Tag Archives: george couros


(This is the second of two parts on professional learning.  You can read the first part here.  It is based on the visual below that was created by Sylvia Duckworth and adapted from “8 Things to Look for in Today’s Classroom“.)

Screen Shot 2015-01-18 at 4.39.24 PM

Connected Learning

Rationale: The opportunities for learning in our world today are immense and we need to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to us.  We not only have access to all of the information in our world today, but we have access to one another.  This has a major impact in our learning today. What I have started to notice is that you can see some major benefits of being connected in the classroom for the learning environment of our students. Access to one another can accelerate and amplify powerful learning opportunities.

Alec Couros, shared the following image on the idea of “The Networked Teacher”;

Screen Shot 2015-04-06 at 6.58.59 PM

Although the technologies in the visual can change and how we use them can always be altered, the most important part of this visual, in my opinion, are the arrows that go back and forth.  More and more, educators are becoming both consumers and creators of information, which is accelerating the opportunities for our students.

Idea: The idea for this is simple.  If we see connected learning as something that is having an impact on the learning of our students, we must embed time into our work day and professional learning opportunities to help educators develop professional learning networks (PLN’s) and leading them to resources such as the “Edublogs Teacher Challenges” might help them get started, but face-to-face support is also crucial.  To be honest, the technology to connect is simple once you get the hang of it, but it is developing the habits to think about connecting in the first place that truly make the difference.  Differing between the time when you “google” something versus asking the same question on Twitter can not only help you get better results, but in the long run, save time (which no one has enough of).  To be successful in helping people develop professional learning networks is to narrow the focus on the tools that are being shared with staff.  It is not to limit staff on what they can use, but spending professional learning go deep into the process.  We need to do less, better. Taking the time to connect can make a major difference in the learning of your staff, and ultimately, your students.

Other elements that could be incorporated: Reflection, Voice, Choice, Opportunities for Innovation

Opportunities for Innovation

Rationale: If we want innovative students, we need to focus on becoming innovative educators.  It is not that “innovation” is new in education, but the opportunities that exist in our world today make innovation more possible. To help develop the “innovator’s mindset”, schools and organizations have to embody certain characteristics that create an environment where innovation will flourish. Again, as in all elements shared for professional learning, it is essential that time is provided to help develop this mindset.

Innovator's Mindset

Idea: My good friend Jesse McLean has promoted the idea of “Innovation Week” for his students, but knew to really have this to be successful, educators would have to partake in this type of process. He developed the idea of “Educator Innovation Day”, to give educators the time to tinker and develop innovative ideas both inside and outside of education.  This goes to the idea of developing “intrapreneurs”, and as Jake Swearingen has stated, these intrapreneurs are essential to driving change within an organization.

Chris Wejr also shared his ideas on how to actually embed time through “Fed-Ex Prep” for teachers to encourage time is taken to create innovative ideas within education.  There is also the opportunity to adapt Google’s famous “20% Time” into learning at our schools, for both students and staff.  None of these ideas have to be taken “as is”, but can be adapted to tie into the communities we serve.  What is (again) essential to the success of developing educators as innovators is both the priority and time being put into the process.  In a world where developing innovators and entrepreneurs is essential to the forward movement of our schools, we need to create professional learning opportunities that see “innovation” as a necessity, not a luxury.

If something is missing, we need to create it. In this case, if there are no entrepreneurs, we need to make some. And to make some is to instill the entrepreneurship spirit into our children from the outside through education.” Yong Zhao

Other elements that could be incorporated: Critical Thinking, Choice, Connected Learning, Problem Finders/Solvers


Rationale: School has been set up in a way that we have become dependent upon someone else telling us how we are doing in our learning.  It is not only in our report card system, but also our evaluation process of educators.  Students will encounter bad teachers, teachers will encounter bad principals, and principals will encounter weak superintendents.  If we create a system that becomes dependent upon someone above else to tell us “how we are doing”, this quickly falls apart when that someone is not strong.  Having your own understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, is hugely beneficial not only in education, but in all elements of life, whether it is personal or professional.

Idea: Blogs as Digital Portfolios are an opportunity to not only showcase learning, but an opportunity to take time to reflect and grow from the process.  Having my own digital portfolio for the last five years (this blog), has helped me grow more than most professional learning opportunities that have been given to me.  I have collected and developed resources on both “how” to create a digital portfolio, and the power of learning through this type of self-assessment.  I feel that there is more growth in this type of process because I own my learning; it is not graded by someone else, but also documents my learning process over time so that I can easily see my own growth.

