Many teachers lack connections to colleagues with similar interests, responsibilities, and challenges. Imagine being the only physics teacher in a school. Under normal school conditions, you could go for weeks or months without contact with another physics teacher. Sharing teaching strategies and content with colleagues or even getting outside advice or constructive criticism-this just isn't a part of your world.

No wonder so many teachers feel professionally isolated.

Four hundred teachers in Indiana are turning to a new online environment, the Inquiry Learning Forum (ILF)1, to establish connections with other teachers, as well as to expand access to classroom resources. They are acting to end the isolation of teachers.

The ILF is a video centered, web-based learning forum designed to support an online community of current and future science and mathematics teachers interested in "inquiry-based" teaching. The ILF provides opportunities to virtually "visit" classrooms across Indiana. It features a large video library of classroom episodes and enables teachers to discuss, annotate, reflect upon, and replay these classroom episodes as needed.

The home screen of the ILF, shown here, displays which of the classrooms are available through the Visit Classrooms space. When ILF members select a specific classroom lesson, they can view a videotape of that lesson being implemented. They can also review a lesson overview, reflective commentary, descriptions of teaching activity, lesson plans, students' examples, and connections with both state and national standards.

In addition to the Visit Classroom spaces, there are also 5 other virtual spaces designed to support professional development needs. The ILF Office is the place where new participants can secure a password, get help with technology, or make suggestions. The Workroom provides groups with an online space to form working circles, or sub-communities, that facilitate collaboration on a particular project, product, or goal. The Lounge hosts general conferences that are not tied to a particular classroom as well as a space for real-time chat to allow users to communicate with others. The Auditorium is the place where special events can occur. These usually involve chat discussions with a white board and resources. It also provides the opportunity for video-casting live or recorded presentations for discussion. Any member of the community can hold a workshop, experts can be brought in, or there may be simultaneous discussion of specific issues.

The Library is a place where teachers can go to access reference materials of interest, including references on teaching resource materials (software, other classroom artifacts like the graphing calculator, manipulatives, sensory probes), state and national standards, grants, applied research and theory, state initiatives, and other materials the teachers identify as relevant.

Finally, My Desk is the place where a teacher can store bookmarks to resources and classrooms of personal interest. Not only do teachers have the opportunity to share lesson plans, unit plans, and other resources through the ILF, they are also able to watch other teachers implement these resources in their classrooms, read the personal reflections of these teachers, and discuss what they have seen, heard, or read. Every classroom resource available in the ILF community is "attached" to a videotaped segment of a lesson or a particular discussion thread. This enables teachers to not only find resources, but also to read or hear about how they might be used in a particular classroom.

Dr. Sasha Barab, the project principal investigator, expects the ILF to grow by more than 1,000 members by 2002. Plans are underway to extend the ILF beyond Indiana, providing a welcoming space that can help make teachers feel less isolated and more a part of a professional community.

1. http://ilf.crlt.indiana.edu/