Hack the Education System: Yahoo! Teachers of Merit 2006

During this era of high stakes testing, can teachers discover how to use, apply, and integrate social media into their classroom? Can 7 days make a difference?

For seven days in July 2006, sixty San Francisco Bay Area teachers were selected by Yahoo! to work side-by-side with a team of educational experts, engineers, technologists, and top Yahoo executives as part of the Yahoo! Teachers of Merit Program.

During the course of this innovative program, teachers explored, used, and learned how to use Yahoo! Community Tools in educational instruction: like image sharing, effective and credible web searching, and making the most of Yahoo! online community tools.

But more importantly, Yahoo! and the Teachers of Merit spent time in active dialogue, working together to chart a course that will lay the foundation for a new way of teaching and learning in the 21st Century classroom.

The message from Yahoo! was clear: it's about using technology to support instruction and student learning, not using instruction to support technology.

The Yahoo! Teachers of Merit Program is a unique learning environment where teachers can benefit from the collective genius of the collective Yahoo! Teacher community—and share their own knowledge along the way.

Note: Slideshow created using Slide and Flickr tags.