Teaching Scientific Thinking Across the Curriculum in 21st Century Classrooms

“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking.” Carl Sagan

Judging from headlines and media chatter about our students’ performances on international science assessments for the past several years, the United States has been doomed economically for at least a decade. A New York Times headline in December 2012 most recently prognosticated our economic demise with, “US Students Still Lag Globally in Math and Science, Tests Show.” In that article, the Times declares economic doom by stating, “As those with superior math and science skills increasingly thrive in a global economy, the lag among American students could be a cause for concern.” According to the Times, we are doomed economically because our international science test scores tell us that is the case.

Back  in 2007 another New York Times article forecast economic doom at the hand of Asian countries with better science scores. In “Study Compares States’ Math and Science Scores with Other Countries,’” the Times stated, “Our Asian economic competitors are winning the race to prepare students in math and science.” That article, which compared state science scores to the scores of other nations, even declared Massachusetts, with the highest state science scores in the land to be doomed economically at the hand of Asian nations. That same year, the Washington Post joined the chorus with, “U.S. Teens Trail Peers Around the World on Math-Science Test.”  The Post again declared economic doom because of 2006 math-science scores on the Program for International Student Assessment. Former Governor of Colorado, stated at the time, “How are our children going to be able to compete with the children of the world?” Once again, economic doom is declared.

Finally, in 2009, it was CNN who made another economic doom declaration in, “U.S. Students Behind in Math, Science, Analysis Says.” In this article, the news network declares, “American children aren’t necessarily getting smarter or dumber, but that might not be good enough to compete globally…” In other words, we’re doomed economically because of our science test scores. Every time a new set of international test scores are released, this pattern is repeated, and the same theme is reiterated: The US is doomed economically because we did not get the highest scores in the world in math and science. But should our concern really be with whether or not we’re ranked first in the world in math and science tests? Shouldn’t we be less concerned about whether our students have the number 1 science scores in the world and more concerned about whether our students are actually learning science and how to think scientifically?  Perhaps what we really need is a framework of fundamental assumptions to guide the teaching of science as a“way of thinking” across subject areas.

Carl Sagan in The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, argues that science is the means for discovering what is true based on facts.  It is with this process of discovery and inquiry with which our students need the most help. What they need are help understanding  fundamental principles of science that guide true scientific thinking. Based on Sagan’s ideas, here are four assumptions about the the nature of scientific thinking that should inform all our teaching across content areas.

• Science involves being willing to accept facts even when they contradict your current views. As Carl Sagan points out, “Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions.” Too often, science is used to simply confirm currently held worldviews. In the process, facts that don’t fit are either tossed out or made irrelevant. But science isn’t about confirming our beliefs about the world; it’s about discovering the world we don’t know, and that means accepting sometimes things that contradict our worldviews. I call this being comfortable with contradiction. Teaching our students to be comfortable with contradiction is one of the keys to scientific thinking.
• Science involves holding our theories, hypotheses, and beliefs about the world as tentative. Beliefs can change, when facts change. What is true today is subject to change when facts change. The job of science is to constantly examine facts, and adjust views when the facts warrant it. It is what Sagan describes as carrying “alternative hypotheses in our heads and seeing which best fits the facts.” Teaching students to embrace the “tentativeness of what-they-know” is an important part of scientific thinking too.
• Science involves questioning “arguments from authority.” Carl Sagan states this much more clearly than I can: “Authorities must prove their arguments like everyone else.” Teaching our students that “no one gets a pass” on proof in their argument is vital to scientific thinking.
• Science involves engaging fully what Sagan calls its “error-correcting machinery.” Our students need to understand the processes of error-correcting, such as peer review and critical questioning. They need to understand that our beliefs and our conclusions should be subject to these processes so that any errors made at arriving at those conclusions are made evident. For science to work, this “error-correcting machinery” must be utilized. Like an error purification system, the ideas that can’t stand up to peer review or criticism are at least looked upon with skepticism, if not rejected. Teaching students about science’s built-in-error correction system is important to 21st century scientific thinking too.
• Finally, as Sagan points out, “Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge.” Our students, in the process of engaging in scientific thinking, need to understand its limitations as well. They need to know that there are questions to which science may not be able to answer. Absolute beliefs, even in the infallibity of science, result in a kind of fundamentalism not too different that found in religion. Teaching students scientific thinking’s limitations and pitfalls is an important part of scientific thinking.