Although there may be “guidelines” that must be done for teacher evaluation (three visits into the classroom, etc.), having educators their own ongoing portfolio is a great opportunity to shift the conversation from the “evaluator” to the “learner”.  For example, the traditional conversation that has happened in evaluations is that observations are shared from the viewpoint of the administrator, to a teacher.  Conversations can be started from these types of evaluations, but from my experience, the focus is far too great on the evaluator than it is on the teacher.  By using a digital portfolio process as part of the (self) evaluation, the conversation can simply be started by asking the questions, “Where are you strong and where do you need to grow?”  The shift in this process is to the learner, and as Dean Shareski has stated, blogging is a great way to develop better educators. Putting an emphasis on this type of self-assessment is not only beneficial to the individual learner, but when shared openly, can help drive change.  The more we are able to see and understand the learning of other educators both inside and outside our organizations, the more we can tap into one another to drive positive change.

Other elements that could be incorporated: Reflection, Voice, Critical Thinking, Connected Learning

Critical Thinking

Rationale: In this video on “Critical Thinking”, this visual is shared to help us better understand elements of the process:

Screen Shot 2015-04-05 at 10.28.04 AM

In a world where information is in abundance, it is important for our students to be able to take information, understand their own thoughts and biases, as well as develop criteria to evaluate information, while developing questions to challenge conventional wisdom.  The image below shares what developing “critical thinkers” moves us towards;

Screen Shot 2015-04-06 at 1.03.26 PM

Although this is something that we are looking for in our students, do we promote this in meaningful ways with our own professional learning?  Not just by learning about “critical thinking”, but pushing our own organizations by encouraging this within our organizations.  If we are ever to move forward as schools, we need to have leadership open to people asking questions and developing what we already see.  A flattened organization is the only place that this type of thinking will thrive.

Idea: There has been a lot of information shared throughout this document, and I think that this gives us an opportunity to challenge our conventional wisdom of professional learning.  As I stated earlier, these are not “prescriptive ideas”, but my own thoughts on how we can revamp professional learning.  This is not “black and white” but grey.  Is it possible with staff to develop criteria on what successful professional learning looks like, and then develop new ideas on how it could be implemented.

What I would love to see in our schools is this process being implemented on an individual basis where staff share what they believe to be successful personal learning, and provide a plan on how this could be implemented at a personal level.  Is it possible to develop individual learning plans for ourselves to really take ownership of our learning?  Can we take what we know, and apply it to better professional learning for ourselves?

Other elements that could be incorporated: Opportunities for innovation, Voice, Choice, Problem-Solvers Finders

Concluding Thoughts

Professional learning in many places, needs an overhaul.  I see educators go to places like EdCamp and share how excited they are about the opportunities for learning that happens at those types of events, yet it is rare that I see people sharing how excited they are to attend their own PD days.  We need to change that mindset by tapping into the different types of learning opportunities that are present today.

It is not about doing everything that I have suggested, or to be honest, any of it.  Really, it’s  about contemplating why we do what we do, and then thinking about how we do it.  If we do not change the way we do our professional learning, nothing will change in the classroom.

(If you want to read both part 1 and 2 as one piece, here it is on a Google Document.)


Quick Guide

Element Activity Links/Resources
Voice #EDUin30 type activityTweeting one thing a day of the learning that is happening in your school What is #EDUin30?
Choice #EDCAMP professional learning day What is EdCamp?
Reflection Embedding blogging time into learning or even something as simple as giving people time to reflect on what they have learned throughout the day Create a survey using Google Forms
Problem Solvers-Finders Inquiry Based Learning Professional Development Inquiry Based Professional Learning
Connected Learning Using Social Media to develop their own learning networks (The networked learner Edublogs Teacher Challenges
Self-Assessment Blogs as Digital Portfolios Resources for Digital Portfolios
Critical Thinkers Developing Criteria for what powerful professional learning looks like and helping to create the day. What is critical thinking?
Opportunities for Innovation Innovation Day or Genius Hour embedded into professional learning time Educators Innovation Day
Fed-Ex Prep Time



If you are scared of change, ask yourself this question.

