TeachersConnect Getting Started

Navigating TeachersConnect

TeachersConnect Home Page: The homepage brings together posts from all over TeachersConnect. As you scroll down you will see rows of different types of posts. The top row shows the “trending” (most popular) posts, the following rows show the most recent posts from each community you are part of, and the last row shows unanswered questions. You can use the red arrows on the left and right side of each row to scroll sideways to view more of each type of post.

Top Navigation Bar: The yellow bar at the top of TeachersConnect contains the following buttons that will help you navigate around the site.

  • Search Box: The search box allows you to search for topics or educators of interest to you. Just type in your search and indicate whether you are searching “contributions” or “members” before pressing “find”.
  • Home: The home button brings you back to the home page.
  • Contribute: The contribute button gets you started creating your own post or a question.
  • Conversations: The conversations button takes you to your “conversations”, where you can start a new private conversation or continue an existing conversation with an individual educator or a group of educators.
  • Notifications: The notifications button brings you to the list of your most recent TeachersConnect notifications. You can click on notifications to view the activity they relate to.
  • Profile: The profile button brings you to your own profile where you can add information to tell other educators about yourself.
  • Communities: The communities button brings you to the communities page where you can view the communities you have already joined and select new communities to join.

Interacting With Posts or Questions: You can click any post or question to view more and interact with it. Once you have clicked into a post or question you can press the “helpful” or “good question” buttons, or scroll down to the comment box to write and submit a comment or answer.

View A Community Page: There are many different communities of educators on TeachersConnect. You can view all of the posts in a community that you have joined by clicking on the name of the community in its homepage row or clicking the “view all” button on the right side of the row. You can also navigate to different communities by clicking the buttons at the top of the Communities page.

Create a Post: Create a post to share an idea, resource, lesson, or story on TeachersConnect. Once you have written your post you can choose the community you want it to appear in by changing the “audience” of your post. When you publish your post it will appear in the homepage row and community feed of the community you chose.  The educators who are part of that community will be able to see your post and interact with it. You can also attach up to 4 files to a post.

Ask a Question: Ask a question to get answers from other educators on TeachersConnect. Questions are the same as posts in that you can set your audience, attach files, and other educators can interact with them. They are different in that each new question will appear in the “unanswered questions” row at the bottom of the homepage until it receives at least one answer.

Profile: View your profile information: name, photo, number of people following, number of followers, and total number of contributions to the community. Privately view the impact you are making in the community, such as the number of members who have marked your contributions as helpful. You can view other teachers’ profiles by clicking on their name when reading their posts, comments, or answers.

Edit Profile: Update your personal information, teaching experience, education, and about me. Add any teacher communities that you belong to as well.

Your Connections Feed: View posts and questions exclusively from the people you follow. This is located under “My Communities” in the Menu.

“Helpful” Button (Thumbs Up): Click to let a teacher know you think their post, comment, or answer was helpful.

“Good Question” Button (Clapping Hands): Click to let a teacher know you feel the same way or have the same questions as them. After clicking “Good Question”, TeachersConnect will send you a notification when someone answers that question.

Answer Button: Click to type an answer to a teacher’s question.

Attachments Button: (Paper Clip) Click this while creating a post, question, or comment to add files or images.

Trouble Uploading Photos

Known Issue

The TeachersConnect Team is aware that some teachers have been unable to upload certain photos to their posts or their profiles. Our team is in the process of finding a solution.

What You Can Do

If you have been unable to upload a photo as either a profile photo or as part of a post you have two options.

  1. Rename your image file so the name includes no capital letters, no underscores (_), no spaces, and no letters after the .jpg or .png extension if the file is one of those two formats. The file name must have an extension. If your format isn’t working, please try saving it as a .jpg or .png file. Once the image name follows those rules try uploading it again.
  2. Send the TeachersConnect team your image. If you are unsure how to change your image type yourself you can send it to our support team and we will be happy to help you. Email your image to us at hello@teachersconnect.com and we will be happy to send you back an image that you will be able to upload.

Thank You

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work through this issue. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at hello@teachersconnect.com if you have any questions.

Creating Engaging Posts!

Well-designed posts receive far more views, comments, and activity on TeachersConnect. To ensure your posts don’t get passed over, follow these simple guidelines and check out the example below!