While the predictions for American economic doom based on science test scores is probably going to continue, what is of greater concern is whether our students are actually learning how to think scientifically. Our students need to be engaged in scientific thinking, not just in science either. They need to engage in science across the curriculum. In order to do that, all of our teaching needs to be informed by basic guiding assumptions about science like these five. Otherwise, our students will be ill-equipped to engage in scientific thinking.

5 Top Blog Posts of All Time on the 21st Century Principal

One interesting ability of blogging is the ability to see which posts have gotten the most views over time. There is obviously a great deal that can be learned from this kind of data. For example, you can see the kinds of content readers most want to see. What's interesting to me is that a post I did over two years ago is still the most popular post on this blog. Here's the Current Top 5 21st Century Principal Blog Posts.

1. Top iPad Apps for School Administrators. This list has been revised and changed over time, and I must confess I do no use all of these apps any longer due to better apps being developed. Evernote and Dropbox are still at the top of my list of iPad apps, though I would add Google Drive, Amazon Cloud Drive, and iCloud as other cloud storage options I now use. Evernote is still going strong as my iPad note taking app, however. It has only gotten better since this original post.I don't use Docs-to-Go any longer. It has been replaced by Google Drive. My favorite E-Reader is still Amazon's Kindle, mostly because that is where all my books reside. My RSS reader of choice for the iPad is now Mr. Reader. I published an updated revised List of Top iPad Apps for Administrators in January of this year. However, this list has moved to a more generic app listing.

2. 10 Things a School Leader Does to Kill a Teacher's Enthusiasm for Technology. This post was actually inspired by the teacher in me. Over my 16 years in the classroom, these were the kinds of things I witnessed that made me want to give up efforts to engage in using technology in my classroom. Administrators have a powerful role in fostering technology use, and their actions and policy can tank excitement quickly.

3.  Top 10 Signs Your School Is Caught in a Time Warp: List for School Leaders. I can't remember the inspiration for this post, except for the quote at the beginning. Our schools are still stuck in the past. Many of those 10 signs are still relevant, however, I would perhaps add a two others.

• Technology is purchased for bragging purposes, not for instructional potential.
• There's still talk of textbook adoptions.

4. 5 Indications Your Leadership Is Obsolete for 21st Century Schools. This post was more direct than number 3. I attempted to directly state those actions and proclivities of school leaders that actually prevent schools from moving to 21st century learning models. Leadership requires action, and many of the actions described in this list are in direct opposition to 21st century learning and teaching.

5. 6 Key Personal Learning Network Literacies Every Educator Needs. This post attempted to capture those things that every educator needs to make the most of Personal Learning Networks. Being able to use social media to foster professional learning is a key 21st century educator competency. We need to be able to engage in Personal Learning Networks, not only because they are efficient and powerful, but because our students learn that way.

That's it. The Top 5 21st Century Principal Posts. Blogging has been and continues to be an adventure in learning and sharing.

4 Immediate Steps Teachers Can Take to Re-engage the Dis-engaged Student

“If tomorrow, every teacher in America spent 20 minutes of class time asking each student what her or his passion was, and then later used that information to understand each student more deeply and differentiate their instruction accordingly, education would take giant positive steps forward overnight.” Marc Prensky, From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom: Hopeful Essays for 21st Century Learning

Sometimes the solutions that have the biggest impact on the most difficult issues our schools face aren't complicated, scientific solutions; they are solutions staring us right in the face. One of those issues with obvious solutions is how to deal with disengaged, disconnected students. Because our education system asks students to “check their interests and passions at the door” widespread student disengagement in our schools is stubborn and persistent. Our education system stubbornly hangs on to the “impersonal, assembly-line-approach” of the 20th century that did not concern itself with students’ interests and passions. Such a system cares not what students think, nor what students care about. That same underlying, obsolete philosophy is the reason why we struggle constantly with students who see what we are doing in school as totally irrelevant. In the 21st century, if we want to reach all students, we should take Prensky’s advice. Let’s pause today, and talk with students about their passions and interests, then use the new understanding to engage them in classroom learning they care about.