People are terrified of change.  Not just of change, but the process of change and what it entails you.  You cannot change your practice without work, time commitment, and sometimes shifting priorities.  In leadership positions, this is the same with helping people move forward and having them invest their time in a new project or initiative.  You will want to guard them from all of the work that they will have to do when time is precious.  So when you go through the process, ask yourself this question:

Is this best for kids?

If you can answer unequivocally that the answer is “yes”, then the change process is necessary.  It might not be easy, it might take time, it might be messy, but it needs to happen.

If you are unsure if the answer is “yes” or “no”, use that same question to guide your search.

If it helps our students, it is worth doing.

That simple.

Should every educator be an “innovator”?

Having a conversation with an administrator, and talking about the notion of the “innovator’s mindset“, they asked me if I thought every educator should be an innovator.  I answered with one word.


When we went deeper into the conversation, and the comment was made that not every educator is good with technology.   Innovation doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with technology as the two words are not necessarily synonymous, although technology allows us to accelerate and amplify the process if used in purposeful ways.  It is about having a mindset towards continuously developing new and better ideas as outlined below.

Innovator's Mindset

This was obviously built on Carol Dweck‘s work regarding the “fixed and growth mindset”, but it goes further in the notion and is essential in our work with students every day.

For example, you are working with a student and you have learned several strategies that you use to help for reading, yet none of them work for the student.  Do you give up, or do you take what you know (or find out things that you don’t know)  and try to figure out a new way to help this student?  If we simply go with what we know right now, a lot of students will be left behind since there is no one solution that helps every kid.  If there was, we would all know it.

Or what about the administrator that may have budget constraints and work within a system that expects us to do more with less?  If we do not think of new ways that we can do things, then how will we ever move forward?  Innovation is not about “stuff” but more about a way of thinking.  We live in a complex world that needs us to not do just what we have done, but to look for new and better ways to solve problems to help those we serve.  These are the characteristics of the innovator’s mindset.  This way of thinking is by far the biggest game changer in education; it will never be a technology.

This is not about embracing failure, but doing whatever we can to help our students today become successful.  The other idea is that “innovation” is not something reserved for the select few in education, but is something that all levels of our organization, from students to superintendents, need to embrace.

When we look at ourselves in terms of having the “innovator’s mindset” and say “that’s not me”, not only do we sell ourselves short, but our kids.  We need to constantly ask the question, “what is best for this learner?” This is a question we all need to continuously ask in education.

What’s your one word?

I was reading my friend Tony Sinanis’ blog and his post on “Dear Sucky Teacher”, which was preceded by “Dear Sucky Administrator“.  I have had a lot of conversations with Tony, and I can tell you that he is one of the kindest and most supportive people I know, but I will admit, the title threw me off.  I have said before that nobody gets up in the morning wanting to be terrible, and although there are teachers out there that don’t love their job, there is always more to a story than we know.  In no way is this meant to be a challenge on Tony’s post, but it just made me think and connect to my own learning.

One of the comments that I made about the post would be on changing the title to, “Dear Struggling Teacher”.  What would that say?  I know some amazing teachers who have not lived up to their own standards themselves, and have had tough years.  I know that I have had my own tough times and I have not lived up to my own standards whether it be personally or professionally.  Some people actually excel in their jobs when things are bad in other areas. It is often how they are wired, sometimes it is the superior ability to compartmentalize, and sometimes it’s avoidance.  As someone who wears their heart on their sleeve, you can see when I am having a bad day from a mile away, and I know it can affect what I do.

So in light of Tony’s post and people sharing their “word” for 2015, I have thought about a word that has kept popping up into my head over and over again; empathy.  I have especially thought about it a lot in a world where technology so dominates us, that we often forget that there is a human being on the other side of that connection.  It has made me step back and really think about how it is so easy to go online and complain about a bad customer interaction, not really knowing more to the story. I know that I have been prone to push in person and online, so I have tried to step back and ask more questions than anything, and as Stephen Covey would say, “seeking to understand”.

Empathy is crucial to innovation and design thinking, and that is being mentioned quite a bit, but it is also crucial to every interaction that we have. So personally and professionally, So in 2015, I am going to focus more on asking questions and trying to understand, as opposed to being stuck to an opinion.  Hopefully this goes way beyond this year.

What’s your word?

3 Ideas on Innovation in Education from Vine

I have really started looking at Vine as a social media platform, and have been really interested in how it is being used.  Over the Christmas holidays, I could easily get lost in going through the posts of others and seeing what they have shared, and an hour could disappear in seemingly seconds.

