We find ourselves looked to and glared at by our charges and often feel isolated from other adults in the building, in our profession, in the community. Our professional training is not uncommonly guided by people who have lost touch with today's classroom and today's students. Or if we're lucky, we may be sent to a professional conference, which is likely also to quickly recede into Memoryland. The Teacher Professional Develop-ment Institute, was created. It is a rich community of people, organizations and technology that can help teachers overcome their isolation, learn new tools and methodologies and find partners with whom to collaborate.
Membership is free and open to educators and educational researchers.
It opened its virtual doors in fall 1996 and began an accelerated expansion in the spring of 1998. Developed in the days before the graphical capabilities of the World Wide Web, MOOs were originally text-only and required a client program to use them effectively. In collaboration with Brian Simmons at Thurgood Marshall High School in San Francisco, I facilitated the design and imple-mentation of an online student forum on civil rights, an extension of Brian's civil rights unit in which his students had developed Web pages to publicize what they had learned. Wrestle with tough issues through a combination of group classroom work and small discussion groups in virtual meeting rooms. Explore what civil rights are from perspectives of students from different environments and backgrounds.