Nearly two years ago the American Federation Of Teachers partnered with Britain’s TEC Connect to start a free online community for teachers.

Through ShareMyLesson teachers can share lesson plans, best practices and great ideas with each other along with the materials that go with those great ideas. The hope is that teachers from across both sides of the pond, will find other creative ways to teach lessons that their students may have trouble with, or they have trouble with themselves.  Sometimes for teachers who have been teaching for a long time, need a fresh look at the material and that’s what ShareMyLesson gives them.

At the same time, the American Federation of Teachers and Britain’s TEC Connect are both dealing with a shortage of great teachers, sometimes a shortage of funds and the amount of support they need. That’s why ShareMyLesson is free and will always be free.

ShareMyLesson also has a component for parents to get involved. They too can find new and creative ways to help their own children understand the lessons better. Parents can also use ShareMyLesson to get a better understanding of the way things are being taught today.

Content and materials are contributed to ShareMyLesson by the teachers themselves, but also from a variety of content partners like, Colorín Colorado, the Folger Shakespeare Library, Student Achievement Partners, the Teaching Channel and EI.

“As budgets are being slashed, assistance to teachers and students is minimal and instructional challenges are getting tougher, the AFT has joined with TES Connect to provide teachers with a digital professional learning community to support them,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in 2012 when the platform was announced.

Today ShareMyLesson is doing better than expected. Representatives from ShareMyLesson were on hand at SXSWedu in Austin on Tuesday to show off the working platform.

Check out our video below.