If you don’t know what Vine is, here is the summary from Wikipedia:

Vine is a short-form video sharing service. Founded in June 2012, it was acquired by microblogging website Twitter in October 2012, just before its official launch. The service allows users to record and edit five- to six-second-long looping video clips, and to “revine”, or share others’ posts with followers. Some Vines are revined automatically based on what is popular. The videos can then be published through Vine’s social network and shared on other services such as Facebook and Twitter. Vine’s app can also be used to browse through videos posted by other users, along with groups of videos by theme, and trending, or popular, videos.

When I first heard of the platform, I didn’t think it would ever catch on.  I mean really, what could you do with only 6 seconds in a video?  But quickly, it has become one of the largest platforms for sharing videos, and there are many people (many of them in their teens), who have acquired millions of followers from their highly entertaining videos that they have shared.  Like any social media platform, not all content shared is something that I would be interested in, or even appropriate, but there is a lot of really interesting things being shared through the service.

This one made me really laugh, combining a “viral video” from the past to today’s popular music:

As I look deeper into the idea of “innovation”, especially as it relates to schools, there are some lessons I have noticed from the use of Vine.

1. Innovation can still happen with constraints.  As mentioned earlier, there was not much I thought that could be done with a 6 second video, but people are making some pretty amazing videos. Check out the following time lapse of the Northern Lights:

Or this one of a simple leaf:

Instead of focusing on what people “don’t” have in the use of Vine, they focus on what they do have, and many, try to create something amazing within the system.  There are many people that would love to totally start school from scratch, and sometimes I agree, but the reality of our world is that this is not likely to happen, and we are going to look at what he have to not always think “outside of the box”, but figure out how to be innovative inside of it.

2.  Multiple ideas can often lead to multiple great ones.  Some of the most followed “viners” post something new daily, and although many of the things they share are great, some of them are duds.  Instead of quitting, they continue to share different videos and make something new consistently.  In education, we might try something new and it doesn’t work the way we expected, but we need to continue on pushing new ideas and focusing on what works best for kids.  Even in my own blog, some of my posts are better than others, but I focus on continuing to write instead of focusing on something that I feel did not turn out the way I wanted it to.  Many teachers self-identify as “perfectionists” but here is the reality; if you are waiting for “perfect”, you will be waiting forever.  Being “perfect” and “learning” do not go hand-in-hand, so we have to keep trying and taking the good with the bad in our pursuit of growth.

3.  You are more likely to grow if you support others, as opposed to only focusing on yourself.  One of the things that I noticed about some of the most followed “Viners” is that they don’t just share their content, but the content of others.  It is their way of pushing the community and helping everyone to get better, not just trying to be the best.  In education, the people that are often the most successful are usually the ones that connect and support others.  People are drawn to those that give themselves to others, and that often comes back to the individual when those come back to support them.  In leadership and education, the people that are the most successful, are the ones that support and make those that surround them better.  A teacher’s and leader’s  legacy is not in what they do, but what is made by those they support.

As I wrote this post, I realized that these ideas for innovation that I connected from watching Vine, are universal in so many other areas.  How will you apply them in your work?

School vs. Learning

I have been thinking a lot about the “traditional” model of school and how people actually learn. If done the wrong way, school can actually go against what is needed for learning.  There are a lot of schools and classrooms that are doing amazing jobs at really promoting there students become learners as opposed to learning stuff.  

Here are some of the ways where school and learning can become divergent.


School is about consuming.  Learning is about creating.

School is about finding information on something prescribed for you.  Learning is about exploring your passions and interests.

Schools teaches compliance.  Learning is about challenging perceived norms.

School is scheduled at certain times.  Learning can happen any time, all of the time.

School often isolates.  Learning is often social.

School is standardized.  Learning is personal.

School teaches us to obtain information from certain people.  Learning promotes that everyone is a teacher, and everyone is a learner.


School is sequential.  Learning is random and non-linear.

School promotes surface-level thinking. Learning is about deep exploration.

I know that the statements above are not 100% true on either side of the spectrum, but what if you combined the statements to make something new?  Would schools become a place that is truly developing learners that are flexible and agile in a world that is constantly changing?  For example, take the statement:


… and change it to this:

School promotes developing your own questions and finding answers.

What would school look like if we really focused on developing our own statements that focus on the power of developing learners?  I would love your thoughts on this.


