Opinion – #Facebook, Teachbook and Teacher Collaboration

You might have heard of Teachbook.  It’s the website getting sued by social networking behemoth, Facebook for infringing on the use of the “[insert random word here]book” brand that Facebook has ever so diligently built (note sarcasm).  Considering that Facebook’s name itself is lifted from a product that was once in print, I’m not a fan of the litigation.  Not to mention that they’ve taken it all a step further and are moving to protect use of the word “face” as well.

Dear Mark Zuckerburg,

Stop it.

Anyways, what most people don’t know about Teachbook is that the collaboration it promotes occurs at least in part on a Moodle site.  (Where’s your Moodle, Facebook?)  On the Teachbook Moodle, while there are only 8 courses, you can see the level of collaboration within those courses by the number of co-facilitators/teachers enrolled.

According to the site:

When you join Teachbook, you can:
+Manage your professional profile and all information in your account by choosing to share with administrators, colleagues, parents or public
+Create and search lesson plans, instructional videos, and other teaching resources
+Manage your classroom communications with secure parent-teacher communication tools, such as a gradebook, events calendar, classroom newsletter, and homework space
+Communicate and connect with colleagues though discussion, chat, blogs, and more
+Gain new teaching knowledge and insights from like-minded professionals in groups
+Create and manage online courses and instructional modules
+Enable teachers to manage their student grades by recording, calculating, and sharing them in a secure online gradebook.

Teachbook is taking the social aspects of the web and going one further by providing both the training and the tools necessary to master the use of online course management systems.  I think it could be a hit service and community.  Even if it has to change it’s name.

Note, at the publishing of this post there existed a redirect issue on the Teachbook Moodle site (always returning you to the home page).  A support ticket was submitted to Teachbook staff to alert them of the issue.