The truth is we don’t have to wait for waves of reform and experts on high to have a big impact on student disengagement and disconnection. We can begin to re-engage and reconnect students immediately. In From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom: Hopeful Essays for 21st Century Learning, Marc Prensky offers teachers a list of what he calls “Easy to Do---Big Impact Actions Teachers Can Take to Connect with Students.” This kind of list gives teachers an immediate list of actions to begin the process of re-engaging and reconnecting with students. But to implement these kinds of actions, our schools must set aside their “Just-take-your-medicine-approach-to-education” in which students are told your passions and interests are irrelevant.  At the heart of the "educational medicine philosophy" is the belief that, “Education is done to students; it doesn't matter if they take part or not. It’s for their own good.” With that kind of thinking it is no wonder we can’t get a grip on the drop-out rate and our students see our schools as the most boring places on earth.

What do we do? Is it still acceptable to just accept those disengaged, disconnected students as casualties or collateral damage of an education system that destroys passion, imagination, and creativity? Not if our goal is to bring back the disengaged students and lower drop-out rates and ensure all students are ready for life in the 21st century. We can begin today by doing little things that reconnect our classrooms and schools to students’ passions and interests. Marc Prensky’s list of “Easy to Do---Big Impact Actions to Connect with Students” might be a starting point. But, inspired by Prensky, I would like to offer my own list based on my own 16 years in the classroom teaching everybody’s favorite subject, English language arts. (Said with obvious sarcasm!)

To immediately begin reconnecting with students, teachers can:

• Listen to students more, and do less “professing” and “telling.” The old myth that “students are going to sit on the edge of their seats and eagerly await your words of wisdom and knowledge” was never true.  Begin today by taking an “almost-vow-of-silence” and let students do more talking and sharing of what they think. Of course you are going to have to resist your eager impulses to butt in and share what you think too, but giving students time to share and discuss will go a long way to re-engaging and reconnecting them to your classroom and your content.
• Make it relevant---connect content with current events and the real world. If students come in chattering about the latest happenings in town, the country or the world, find a way to connect that interest to content, but do it subtly. If students know they are being railroaded into learning something, they disconnect faster than I do when getting a phone call from a telemarketer. If you want students to reconnect, you have to bring your content back to the real-world and that means bringing in the things they are passionate and care about.
• Prensky says to reconnect students, we “treat them like learning partners." I agree. Throw out the window the whole idea that you are the “Lord-of-the-Realm-of-Knowledge” and be with students as a fellow learner. The best example of this one comes from my days in the classroom. If I asked students to write an essay, I did it too. There was total surprise when I pulled out my handwritten response to an essay assignment and shared it with them, just before they did theirs. I did caution them though, “Anyone caught stealing my ideas” would be doomed to an endless lecture in their most hated subject, and I would arrange it. Treating students like learning partners means “YOU ARE A LEARNER TOO!" You have to get your hands dirty too. You can re-engage and reconnect with students by treating them as partners in learning, not as empty vessels in which you will pour forth your knowledge.
• Get students using their tools of choice and don’t get hung up on the methodology. If they want to draft their essay on their laptop or iPhone, let them do it. If they want to want write out their first draft in purple ink, let them do it. We all remember those teachers who demanded that we meet painstaking standards such as write only on one side of the paper, in blue or black ink, only on the night of a new moon. In fact, if I were totally honest, when I started teaching I found myself making those same impossible demands. No wonder so many of my students didn't turn in their essays or bothering doing them. I still remember one of my high school English teachers throwing my first draft away because I put my name on the top-left instead of top-right. When I began teaching, you would have thought I would have shown more mercy, but I suppose the adage, "We teach as we were taught" is hard to break. But using these kinds of classroom practices today will push a student to place you and your content in the dead zone for eternity. Letting students choose their tools and tactics will go a long way to re-engaging and reconnecting them to your content and your classroom.

If we want our schools and classrooms to effectively deal with the disconnected, disengaged student, we don’t have to wait for the experts to come up with complicated, research-based solutions. We can tackle the problem of disengaged, disconnected students immediately. We might have to repent and give up the mantra that says, “It’s my job to teach, so if students don’t get it, it’s their fault,” but there are immediate steps we can take transform our classrooms and schools into places where we engage students’ passions and interests, not turn them into Zombies.

