TeachAde will be integrated into the newly revamped NEA MB Web site to help members connect with each other, share best practices, and access invaluable resources with a click of the mouse. The collaboration is part of the Web site’s intentional focus on the most important subjects to members: Money, Everyday Living, Health and Wellness, Professional Resources and Travel and Leisure.

“Our goal is to partner with the best programs and services to engage and support our members,” said Mark Stevens, vice president of Professional & Web Solutions, NEA Member Benefits. “Partnering with TeachAde will help educators connect with one another on a personal and immediate level about important topical issues such as National Board Certification, 21st-century skills and curriculum and instruction. TeachAde provides our members with a means to easily share their expertise, resources and tools with colleagues across the county.”

TeachAde, which currently has over 17,000 educator participants, enables educators to collaborate within grades and subjects and across schools, districts and states. For example, through TeachAde, the best math teacher in California is able to connect with and help a new math teacher in central Ohio. Once a teacher specifies their subject/grade, TeachAde’s robust database regularly sends useful and customized teacher-created resources directly to the educator. The NEA MB-TeachAde partnership provides NEA members access to a vast database of proven resources overnight and will ensure courses remain rigorous and engaging.

“As a special education teacher, I have found TeachAde to be an invaluable support tool, allowing me to reach out to other teachers in my school district as well as communicating with my students’ parents to keep them updated on their child’s progress,” said Donna Meyerhoeffer, special education teacher at Staunton River High School in Moneta, VA.

“Because each feature was designed and tested by educators, TeachAde’s interface is easy to use and intuitive,” said Michael Pearce, founding partner of TeachAde. “Collaborating with NEA MB allows us to go further to reach greater numbers of educators, which will increase the services to existing and future TeachAde members and demonstrates our commitment to improving teaching and learning.”

NEA members can access TeachAde through the new NEA MB Web site.

Billed as the first interactive website for teachers that allows teachers to create, search and share educational resources, Teachade has positioned itself among social networking sites (like MySpace or Facebook) as one of the most helpful teacher sites on the internet.  Unlike other teacher web sites, however, Teachade is completely free to use, with no strings attached.

It would be a pretty cool site even if it was just a place for teachers to network and share with each other, but I’ve recently discovered that it offers quite a bit more.  Teachers can post resources, lesson plans, and other educational tools, and then use the full featured calendar tool to schedule their entire school year! It also includes everything else you’d expect in websites for teachers, such as individual blog accounts and community groups and forum pages.

Since a lot of the tutors which either read this blog or participate on TutorMatch are also full-time licensed and professional teachers, I hope you’ll check out the Teachade.com site and let me know what you think about it.