  1. Add a profile picture. Go to your profile, click edit profile, and edit your personal information to change your photo. Teachers will be much more likely to pay attention to your smiling face than an ugly robot!
  2. Before asking your question or sharing your thoughts, give a little context about your current situation and what motivated you to create this post. Then bold your question, idea or resource so no one misses it. Checking out posts that are currently trending on the home page for more ideas.
  3. Title your post. Use the ‘TT’ or put your title in Bold to tell teachers what your post is about right off the bat.
  4. Break up large chunks of text with line breaks, quotes, lists, or bullets.
  5. Upload a photo! What’s the saying: “A photo is worth a thousand words”? Spice up your post with an image that relates to it.
  6. Include a document. Teachers love resources! If you have a resource to go with your post include it.

Joining Your Teacher Communities

In the TeachersConnect community, teachers and education professionals from everywhere are encouraged to share thoughts, resources, questions, and answers. However, if you are a part of a specific community that has partnered with TeachersConnect and are looking to join your colleagues, here is how you can do it.

Steps for Joining a Teacher Community:

  1. Navigate to your Profile Page
    Click the “Menu” button at the top right corner to access your profile and tools. Click the “Profile” button.
  2. Edit Profile
    Once you are looking at your profile, you will see a button to the right of your name that says “Edit Profile.” Click it.
  3. Add a Teacher Community
    Under the Teacher Communities section of your profile, click the “Add Community” button. Find your teacher community on the list. Read the description to make sure it is the right one. Click the “Add” button. You have now joined that Teacher Community. (If you have mistakenly saved the wrong teacher community and want to remove it, click the “Option” button next to the community’s name on your edit profile page, and click “Delete.”)
    Note: If you do not see your teacher community on the list, they may not have partnered with TeachersConnect. Contact a representative of the community/organization and ask about partnering with TeachersConnect.
  4. View Your Teacher Community
    Click the “Menu” button at the top right corner again to access your tools. You will now see a tile for your teacher community under “Communities”. Click it to view posts and questions from members of that community. Your posts and questions will appear there as well.

Community Guidelines

Last updated: November 29, 2022

At TeachersConnect, we value your expertise and honor your struggles.

The TeachersConnect community is intended only for educators.  It is important to us that you feel safe, comfortable, and respected in the community at all times.  To enhance the dialogue, we’ve put together some simple guidelines for engaging in the TeachersConnect community.

We know that discussions are a way for everyone to bring their experience, knowledge, and vulnerabilities to the table. At the same time, we realize there are many schools of thought within the field of education – some that transcend our political and cultural lives. We want to support this diversity of thought and encourage you to bring your true self to discussions while maintaining respect for each other’s differences.

When making moderation decisions, we will take these guidelines, as well as the context in which posts are made, into account and provide feedback to the contributor as needed. We wanted to make these guidelines public and be transparent about our moderation process and why certain posts are removed.

We also recognize that this is your community as much as it is ours. We want you to help us uphold a high standard of quality for conversation in the discussions.  These guidelines can help you and the rest of the TeachersConnect community have an enjoyable experience online; however, should you ever encounter something that is negatively impacting your experience, please let us know by using our online form here.

In short

  • Feel at home.  This community is intended specifically for educators, so you are safe to ask questions and provide honest answers.
  • Be a good citizen. Interact, connect, and treat others with respect.
  • Stay on topic. Keep your content relevant, positive, and solutions-focused.
  • Know the boundaries. Your activity on TeachersConnect is subject to these Community Guidelines and the TeachersConnect terms of service. If you stray away from appropriate usage, we may take action on your account, which could include deactivation.

What we encourage

  • Have an authentic identity. People connect to other real, authentic people on TeachersConnect. When people stand behind their opinions and actions with their authentic name and reputation, our community is more accountable and so are your posts. Our real name requirement creates a safer environment for everybody.
  • Be respectful. We’re a diverse global community of many types of people, with different beliefs, opinions, sensitivities, and comfort levels. Please be polite and respectful in your interactions with other members and consider your audience when posting publicly. If you’re unsure whether content is appropriate or consistent with the Community Guidelines or the TeachersConnect Terms of Service, please err on the side of caution.
  • Engage thoughtfully. You have the opportunity to help shape your online community. Contribute thoughtful content, report abusive content if you see it, and encourage rich, fulfilling engagement and interactions with others.
  • Share your expertise or ask for input. Encourage discussions and contribute original content, questions and thoughts to your community. Chances are someone else has the same question as you or could benefit from your knowledge, opinions, or personal experiences.