Stickyboard 2: Simple-to-Use, Now Free Sticky Note App for iPad

Stickyboard 2 is an interesting app because of its simplicity. Users might find this app quite useful in note-taking situations, mindmapping, or brainstorming. With Stickyboard 2, users can use a combination of "stickynotes" and handwritten text to do any of these things.

Here are a list of features of the Stickyboard 2 iPad app.

• Create multicolored sticky notes on your Stickyboard. You can also choose from 3 different fonts for the typed text.
• Handwrite notes or draw using multiple colors. Ideal for using a stylus.
• Email your whole stickyboard to someone as a PDF or as Text.
• Create multiple storyboards and save them in your gallery.

Though short on features, Storyboard 2's simplicity and features offer a great deal of possibilities for both the classroom and for other educators looking for a simple app for note-taking. Best of all, Stickyboard 2 is currently free. Click here for more information on Storyboard 2.

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Standardized Tests & Comparing Student Scores: Relics of 20th Century Ed Systems

“Developing better tests of student learning in the 21st century is as futile as attempting to find a faster horse and buggy would have been in the 20th century.” Douglas Reeves, “A Framework for Assessing 21st Century Skills”

After last night’s #ncadmin chat about “21st Century Teaching and Learning” I could not stop thinking about questions regarding 21st century skills and assessment.  One question continues to haunt me: "How can we devise an assessment for 21st century skills?" That question made me recall an essay I once read by Douglas Reeves entitled, “A Framework for Assessing 21st Century Skills.”

According to Reeves, It is “not possible to reconcile the demands of 21st century skills with the realities of the traditional testing environment.” The very conditions demanded by our current testing regimen is antithetical to the 21st century skills we want our students to have. As Reeves points out, our assessment practices lag behind “because they are bound by three destructive conditions: standardized conditions, secrecy of content, and individual results.”  These three testing conditions are destructive to our efforts to teach and assess 21st century skills because they were designed in a different era of education. To assess our students' 21st century skills we need an entirely different set of tools. I realize the new testing consortia are exploring "new generation assessments" but I fear they will not let go of those 20th century obsessions with student score comparisons and standardization that make current testing inadequate for assessing 21st century skills.

According to Reeves, there are three qualities of assessment that form a framework for any 21st century assessments we need.

• We need assessment conditions that are variable rather than standardized. The whole idea behind the 20th century idea of standardization is having the ability to “compare students.” Policymakers and politicians, in their demands for accountability, consider the only way to have that accountability is by being able to compare students’ scores. So, in order to make those comparisons, students are herded into the same kind of room environment, given the same kind of pencils, the same scrap paper, the same bubble sheet, and the same amount of time to complete the test. Standardizing the test conditions take precedence over everything, even the needs of the kids. As Reeves points out, in these kinds of conditions “students are rewarded for memorization and following established rules,” not for being creative and being innovative. These standardized conditions worked well in 20th century assessments designed to sort and classify students, but 21st century assessments need to allow for the variability inherent in the messiness of creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. Students need to be able to demonstrate that they can solve problems, not in the “manufactured, controlled” environment of a standardized testing room. They need to be able to demonstrate they can solve problems not limited by the conditions standardized testing impose. Being able to draw a diagram, collaborate by speaking to experts, watching videos, read books, and access web databases are not possible in standardized testing conditions, but in the real world, those are the tools people use to solve problems. If we are going to assess students’ 21st century skills, we are going to have to give up the obsessions for comparison of student scores and standardized testing conditions to provide assessment conditions akin to the real-world environments that people use to solve problems.
• We need assessment of students as teams rather than as individuals. Since collaboration is a cornerstone of 21st century skills, we need to stop testing students in isolated silos, and assess their skills the way real world people solve problems, through collaboration. If our students are asked to engage in creativity, problem-solving, and entrepreneurial thinking in the manner that real-world people do, our assessments may need to move from the individual to the collaborative. Instead of passing out bubble sheets to each student, cutting them off from the real world, and demanding they choose the "correct" answers to problems, 21st century assessments need to have students work in teams to analyze and devise solutions to multi-layered problems that do not fit in the confines of answers A,B,C, or D.  Once again, doing this means giving up the obsessions with comparing student scores and standardization.
• We need assessments whose content is public rather than secret. I can’t speak for other states, but my own state of North Carolina protects test content almost obsessive-compulsively as Milton Waddams protects his stapler in the movie Office Space (See Photo Below). Teachers and students are kept totally in the dark about what is going to be on test, leaving them to scrounge around and make all kinds of wild speculations about that content. Teachers are forced to play a game of Concentration as they try to guess what the state is going to ask next. North Carolina testing experts claim their test is derived from the state’s curriculum, but that curriculum is so broad, it makes this kind of testing a game, trying to decide which part of the curriculum will be on the test. As Reeves points out, 21st century assessments require that the kinds of learning we want students to do, be public. Students must be able to study those assessment ideas, and they may even devise their own assessments, or demonstrations of learning. But once again, being open about test content means giving up this obsession with comparing student scores and standardization.

