I’ve become convinced that there’s a social network targeted at every race, class, age, and occupation imaginable; for this reason, I’ve also become suspicious of new launches. But Yahoo’s creating a social network for teachers, and the site really appears quite promising.
Yahoo Teachers bills itself as “easy-to-use” and “designed by and for teachers.” You will, to be honest, be hard-pressed to find any social network that doesn’t make similar claims. But I’m a dog person; I am not, to understate the matter, a “child” person. So I can believe that teachers, after spending a full day among students, would enjoy a little interaction with their peers.
Furthermore, an early version of the site received a positive write-up from Ars Technica’s Thomas Wilburn. A “presentation at the recently concluded UX Week on the web application, while still revealing a few rough edges, was an intriguing look at high-tech solutions for the most unglamorous side of teaching: the lesson plan,” he stated.
Wilburn later added, “While showing the application, both Weber and Scott noted that its development had been eased considerably by the use of existing widgets as a ‘guerrilla’ development process . . . . They praised this approach, noting that they were able to put the tool in front of educators and then tweak it nightly as they got feedback during the day.” Weber and Scott, by the way, are Karon Weber, Yahoo’s principal designer, and Bill Scott, Yahoo’s Ajax evangelist.
This feedback hasn’t resulted in a final product, however; portions of the Yahoo Teachers homepage still say things like “Get ready! It’s coming…” and “Sign up now to be among the first to know about the public release.” Given that a new school year has already started in most places, I’d wager that it could be at least several more months before a launch occurs.
