Enter online communities. The term may invoke images of MySpace or other social networking sites, but there are plenty of professional communities in cyberspace—especially for teaching and learning.

National Geographic’s EdNet, for example, hosts several. Notable among them are Our Environment and Oceans for Life Community to promote environmental and ocean literacy; the International Studies Online Teacher Community which focuses on international affairs and world geography; and many state-specific communities. LearningTimes also has several communities for K–12 educators, including PoetryLive, and can also help you develop your own online community.

Online teaching communities are particularly beneficial for new teachers who feel they need extra support. Veteran teachers, however, can reap equal satisfaction in sharing information, offering advice, or even heading up a sub-community.

There are two basic kinds of online communities, depending on whether their content is “pushed” or “pulled.” “Pushed” communities, such as the Department of Education’s EDInfo, are supported by an electronic mailing list (listserv), often in the absence of a corresponding web site. All you need do is subscribe to the list. You then receive all the e-mail messages from members and can contribute to the discussion by sending messages to the list. Some people favor listservs because it saves them the time of checking a web site for newly added content.

“Pulled” communities require members to log on to the Internet. Many require a user name and password as well. Joining can be as simple as submitting your e-mail address on a web form. This kind of community often allows users to enter search terms for particular subjects. Tapped In is a highly successful and well known example. About to be launched is Yahoo Teachers.

Online communities give you access to other teachers 24 hours, 7 days per week. Your school district, state Department of Education, or local institute of higher education may already have an online community set up for K–12 teachers. It’s just a matter of checking.

E-School article: Online communities transform teacher development (www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=46366&CFID=1582826&CFTOKEN=46061951)

Teacher Learning Communities from Answer.com (www.answers.com/topic/teacher-learning-communities)

The Peaks and Valleys of Online Professional Development (www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=research&article=3-1)