As Douglas Reeves argues, our insistence on comparing students test scores and standardization are serious obstacles to developing 21st century skills assessments. The old standardization model demands too many conditions that are antithetical to 21st century learning. School leaders need to have the courage to ask the tough questions of those who advocate for the “testing status quo.” As Reeves points out, “Educational leaders cannot talk about the need for collaboration, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity and at the same time leave teachers and school administrators fenced in by obsolete assessment mechanisms, policies, and assumptions.”

Too many politicians, policymakers, school leaders, and educators are protecting the “testing status quo” and refuse to relinquish those very conditions that keep us from fully transforming our schools. We have fenced ourselves into having 20th century schools by our own 20th century assessments and obsession for standardization and comparison of student test scores. Letting go of the “testing-status-quo” is an enormous step toward a 21st century education system.

Let’s End the Administrator War on Mobile Devices

“Mobile phones enable anytime, anyplace, anywhere engagement.” Scott McLeod & Chris Lehmann, What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies

We’ve all worked with them, educators who have made it their mission to rid the classrooms and schools of this world of those infernal, disruptive devices called “cell phones.” Those on the front lines in this battle collect cell phones from students as badges of honor. Their goal is to be ever vigilant for violators who sneak peeks at their iPhones and Galaxy Notes as they sit at desks or stand in hallways between classes. They are a force to reckoned with and feared by any who engage in the unauthorized use of personal devices within the confines of the school building. They believe fiercely that cell phones are nuisances and have no place in education. These individuals are, however, badly misinformed and out-of-touch with realities of 21st century students lives. The days of complete mobile device bans are numbered, and administrators who want students to engage in authentic learning with those devices, are ending the war, and embracing their place as a learning device.

But why should we end this war on mobile devices? Cell phones can be nuisances and disruptive, especially if one rings in the middle of a class. In addition, they can be used to text threats, sext, and access Facebook when students should be otherwise engaged. They can even be used to take unauthorized photos and video and then plastered all over YouTube and the Web. The possibilities and potential for mischief is endless. Yet, it is that same possibility and potential for mischief that make mobile devices powerful tools for learning and powerful tools for the classroom.

Those who embrace banning the devices believe the balance more in favor of nuisance and mischief rather than potential and possibility. Those who argue for allowing mobile devices see only their educational potential. But if we are going to declare a cease fire in the war on mobile devices, we must be prepared to negotiate the terms for their place within our schools and classrooms. We must direct their use from ill to good. To begin the process of declaring our terms in the ending of this war, school leaders might consider the following:

• Focus on the behavioral issues and how those might be addressed instead the devices. For almost every problem caused by mobile devices, there is a 20th century equivalent behavior. When I started teaching, passing notes was the norm. Now, students text. Once, students were distracted by baseball cards, now they are distracted by watching YouTube videos on their smartphones. The old remedy was not to declare a complete ban on baseball cards, notebook paper, and pencils. We focused on the behavioral issue, not the device. In our 21st century classrooms let’s set expectations for proper use of mobile devices and have students live up to those.
• Think about devising policies and structures that teach and foster healthy use of the devices that capitalize on their educational potential rather than the potential for mischief. If we want students to learn how to use mobile devices properly, we have to give them the opportunity to do so. Of course, that also means giving them the opportunity to use them for mischief too. But what better place is there for students to learn these things than the school? We must provide students with experiences that ask them to engage in using mobile devices for educational purposes, and we must equally give them the opportunity to make poor choices as well. It is from those poor choices that learning happens.