What we prohibit

  • Bullying or harassment of community members. TeachersConnect isn’t a place to harass, bully, shame, impersonate, or intimidate others.  This includes the use of hate speech, which directly attacks a person or group on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, disease, age, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity. We’re a global community of people with diverse beliefs, opinions, and backgrounds, so please be respectful and keep hateful and incendiary comments off of TeachersConnect.
  • Obscenities. Sexually explicit and vulgar language and images are not welcome.
  • Malicious behavior. Members of TeachersConnect must follow our Community Guidelines and the TeachersConnect Terms of Service. Don’t attempt to defraud, impersonate, threaten, harass or harm another member. Don’t invade another member’s privacy or spam another member or the community. Don’t try to trick people into sharing their personal information, steal anything (like copyrighted or trademarked material), or break into places you shouldn’t be. Don’t post links to sites that contain viruses or malicious programs or that interfere with the operation of TeachersConnect and its members.
  • Using the community as a sales platform.  Please do not solicit other members for personal financial gain. This includes selling or professionally promoting goods or services. Note: The Job Seekers Community may have sponsored job postings.
  • Using the community to rant.  We want to keep our community a positive, healthy environment primed for the sharing of ideas and information.  While we all have “those days” that you just need to talk about, be sure to keep the conversation solutions-focused and certainly avoid calling out any members of your school community.
  • Sharing personal information about students or colleagues.  This community, while intended to be for educators only, is still a fairly public space.  For that reason, it is essential that you avoid sharing any personally identifiable information about students or colleagues without explicit permission.  Please see the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act for more detail.

What TeachersConnect will do

  • Support the community. We will ensure that we promote community, collaboration, and discussion on TeachersConnect. We will provide assistance to individual member queries directly through the support section of our website.  We will also listen to the ideas and suggestions of our community members to help us build and improve the functions and features of TeachersConnect where applicable.
  • Maintain a safe environment. We care greatly about our members and their ability to have safe, rich online experiences. That is why we seek to ensure that this is a closed community specifically for educators to make those important connections and share ideas. While we cannot be present for every interaction and upload, we look to our members to report abusive and potentially harmful content. You can report content violations by using our online form here.  After we are notified of a potential violation, we will review the content and may take action. We may make exceptions to these policies based on artistic, educational, or documentary considerations, or when there are other substantial benefits to the public from not taking action.

We do our best to ensure fair outcomes, but if we conclude that you are violating these guidelines, we reserve the right to suspend accounts, or remove content, without notice, for any reason, but particularly to protect our services, infrastructure, members, and community. We reserve the right to enforce, or not enforce, these guidelines at our sole discretion, and these guidelines don’t create a duty or contractual obligation for us to act in any particular manner. We also reserve the right to amend these guidelines using the procedures set forth in our Terms of Service.

Creating Your Account

Overview: The first thing you should do on TeachersConnect is create an account. Requiring every member of the community to create an account helps us ensure that only teachers and people who work with teachers can enter the community.

Some of the information you enter as you create your account will be visible to the rest of the community, for example, what grades and subjects you teach. This information helps other teachers get to know you.

Steps for creating an account:

  1. Go to www.TeachersConnect.online on any device: your phone, tablet, or computer. Click the red ‘Sign Up’ button.
  2. Click one of the three buttons to indicate if you are a teacher, in training to become a teacher, or involved in education another way.
  3. You will see a brief explanation of why we need you to answer a few questions.
  4. Fill out your Name, Email, and Password. Nobody else in the community will be able to see your email or password. Click Next.
  5. Answer each of the following questions by typing or selecting your answer. Once you select your answers you will need to click the Next button.
  6. The last step is to review your profile information, and then check the box that says “I agree to the TeachersConnect Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.” Then click Finish!
  7. Re-enter your email and password you used to sign up in order to sign into TeacherConnect.