Professional development and the web.(editor's notes)

This issue of Internet@Schools is themed Professional Development and the Web, wherein we bring you tech-savvy K-12 educators, administrators, and media and tech specialists, plus a magazine-load of information on web-based offerings and resources that can help you boost yours and your colleagues' educating power.

In the cover story, Mark Gross of School Loop writes on learning communities that include educators seeking to help each other teach better ... and that embrace the convergence of social, collaborative, and mobile technologies to include students, parents, and administrators committed to student success. See "The Hybrid Learning Community: A 21st-century Teaching and Reform Model" (p. 8).

And Victor Rivero's comprehensive Tools for Learning feature for this issue covers an abundance of offerings, as the title promises. "Thirty-Three Excellent Professional Development Resources for Teachers" begins on page 14. As he notes, "Educators looking for professional development resources on the web have it much different than they did a decade ago.... Nonetheless, there are enough great resources out there to make the web a true gift to educators looking for help."

We also have a collection of reviews of even more online PD products: Sublime Learning, PD 360, Atomic Learning, and Edmodo. See the reviews starting on page 29.

INTERNET@SCHOOLS AT COMPUTERS IN LIBRARIES

I mentioned in this space last time that our magazine now carries the same brand as the library and educational technology (aka ed tech) conference tracks we produce at Computers in Libraries and Internet Librarian. With the first one coming up this month (March 21-22, during the Computers in Libraries conference in Washington, D.C.), I want to highlight several of the sessions as a come-on to pique your interest.

As Track E at Computers in Libraries (you can attend the entire CIL conference or, as in the past, just the 2-day Internet@Schools track at special pricing), we'll have experts on ebooks and e-readers, online author visits, teaching with LibGuides, and--get this--what actually happens in a student's mind during online research. And that's just the first day.

Day 2 covers school library marketing strategies, social homework helper apps, graphic novel creation, and a host of Web 2.0 tools for learning.

So we hope you will indeed "come on" and join us. Check out the program schedule in this issue on pages 11-13.

David Hoffman, editor

hoffmand@infotoday.com