Teachers.Net Celebrates 7 Years Online

This month, Teachers.Net celebrates 7 years as the leading Internet resource for educators, online since March 1996. In deciding how to make note of this special occasion, we decided that the following essay by Dave Melanson sums up pretty well what Teachers.Net is all about. So, we at Teachers.Net enthusiastically raise our cyber-glasses to join Dave in his toast to the first 7 years, to the future, and to the tens of thousands of educators who make Teachers.Net such a special niche on the World Wide Web.

Following the essay are links to some of our history. We hope you'll enjoy the trip down Memory Lane.

Happy 7^th Anniversary Teachers.Net

by Dave Melanson

Ladies and gentleman, would you all please take a moment to raise your glasses with me in a toast to the finest website on the WWW. Which site am my referring, to you may ask. Why it is our own beloved Teachers.Net of course.

The site first came into existence in March of 1996 and in the very beginning there was only a chatboard. The site eventually grew to having a live chatroom and kept expanding over the years to where it is today, a wonderful and valuable resource.

I first came to Teachers.Net in the fall of 1999. I had just got set up here at home on the Internet and had recently come home from a workshop in Halifax, Nova Scotia where I presented to elementary teachers on "inclusion" of sight impaired and blind children into the regular classroom environment.

I slowly began to make a lot of friends in the Teachers.Net chatroom and now see many of these friendships as very valuable, special and dear to me.

My discovery of Teachers.Net could not have come at a better time, the previous year my mom had passed away and I was generally taking a while to get over this and adjust to the major changes that had happened to me.

I remember how welcoming everyone was to me when I first started coming to the chatroom. It was as though I had found a new way to get the positive message out about "inclusion" of sight impaired and blind children in the classroom.

One of the other things that has really made a positive impact for me also are the Teachers.Net gatherings. If you have not yet been to one, I urge you to do so as soon as you can. You will find that these gatherings are a wonderful way to network with your colleagues around the world.

Many classroom exchange projects are happening now between teachers as a result of Teachers.Net. The site is an international resource which is modeled on effective and creative use of the Internet to accomplish a very special mission---to promote good will and the exchange of ideas among educators from every corner of the globe.

A very special thanks should go to Bob Reap Teachers.Net webmaster and creator (with Tony Bott), and Kathleen Carpenter and Mary Miehl who do endless wonderful work to keep the site going on a daily basis. Without them, Teachers.Net would not be nearly what it is today.

Please tell as many of your colleagues as possible about the wonderful resources found here at Teachers.Net, including the live meetings and conference sessions as well as the archived sessions and issues of the monthly webzine, the Teachers.Net Gazette.

The list of resources is endless and ever-growing along with all of our friendships in the Teachers.Net chatroom. Every day it seems there are many wonderful new chatters coming to join us in what is a close and special community. With this growth comes new ideas for positive ways to approach education and make learning fun and challenging at the same time.

In closing, I offer my sincere best wishes to Teachers.Net for a very happy 7th anniversary. May you have many more productive years of service to the educational community. As you continue to foster the growth of friendships and cooperation around the world, you make things better for future generations of educators and students.

As I raise my glass in a toast to this wonderful community of which we are all a part, please join me in this worldwide toast.

7/02/98 Chat With Site Creators Tony & Bob http://teachers.net/archive/tony_bob.html

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