Incorporate reflection, journaling, basic record-keeping, data collection, pooling of lesson plans, strategy capturing, and peer-to-peer sharing into a single, familiar process -- the completion of an online journal or reflection log.
 

COLLECT & MEASURE. SHARE & SUPPORT. ALL IN ONE PLACE.
	Collect & Measure.
	The Network offers a far more efficient and effective way to collect information about new and student teachers, allowing faculty, mentor teachers and administrators to easily: Track teachers' experiences and their reflections on those experiences; Develop a meaningful and always-growing library of teachers' innovative strategies, lesson plans and lessons learned; Analyze research data; and to easily Keep basic administrative records. Give yourself, colleagues and partners instant access to all of the information you collect, all in one place (even from your cell phone).  If you're a college or university faculty member, use the data you collect to inform, augment and further your own research.
	Share & Support.
	Beyond offering a far more efficient approach to collecting data on and measuring teachers' experiences, learning and growth, the Network also directly supports and enhances teacher learning, delivering relevant professional development opportunities to each individual teacher when he or she needs it. What enables much of this to happen is the Network's unique way of supporting a strong spirit of sharing among teachers, faculty, school administrators and all other parties involved in the development of your teachers.  Busy new and student teachers especially benefit from this aspect of the Network as they're able to constantly share their best practices and lessons learned with one another without having to proactively take any steps to proactively share and search for others' ideas and innovations. On top of this, use the data you collect with the Network to provide your teachers with additional, timely feedback on their experiences.  Adapt class time and professional development opportunities to emerging and long term patterns and themes you observe.
RESPECTING YOUR TIME.  BEYOND FORUMS.
	The Network is not an “add-on” responsibility for professors or program administrators.  It incorporates what you're already doing (asking new and student teachers to complete written reflections about their experiences), but simplifies and enriches that process.  The Network is free of bulletin boards, discussion forums and e-mail lists.  When using those media, new and student teachers often respond to discussion topics in limited ways or not at all, ultimately limiting the amount of learning, sharing and institutional memory building that happens.  Here's what one professor at Duke University had to say about his experiences with a popular bulletin board system: "Although most college students and faculty have access to web services such as Blackboard forums that are designed to facilitate student-to-student learning, many students respond in limited ways to the discussion boards and online forums provided by Blackboard. And these types of online forums often demand a significant amount of faculty time and effort in terms of monitoring and providing feedback. We piloted the use of the America Learns Network to determine if it could help us accomplish the goals described above without simply creating an 'add-on' responsibility and chore for students and faculty." Unlike other services, the America Learns Network does not demand burdensome amounts of time and effort in order to effectively monitor teachers' progress.  Instead, it streamlines current processes while also providing meaningful guidance and support to teachers.  To that end, the Network does not rely upon bulletin boards, web-based forums, e-mail listservs, or traditional information management systems in which administrators or professors have to spend time entering mammoth amounts of data and convincing their students to take extra time out of their days to use. Read the entire piece written by the Duke University professor cited above.
TAKE A GUIDED TOUR.  SEEING IS BELIEVING.
	Reserve your space on an upcoming live, guided tour of the Network led by America Learns' founder and CEO, Gary Kosman.  Reserve your space.