Here is an image that Sylvia Duckworth created to correspond with the post.

Screen Shot 2014-12-29 at 4.44.10 PM

Character, Credibility, and Social Media




But how do we show character?


5 Questions You Should Ask Your Principal



  • Fostering Effective Relationships
  • Instructional Leadership
  • Embodying Visionary Leadership
  • Developing Leadership Capacity
  • Creating Sustainable Change











The Myths of Technology Series: “Technology Makes Us Dumb”


The Myths of Technology Series: “Technology Makes Us Dumb”

“In short, people who are able to keep up with technology will outsmart those who don’t (even more than they do now). Therefore, educators, parents and employers should try to foster an appetite for complexity, a curious and hungry mind…” From Is Technology Making Us Stupid (and Smarter)?, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Ph.D.

When I was a kid, I had this ability to memorize every single phone number of seemingly hundreds of people in my life.  Now I can safely say that I know four.  My mom, my work, my own phone number, and 911.  There are hundreds of numbers that are stored in my phone, more than I could have ever possibly memorized.  Did I lose the ability to memorize or did I lose the need to memorize?  Am I “dumber” than I was before because of this lack of “rolodex-like” memory, or, is someone “dumber” because they don’t know how to put the information in their phone in the first place?  Who loses out more?

The argument that I have heard often is that “technology makes us dumb”, and I will admit, things have changed a lot in a short amount of time.  In a hilarious bit by Pete Holmes, he talks about how Google is “ruining our lives”, and he states that, “the time between ‘knowing’ and ‘not knowing’ is so brief that ‘knowing’ feels exactly like ‘not knowing’.”  We don’t “wonder” as much anymore and we have to make sure that we allow our kids, “to be curious, to imagine deeply and to think creatively”, that we were afforded as children (and adults).

A shift in thinking?

In one of the many articles I found when researching this topic, entitled, “Education in the information age: is technology making us stupid?”, they author posts a powerful statement on a possible shift in the world of education:


Is the idea that “technology makes us dumb” so readily shared by many because it actually has lessened our “knowledge”, or because it is throwing what we have done in the past, and what we are comfortable with, out the window?

Dan Brown, a former university student, posted an “Open Letter to Educators” talked about the shift that has happened in our world with the democratization of information and how knowledge becoming “free” to the masses has made many aspects of traditional education irrelevant.  He makes an ominous statement to educators in a video that has been viewed over 276 000 times:

“Educators of the world…you don’t need to change anything.  You simply need to understand, that the world is changing, and if you don’t change with it, the world will decide that it doesn’t need you anymore.”

Perhaps we need to view the idea of “knowledge” and “intelligence” in a different light.

Creating opportunities 

One of the biggest opportunities technology has afforded us as an individuals, and more importantly our students, is opportunities to learn that work for us as the individual.  Assistive technologies have been used for years in classrooms, but with a push towards “Universal Design for Learning” (Ira Socol is one blogger that has really taught me a lot in this area), there is a focus on what works for every individual learner.  I think back to my days in school and how tired my hand would become quickly from “cursive writing”, and how that physical fatigue, even small in nature, would quickly lead to mental fatigue.  Now, instead of writing notes in a book which was the standard practice when I was a student, I now have the opportunity to write on my phone, tablet, computer, or even record my own voice using Evernote to come back and revisit ideas.  This opportunity to use a myriad of tools has allowed me to learn in a way that works best for me, not what someone else might be comfortable using.

David Crystal, a professor who has researched the the impact of texting on literacy, discusses the idea that the use of mobile technology has actually improved our ability to write.  His research led him to find that the earlier you have a mobile device, the better your literacy scores while also improving spelling.  If you summarized his research, it would be that people are becoming more literate because of the use of mobile devices because they are reading and writing more.  People often argue the opposite, not because it is wrong, but because reading and writing on a device looks different than how we did it as children.  If you think about it, how many times as a kid were you reading, writing, and walking at the exact same time?

The simplest things with technology can make a huge difference with students.  Inspired by the movie, “The King’s Speech”, a teacher gave a student with a stammer, the opportunity to speak while using headphones and listening to music:

This technology gave a student a voice that they might not have been comfortable using before.  This does not feel like “dumber” to me.

