Yahoo! Creates Social Networking Site for Teachers
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Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 09/04/2007
Spread the word: Yahoo! has developed a free social networking site that lets teachers and librarians create, modify, and share standards-based curricula.
Yahoo for Teachers is a Web-based tool strictly for educators, allowing them to search a subject—such as "electricity"—and pull up a list of pre-selected sites that adhere to state standards in math, science, social studies, and language arts. It also allows teachers to collaborate on course work and store information that they find online and want to share in class.
Educators can search lesson plans posted by others and leave comments, and they can search based on grade, subject, and state. A tool called the “gobbler” lets users save material found on the Web by letting them drag and drop text or images into an online folder, rather than having to cut and paste materials.
The service, which was created by teachers for teachers, is expected to roll out shortly. Sue Wright, a fourth-grade teacher at Laurel Elementary School in San Mateo, CA, was one of dozens of teachers who helped design the site, and she’s been beta testing it for the last several months.
This new site may just be what teachers have been looking for: a way to help prepare for lessons and collaborate with other educators in a fast and easy way.
Focusing on teachers is a new business strategy for Yahoo!, which signals the company’s push to cater to more niche markets. “Yahoo! is very committed to helping teachers,” says Lorna Borenstein, “At Yahoo! there are so many of us with children who are in school, and we realize what a difficult job their educators have.”
Planning for Yahoo for Teachers began last year, when the company invited a group of teachers and media specialists to brainstorm at the company's headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA. Educators got a preview of the site in March at the National Science Teachers Association conference in St. Louis, MO.
Visit Yahoo for Teachers for a description of the service and a video tour. You can also sign up to receive an announcement about when the site will open to the public.
