Welcome to the ever-innovating JSD.We’ve been up to our ears in change lately. Not only are we increasing the number of issues we publish each year, but now you hold in your hands a redesigned magazine. You’ll find some new features and a different look and feel.

Why do we innovate? I suspect it’s for many of the same reasons you do:

1. We want to be better. New concepts and new tools give us the power to meet needs in new ways and to take what we’ve always done a few steps further.
2. We want to keep up. We want to make sure that we keep up with the audiences we serve. No one is staying in the same place they were five years ago—not NSDC members, not your students, not the teachers you work with. As the needs of students and educators change, we must do the same.
3. We like to change. There are decades of research on change and how difficult it is, and we see evidence of that all around us. At the same time, learning is change. Learning is why we do what we do. As hard as it is, change won’t be. Technology users can cite the same reasons for adapting the latest innovations in their professional and personal lives. I know that the innovations I have adopted help me do my job more efficiently and more effectively. I suspect that within the explosion of Facebook users are millions of us trying to keep up, whether it is with students or family members or co-workers. And in terms of liking to change—how many of you have picked up a new piece of technology just for fun?

Within the articles in this issue of JSD, you’ll meet innovators who have used technology as a tool to create the professional learning contexts and conditions many of us aspire to: communities with the ability to share resources and examine instruction, access to data about student progress and specific needs, convenient and sustained connections to peers with the knowledge that will help change practices, and skillful learning leadership and facilitation. These innovators have shaped technology as a means to take effective professional learning to new places, both literally and figuratively. As always, the learning is the point of these efforts—technology is the tool. And what a powerful tool it can be.

There are several new JSD features I’d like to point out: We created Up Close, to give you an engaging entry point into the magazine’s theme. We hope you’ll find some guidance to save you time in getting the most from each issue. There you’ll also find the first part of JSD Professional Learning Guide, designed to support you and your colleagues in using JSD as part of a reflective learning experience. The complete guide is online at www.nsdc.org/news/jsd/. You’ll also see Tell Us, an invitation to respond to a key question on the theme via NSDC’s blog. I hope you’ll take the opportunity to interact with other readers around these questions. Those of you who flip from back to front will begin your reading with From the Director, where Stephanie Hirsh will offer her perspective on the theme. A page leading you to the latest on NSDC’s web site is another addition, and other NSDC information.

I’m eager to hear what you think, and more importantly, what you need next. E-mail me anytime. By the way, we’re not done changing. We can’t afford to be, and neither can you.