The world at your fingertips

So when you can Google everything and all of the information in the world now resides in your pocket, we have to start thinking differently about school.  If I asked a teacher a question, and they used Google, or tweeted out the question and found the information through a social network, many people would consider that adult “resourceful”.  Yet if a student does the same thing, they are considered a cheater.  Ewan McIntosh has talked about the idea of “Google vs. Non-Googleable Questions” that leads to higher level thinking.  It is not that content has become unimportant, but as Thomas Friedman states in his article on how to get a job at Google, “the world only cares about what you can do with what you know (and it doesn’t care how you learned it)”.

Information to a library was never seen as a detriment to knowledge, in fact, it was often seen as an advantage.  If you actually look deeper into that process, many students would take what was found in the library as “fact” as someone had went through that information for you as someone had most likely went through that information for us.  When we now carry the information (way more information than could ever be stored in books in a library) in our pocket, we have to teach our students to discern what is credible information, while also giving them opportunities to do something with that information.  A library in a school would never be seen as a detriment to knowledge; neither should the vast library on our phone.

As many have pushed back on the idea of allowing students to bring in devices to exams, we have to think that if you can simply google the answer to a question on a test, is the question really that strong?  The shift in schools should not be away from content; the shift should be what do we do and create with the content.

A focus on creation

“If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. . . We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.” Cecil Day-Lewis

Clive Thompson, author of “Smarter Than You Think“, is a strong believer that technology has given us opportunities to learn in ways that we have not been afforded to us in the past.  In his article, “Why Even The Worst Bloggers Are Making Us Smarter“, he discusses how having an audience can actually help us to think deeper about what we are sharing:


Literacy in North America has historically been focused mainly on reading, not writing; consumption, not production. While many parents worked hard to ensure their children were regular readers, they rarely pushed them to become regular writers. But according to Deborah Brandt, a scholar who has researched American literacy in the 20th and 21st centuries, the advent of digital communications has helped change that notion.

We are now a global culture of avid writers, one almost always writing for an audience. When you write something online—whether it’s a one-sentence status update, a comment on someone’s photo, or a thousand-word post—you’re doing it with the expectation that someone might read it, even if you’re doing it anonymously.




Thompson also discusses that before the Internet, people rarely wrote after high school or college, but more and more, people are writing because they have the opportunity to connect easily with others.  Although school has had a strong emphasis on “reading”, writing seems to get much less attention.  With the ability to write about what you are interested in to an audience that cares, it can be the difference between someone being literate or fluent.

Writing makes us smarter.  We often focus so much in education about the notion of our students “googling” but we should think more about the content they can create so they can be “googled”.  The biggest shift on the Internet is not necessarily the knowledge we can access, but more the knowledge that we can easily create and share.

As Thompson states, “The members of ‘dumbest generation’ aren’t just passively consuming media any more. They’re talking back to it.”

More than just information

“The smartest person in the room, is the room.” David Weinberger

I have used this quote in every single presentation I have given in the last four years, and have encouraged participants to share their knowledge through social media outlets such as Twitter through the use of a hashtag. It is my way, as the presenter, even sometimes considered to be the “expert in the room”, to continuously learn from others, whether they are in the room or not.   No matter my abundance of knowledge in any topic, I am never smarter than everyone combined in front of me., nor out there on the Internet.  The knowledge that is out there online now is similar to an abundance of a natural resource found in any area.  It is not about understanding the benefit of this resource; we know knowledge is power.  It is simply learning how to tap into it, access it, and using it in meaningful ways.

My question to the Weinberger quote is, “How big is your room?”  Are you limited to the five people in the meeting, the 50 person on your staff, or to anyone willing to connect?

Yet sometimes the audience just needs to be one person.

When one of our students blogged about a booked named “The Dot”, she was surprised that approximately five hours after it was posted, the author commented back to her.  This impact from one person and the connection facilitated brings a different type of motivation to students that was non-existent when I went to school.  As Steven Johnson states, “Chance favours the connected mind”, and we need to take advantage of this new opportunity that is afforded to both ourselves and our students.  Someone once told me that after years of school, when students hand in assignments to their teacher, they just want it to be “good enough” but when they are writing for an authentic audience, they want it to be “good”.


The jump in our knowledge and understanding can be monumental because of technology. Educators just need to learn to tap into the opportunities that are afforded to us in an increasingly networked world and utilize to its fullest potential.   It is not only about “knowing”.  There is so much more we can do with and for our students because of technology.  Let’s take advantage not only of the information, but the access to one another.