The BEST teacher message boards
By Angela Watson
NOTE: This post is from 2009 and has not been updated.
Want a lesson idea fast? Reached the end of your rope with a problematic student? Need to discuss something you can’t talk about with anyone at your school? Have a fabulous idea you can’t wait to share?
An easy solution is to visit an online message board for teachers. You can post a question and get an endless supply of answers. They’re all free and none require any obligation of time beyond that which you want to personally invest. Most are archived and searchable, making it easy for you to read discussions. My top four recommendations are:
Teachers.Net: This might be the largest message forum for educators, with 150 niche boards on every educational topic imaginable (including one for each state, which is useful when you’re looking for local advice or need opinions about teaching somewhere else). If you need a quick answer on anything, your best bet is T-Net (try the main board, which gets dozens of posts every hour). The downside? T-Net’s large size means that posts are only archived for a short time. Also, there can be a negative and critical vibe since many posts are anonymous: this is especially true on the state boards on which people endlessly complain about their school districts. However, I still like T-Net because of the vast number of specialized boards and the enormous amount of teachers you can connect with quickly.
Pro Teacher: Here you’ll find a streamlined system of boards with numerous active members. I discovered the site through a few of my loyal followers who frequently post on ProTeacher: I started reading their messages, and became a long-time lurker. I find the site slightly less user-friendly then some of the other boards, but the quality of posts more than compensates, and all threads are permanently archived.
AtoZTeacherStuff was the first set of message boards I used back in 2001, and I have several longtime internet buddies on AtoZ who helped me through many rough times and transitions. The site’s creator, Amanda, is an amazing and resourceful woman who carefully moderates the forums and makes sure the entire website is full of useful and relevant resources for teachers. The message board archives are fully searchable, so you can find ideas on nearly any topic. Because members post personal profiles and interact regularly, there is a great sense of community at AtoZ and a positive, encouraging tone to the discussions.
See you on the boards!
Angela Watson
Founder and Writer
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Thank you for your post.
I am a member of one of the specialized chatboards on Teachers.net. While the ideas shared are fabulous, and I have partaken on numerous occasions, the chatboard, at least the one of which I am a member, can be catty, and members taking things too personally. So, I have to unplug occasionally. I am on a hiatus from the chatboard now. LOL
Wow, thanks for the great info!
You’re welcome, Marshu!
Hi Teachers! Are there any smartboard units for Teachers College Reading and Writing Workshop? I have 5th graders this year that are below grade level. Wondering if there is any smart boards or even powerpoints, set up to guide me along better than the narrative unit packets??? I have a strong feeling I may even have to go down to the 4th grade units due to where my students are at. Thank You!
Hi, Lee! Check the SMART Exchange and see what you can find there: http://exchange.smarttech.com/index.html?from=notebook#tab=0
I have found teacher.net to be a horrible chatboard full of bullies and unfair moderation by moderators who are biased based on their friendships with the bullies. Bullying and one-sided moderation/censorship is a constant complaint by people on that board. Of course, many of those complaints disappear due to censorship from the owner and his moderator Kathleen. It is a vile cesspool of nastiness, stalking, and domination by a select few–everything you can expect from a poorly run chatboard. My opinion is that it is best to just stay clear of that board. I have rarely seen anything resembling good advice from the posts there when it comes to teaching. Most of the posts now are about everything but teaching anyway as the “cohesive community” as the bullies and the powers that be use the board as their own personal gossip center. If you want to hear them brag about their kids and grandkids accomplishments or discuss their exercise regimen or share their approval of everything liberal or any number of other things that are unrelated to teaching, then you will enjoy the board. The moderator who has ruled that board for a couple decades now is a left liberal from Connecticut so if you are right of center, don’t even bother to post there. As they continually remind anybody who complains about the bias and censorship, it is a privately owned website so the owner and his stooges can do anything they like including ban anybody and censor anything. If you want to support that, you probably belong there. Otherwise, it will make you sick.
One of my sentences got confusing and just incorrectly written. I was trying to explain that the owner, his moderator, and their favorite pets call themselves “the cohesive community” because they agree on everything and if you don’t agree with them, you can go to hell basically.