We can declare an end to the war on mobile devices in our schools and embrace them for their educational potential. But as we do, let’s engage our teachers in conversations on how these devices can enhance teaching and learning. Let’s use them to transform what we do in our classrooms.

5 Baby-Steps for Using Twitter to Begin a Personal Learning Network

“Social media has offered us a platform where we can learn from and with the smartest people we ‘meet’ from around the world, whenever we need to or are ready to go.” Scott McLeod & Chris Lehman The School Leader’s Guide to Social Media

Personal Learning Networks existed long before there was an Internet. I am perhaps showing my age, but my first “Personal Learning Network” used very little of the technologies we use now. It basically involved colleagues down the hall, perhaps a teacher or two in other buildings or other schools, and my yearly subscription to the English Journal. That learning network was rounded out by the occasional book title I picked up at the bookstore or at a conference. One summer that “Personal Learning Network” extended to other educators during a two-week participation in the National Writing Project at Appalachian State University. The connections made in those days were primarily face-to-face, through-the-phone, and through print. The quality of my “Personal Learning Network” then was as dependent upon my efforts to make connections then as it is now. Sharing with other teachers was a central part of that networking system too.

Many years later, educators now have at their disposal, the most powerful tools for developing and maintaining professional learning networks in history. Yet, many educators---principals, teachers, and superintendents---have yet to fully utilize these tools. Their “Personal Learning Networks” are globally-atrophied and non-vibrant because they either are afraid of engaging in using these 21st century tools of PLN creation, or they have convinced themselves that it is all a fad and will fade in a few years. While individual tools may come and go, the notion of “connecting with others, instantaneously and globally," is here to stay. Humankind has tasted the fruit of being able to interact with others globally with technology, and will only demand better tools and better ways of doing it.

For those school leaders who have not yet taken the plunge into the 21st century world of social media and “Globally-Vibrant Personal Learning Networks,” here’s  baby-steps to get you started today. No need to be afraid. Trust yourself and that natural, inner-thirst for wanting to learn, to guide you in taking your first steps in connecting with other educators globally.

Start by setting up a Twitter account. I realize even saying the word “Twitter” immediately sends some administrators, educators and other school leaders into fits of “near-profanity” and disgust. I can sympathize. After you have dealt with 15 incidents in one day of students and perhaps staff members using Twitter, or Facebook, in a less than acceptable manner, your view of the medium can be just a bit tainted. Still, Twitter, despite its “cutesy and dare I say less-than-dignified sounding name,” is the easiest social media tool to begin using. Besides, mention Facebook to some administrators, and they go into convulsions of disgust, so we won’t stretch it that far. Here’s some pointers in getting started with your “Personal Learning Network Development Program” using Twitter.

• Set up your Twitter account first. I would suggest finding a “Twitter-enthusiast” in your school, because I get there's just about one every school by now. Have them help you set up your account. Perhaps they can even suggest some educators you can begin following.
• Once your account is set up, begin simple. Respond to a few Tweets-of-Interest. Participate in a “Twitter Chat” such as #edchat, satchat, or #ncadmin. Don’t be afraid to join in and share your thoughts, but keep in mind the 140 character limit. This is actually good: hard to be long-winded when you only have so few words to do it. You can’t hardly show off that complicated vocabulary either. You have to think concisely and be direct. Over time, the more you Tweet, the more you will build what I call your “Twitter-stamina.”
• Occasionally, share out a “juicy quote” from your professional reading. The really good quotes are the ones others can’t help but reply to.  A “well-tweeted” quote will immediately get others to connect with you. Blast it out! See who responds.
• You can’t be a “lurker” for the rest of your life. Get out there in cyberspace and share. The currency of Personal Learning Networks are ideas. You have something to contribute, so get off your lurker-cushion and share how your school has solved a particularly thorny issue.
• Finally, when you hear the “social media horror stories” don’t react with a vow of social-media celibacy, after all, we don’t swear off phones when someone uses them irresponsibly, nor do we take a vow against writing when someone writes a threatening note. Realize that social media is a way to connect with others. Like all media designed for fostering connections, it can be used for good or ill.

As educators we no longer have to be stuck in the stone-age when it comes to developing and maintaining Personal Learning Networks. Every educator---teachers, principals, superintendents, college professors---can have a vibrant, global learning network. It’s time to take your first steps into the 21st century where social media tools make connecting easy.