers Lounge 👍👍 www.pbs.org/education/teacherslounge
If you were one of the fortunate ones that grew up on Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Captain Kangaroo, and The Electric Company, then you are already very familiar with PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). PBS has stepped into the 21st century with the addition of their PBS Teachers Lounge website.
About the Author:
Ryan Crawley is an educator with a decade of experience under his belt. Before entering the wonderful world of education, he spent nine years as a newspaper reporter and editor. He enjoys including technology in all his lessons and tries to prepare his students with 21st-century skills.
By Ryan Crawley
If you are an educator, you probably realize there are several online community sites available to teachers that are said to offer support, guidance, and ideas. These are nice sites to visit since we seldom get a chance to witness what is happening in other classrooms as we are busy teaching in our own. Below are 10 of the top online communities for teachers and the advantages and disadvantages of each. While some are similar, others are very different. The ones reviewed are:
- TeachersConnect
- Twitter EdChats
- Facebook Education Groups
- LinkedIn Education Groups
- Edutopia
- TeachersPayTeachers
- The Teaching Channel
- The PBS Teachers Lounge
In addition to reviewing each app or site, we also rated its ability to offer a community that allows teachers to discuss and solve teaching problems and connect to create meaningful professional relationships with other teachers in a safe and comfortable environment. We used a scale of 1 to 5 thumbs up.
TeachersConnect 👍👍👍👍 www.teachersconnect.com
Of all the sites that we reviewed, TeachersConnect is the one true teacher community. Its focus is on community interaction instead of selling ads, selling products or selling your personal data. It's not a one way channel like many educational sites where they create all the content and you just consume it. TeachersConnect is an online community built by a group of former and active teachers. It is a place where ideas, advice, and resources can be exchanged freely by educators who are interested in helping one another through the obstacles of education. Here’s what we like:
- You meet other educators who want to collaborate and grow together
- Exclusively for teachers: no parents, students, or salespeople.
- There's lots of celebration and gratitude in the community, AND the site exudes an understanding of how complex teaching can be. No one is judgey about people who seek advice or who are clearly struggling (Because, don't we all struggle at one point or another?).
- Ability to create deep professional relationships with like-minded teachers, colleagues or mentors
- Serious discussions about solving problems
- No need to search - resources and advice are customized to your unique question
- Safe - no anonymous accounts and bullying or trolling are neither allowed nor tolerated - no personal data will be shared or sold - no ads and no spam
- Two cool and unique features of note where that 1) you don’t need to know or follow anyone to join the discussion and 2) we can ask anonymous questions
- One drawback to TeachersConnect is that it's new and relatively small compared to the others. It just launched in January 2018 and seems to be growing rapidly.
- No smartphone app is available yet. The company says it’s in the works and that in the meantime the website is optimized for mobile use. It looked really good on my phone’s Web browser.
Twitter EdChats 👍👍 www.twitter.com
With about 350 million people actively using it every month, Twitter is one of the largest social media sites in the world. What about their Twitter EdChats?
- Twitter’s education chats are sort of like a virtual classroom where people can sit in the front row and control the discussion or lurk around in the back just observing.
- There are countless chats that deal with just about every educational topic.
- There are a few great ideas tossed about that could help you in your own classroom. But each chat session lasts an hour and then closes.
- Twitter is excellent to get your name out there though. There are many teachers, so it is easy to bounce ideas back and forth.
- Good for authors and bloggers to develop a following if they can put in the time needed.
- In fact, there are so many EdChats that it’s hard to find the one that’s right for you. Here’s a valuable guide: {{Frank to add link here}}
- EdChats are offered once a week on the same day and time, so if you have a conflict, you will miss out.
- Plus, how tough is it to get your point across in 140 or 280 characters? It’s limiting. Questions and answers fly back and forth so quickly that it can be easy to get lost.
- Spammers love to target discussions, and EdChats are no different. The amount of spam gets out of control quickly.
- Watch out for the trolls! Some people are only on social media to bother others. Regardless of what is being discussed, they can make you hate social media.
Facebook Education Groups 👍👍 www.facebook.com
Just about everyone has their own personal Facebook page nowadays. So joining a Facebook group that discusses educational topics can be quite simple since you are already familiar with the layout.
- It’s easy to share ideas, give advice, or ask questions.
- There’s a group for just about every educational topic under the sun.
- It is nice to be able to check out other profiles to make sure the people are legitimately interested in education.
- There are no limits on how much you want to type. You could type a small book in a post if you would like.
- One drawback, though, with any Facebook group is just about anyone can join. This could mean that the posts you are writing and intend to be just for the group could be shared with others outside the group. Your privacy could be invaded and one disgruntled parent or even a complete stranger could make your life difficult.
- Facebook just doesn’t feel right as a community for solving instructional problems. In fact, it’s really a place to share vacation or party pics. It’s personal, not professional
LinkedIn Education Groups 👍 www.linkedin.com
Think of LinkedIn as like the more mature and professional social media site when compared to some of the other popular ones.
