Professional Communities | News

Social Network for K-12 Educators Goes Mobile

• By Leila Meyer
• 06/06/12

edWeb.net, a professional social network for the education community, has launched a mobile version of its Web site to make it easier for edWeb members to stay in touch with network activity.

One of the drivers behind this new mobile-enabled site was the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF). For the past year, NCTAF has been using edWeb as part of its Teachers Learning in Networked Communities (TLINC) program. The TLINC program operates at nine universities across the country to foster collaboration in teacher training. Student teachers, mentor teachers, and faculty at five of those universities now have the opportunity to work together and support each other through the new edWeb mobile site. Qualcomm's Wireless Reach initiative provided funding for the program, and HTC donated smartphones and tablets, which are powered by 3G data plans from Kajeet for Education.

NCTAF also uses edWeb.net as part of its STEM Learning Studios Project, which encourages and supports collaborative partnerships between classroom teachers and local professionals working in STEM careers.

NCTAF hopes the edWeb mobile site will make it easier for new teachers to stay in touch with their student teaching faculty and advisors as they move into their teaching practice. According to a press release, the program will "provide information on how mobile devices extend collaboration and how advanced wireless technologies can be used to conduct virtual observations and real-time on-the-spot coaching."

"We have seen, through our research and through our TLINC and Learning Studios programs, that when teachers work together collaboratively both face-to-face and online--and now with the mobile app, on-the-go--they can accomplish more for students than any of them could individually," said Tom Carroll, President of NCTAF, in a prepared statement.

edWeb.net is free for educators and is funded by partners and supporters. The edWeb.net mobile-enabled site works on iPhone, iPad, and Android browsers. Further information about edWeb.net and its new mobile site is available at edWeb.net.