10 Great Community Building Platforms for Teachers

Since the introduction of the web 2.0, collaboration, sharing and community building have become the corner stones of a new cyber culture, one that is dependent on the power of networking and collective wisdom. There are a wide variety of tools that enable teachers, educators and students to communicate and share their work.

Some of the things teachers can do with such community spaces include:

• Creating custom mini-communities for classes
• Collaborate and share work
• Network with other educators from all around the globe
• Share resources and expand one's knowledge
• Grow professionally
• Push out reminders , assignments and updates...etc

1- Edmodo

Edmodo helps connect all learners with  the people and resources needed to reach their full potential. I have written several posts on Edmodo and the ones below will help you better tap into the educational potential of this wonderful tool:

• A Handy Guide to Everything Teachers Need to Know about Edmodo
• 21 Ways to Use Edmodo in your Classroom

2- Google Plus

This is another great platform where you can build your own community or join the ones other teachers have created. To learn more about how to create a community for your class or how to better use Google Plus for educational purposes, check out these titles.

• 11 Steps to Create A Google Plus Community for your Class
• 10 Google Plus Communities Every Teacher should Know about
• 3 Easy Ways to Create A Google Plus Hangout with Your Students

3- Twitter

This is my favourite platform for connecting with other educators and learning about the latest updates in the world of educational . Hashtags now allow Tweeters to create communities around a given topic , here are some posts to help you learn more about them:

• A Simple Guide on The Use of Hashtag for Teachers
• My Top 8 Hashtags as A Teacher

5- Wikispaces

Wikis are collaborative spaces by nature and are ideal for classroom use. The best platform to host your classroom wiki is Wikispaces. It is easy to use and is free of charge.

• Easily Create Classroom Wikis Using Wikispaces Classroom 
• Teachers Guide on The Use of Wikis in Education

6- Ning Communities
Ning hosts several teacher communities where educators connect and share their expertise, here are examples to start with

• Classroom 2.0
• Edu PLN
• Smart Board Revolution

7- LinkedIn

Though it is geared towards professional networking, LinkedIn also supports communities and there are in fact several educational communities to join, here are my favourites:

• Ed Tech Start Ups
• EduBloggers
• Education Revolution

8- Facebook

Facebook Groups is a great place to host your classroom community, you can set it up in a few clicks and invite your students or other teachers to join in the conversation. Here are some posts to get you started:

• 14 Great Facebook Groups Every Teacher should Know about 
• Teacher's Guide to Creating Facebook Group for Students 
• Facebook Groups for Schools Simplified

9- Scoop it

This is mainly a web curation tool to organize and store your bookmarked articles, however you can use it for crowdsourcing and creating communities around given topics.

11- Creative Commons

Creative Commons helps you share your knowledge and creativity with the world. Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.