Infinite Source of Community

I'm still in awe of how many resources I'm discovering for teachers. Technologies that make it easy to create a community for sharing ideas and support.

In addition to those I've mentioned before (like Twitter, Edutopia) here's a few more:

• more blogs: as I search for new ideas, support for the upcoming school year, etc, I'm realizing that the blogs I may have overlooked before as unprofessional are actually good resources for feeling like I'm not alone out there when I'm in front of my class
  
  
• sites like About.com or Yahoo! Answers where strangers can read and respond to questions (here's an example with suggestions for taming unruly students)

I like this new perspective I'm developing on things I was taking for granted. I've been using the Internet to search for curriculum ideas and for hundreds of other things for years. But never for finding a new community to belong to. I think I had forgotten how much I still have to learn, and how much support teachers need from others who go through the same thing every day. Yes, lots of websites are poorly maintained, some blogs or sources may be too personal or unprofessional to consider as good sources, and we always have to be cautious of what we say and how we say it to protect ourselves and our students... but the Internet is a great way for teachers to come together as a community. And the more I explore it and set myself up to follow people who are good resources, the better prepared I am for my classroom.