Just a note on user images or avatars. If you click on Account settings in the upper right and then on Your site picture at the top, you can scroll down to a place to upload your own avatar or user image, personal icon, whatever...

Just use the Browse button to locate on your computer an image you want to use to represent you visually on the site. You can also visit AvatarsR.Us to download an icon of your choice to your computer which can then be uploaded to this site.  This is a free service with copyright-free images for you to choose from.

Icons or avatars add to the fun of the site, so pick an image and dress up your posts! (Oh, yeah, that's me with the baton over there...)

Note that one of the great features of TeacherPlaces is that you can set an access level for virtually everything that you write.  Below each text box you will see a drop-down menu which allows you to decide who can access or "see" what you've written.  You can select "Private" for those items that you want to capture at TeacherPlaces but you want to keep to yourself.  If you choose "Private," only you can see the item, whether it is your telephone number, email address, or your list of personal likes and dislikes.

On the other hand, if you select "Public," then any visitor to TeacherPlaces will be able to view what you wrote.  When visitors come to the home page, for example, and click on "see what others are syaing right now," your post to your blog will be visible to them if it is "Public."

Finally, you can allow access to your information or posts to only those logged-in members of TeacherPlaces, or to members of a community that you belong to.

By coding different information differently, you can control at a very "granular" level who has access.  You may want everyone to see some things you write, and you may want to keep others private until you are ready to share.  The option is all yours!

Joining a community at TeacherPlaces is easy.  Communities allow groups of members who share an interest to interact with one another, share documents, view each others’ resources, and build knowledge collaboratively.

To join an existing community once you have registered at TeacherPlaces, simply search the topics that people are writing about by typing a tag or keyword into the search box in the lower right corner of the window.  That search will produce a list of resources and users interested in that topic.

If you don’t see what you are looking for, go back and click on the “Random tags” link just below the search box.  That will produce the “tag cloud” or list of topics that people on the site are interested in.  If you see what you are looking for, click on the tag and you will be given a list of the people and resources on the site that have listed that tag.

Under the heading “Matching users” toward the bottom of the list, you will see any communities that have been formed on that topic.  A click on the link will take you to the community main page.  In the box to the right, below the community icon, you will see a link “Click here to join this community.”  Click the link and you are in!  It’s that easy.

One of the things that you can use to keep track of topics and what people are saying about them is the RSS feature of the site software.

RSS is a really simple way of publishing, or syndicating, information over a network. In fact, that's how it got its name: Really Simple Syndication.

A stream of information that someone publishes using RSS is called a "feed." There are thousands of feeds available to you over the Internet, including everything from the oldest form of syndicated content, the latest news, to specialized feeds that deal narrowly with a single topic of interest, like this feed. When you make arrangements to receive a feed and view it on your computer, you are said to "subscribe" to the feed. It is a little bit like subscribing to a magazine that is delivered through the mail to your house, or signing up to receive home delivery of your local newspaper.

Once you have subscribed to a feed, as with the newspaper that is delivered to your door, all you have to do is pick it up and read it. With RSS feeds, you subscribe and access your feeds by using what is called an RSS "reader." Nowadays, that task is most easily accomplished using your Internet browser, although there are stand-alone programs that will pick up your feeds and display them without opening your browser. Remember, though, that your reader cannot pick up your feeds and display the information without first connecting to the internet and retrieving them.

Welcome to Teacher Places. You may join any of the community discussions or start one of your own.