- It is a great platform to use as an educator as there are many groups to join that discuss educational matters.
- Some of them actually use moderators who can decide whether a person can join the group or not.
- There are a couple of disadvantages that can go along with using LinkedIn for education. For one, you have to create a time-consuming profile, detailing your career and accomplishments.
- Unfortunately many of the groups are inactive or dominated by spammers trying to sell their products, services or books.
- Furthermore, just like with all of these social media sites that are not specifically made for education, there is a concern for privacy.
Instagram 👍👍👍 www.instagram.com
People generally know Instagram as the social media site where people show pictures with little captions to detail what is going on with their lives. But millions of teachers are now on Instagram, using it mainly for funny, entertaining or inspirational images and quotes.
- Educators will often use it to showcase classroom designs, teaching aids and templates they have created.
- It's also a popular place to share books for students
- But serious discussions about solving problems facing teachers every day are hard to find within the sea of lighter fare. And Instagram isn’t set up to share free resources like PDF attachments.
- Also lots of teachers are trying to sell things they have developed here or are pitching for Target, Staples, or jewelry and cosmetics companies.
Pinterest 👍 www.pinterest.com
Pinterest isn’t only about acquiring the perfect Thanksgiving dinner recipes or pinning a picture of the right style shoes to match that dress you have in the closet.
- While it is great for purposes like those, it is also a way to share quick ideas and resources about education.
- It’s all done through images, so what you see is what you get.
- You may be able to quickly come away with an asset for your own classroom.
- If you aren’t careful, you will have thousands of ideas that you have seen on Pinterest, but you will have followed through on none of them. It’s easy to pin things and forget them.
- While Pinterest has lots of great ideas, it is not really a community that allows you to discuss teaching challenges with other teachers.
Edutopia 👍 www.edutopia.org
Created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, Edutopia is a resource for teachers, administrators, and parents who have an interest in education.
- Tons of blogs and articles talking about the latest in education.
- Gives ideas to educators through these articles as a way to better themselves and their skills in the classroom.
- Edutopia should be considered a resource for teachers as they look into furthering the use of technology in the classroom.
- However, Edutopia is not really a community and not a place for educators to learn and grow with each other. The ability to hold discussions as a group is lacking.
TeachersPayTeachers 👍 www.TeachersPayTeachers.com
Teachers Pay Teachers is a website that allows educators to sell their lesson plans, teaching aids, and printables to other educators. Sellers often include some free resources to entice you to review all they have to offer.
- If you are stuck in using the same lesson plans year after year and need a change, or don’t want to reinvent the wheel, you can quickly look through Teachers Pay Teachers and find some great resources. Some have everything built into it so you don’t have to go searching for other resources and materials.
- By using unique lesson plans such as the ones that you will find at Teachers Pay Teachers, you will not have to depend on all those textbooks that many teachers and students find boring. The textbook industry is a multi-billion dollar business and is dominated by three publishers. It is time to look outside the box and consider other resources.
- If you have always struggled as a teacher trying to create lesson plans that students will love, Teachers Pay Teachers has you covered. You could purchase a year’s worth of lessons with many of them already including the state or Common Core standards.
- But Teachers Pay Teachers is not a community and there is no chance to discuss topics with other educators.
Teaching Channel 👍 www.teachingchannel.org
The Teaching Channel has been around since 2011 and is a website that offers professional development videos for teachers.
- If your district accepts these as professional development hours towards your teaching certificate, even better. It can be difficult to find the time to get your hours completed, so if you can do this from your own home at your convenience then it is not too bad.
- The Teaching Channel allows you to see inspiring teachers and lesson plans that will help motivate you to keep on getting better in the classroom.
- The Teaching Channel also has a community of teachers ready to share ideas and advice on their community discussion board.
- One of the cons for some educators is that some of the videos do not provide enough direction or are too complicated to duplicate in a real live classroom.
- Some videos have to be licensed to show, so not all videos are free to use.
- Also, there may be ads on certain parts of the site. You can’t fault them for trying to sell advertising, but it can muddy up your experience.
PBS Teachers Lounge 👍👍 www.pbs.org/education/teacherslounge
If you were one of the fortunate ones that grew up on Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Captain Kangaroo, and The Electric Company, then you are already very familiar with PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). PBS has stepped into the 21st century with the addition of their PBS Teachers Lounge website.
- The PBS Teachers Lounge lets educators read about the latest in education and offers up activities and strategies that might help your own students.
- It also has a plethora of suitable lesson plans for younger students and free downloads for resources that you can add to your own.
- There are numerous educational videos that children will love that PBS Teachers Lounge offers freely for your benefit through their Learning Media link.
- While PBS Teachers Lounge does offer quality resources and advice through their articles, it’s not really a community and it doesn’t let teachers correspond with one another.
About the Author:
Ryan Crawley is an educator with a decade of experience under his belt. Before entering the wonderful world of education, he spent nine years as a newspaper reporter and editor. He enjoys including technology in all his lessons and tries to prepare his students with 21st-century skills.