How education develops largely depends on the evolution of the role of teachers. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), in particular the Internet, are believed to have greatly affected the way teachers are doing their jobs. A large majority of teachers in Europe (85%) claim that ICT have improved their teaching, and two-thirds claim to combine various modes of ICT as resources for their teaching (Cachia, Ferrari, Ala-Mutka, & Punie, 2010). Notwithstanding these promising figures, it is widely acknowledged that teachers still have to cope with organizational problems in schools that make them less willing to get the most out of the technological resources they have at hand. Curricula, in many cases, have not kept up with the demands of today's knowledge society for skills and competences. Furthermore, the tight timetables they impose impede teachers from exploring innovative pedagogies (Cachia, et al., 2010). In this context, the Internet offers unprecedented opportunities for teachers to share experiences and to collaborate with other schools and areas and even across national frontiers. Online networking tools do indeed provide platforms where resources can be shared, instead of each individual teacher having to redesign them, hence reducing teachers' workloads. They also provide a space for teachers' professional development, as well as a platform for integrating the diverse and fragmented lifelong learning landscape. However, the potential of teachers' networks for the future of education has not yet been studied in depth; little evidence is available to inform the design and the implementation of policy action to renovate the lifelong learning Education and Training (E&T) framework. In this context, the Teachers' Lifelong Learning Network (TeLLNet) project was set up to identify the key contribution of teachers' networks to the future of E&T. This project aims to improve understanding of how social learning networks can support teachers' competence building, in particular through: i) informal dialogue to improve teaching, ii) professional development networks and iii) individual and collaborative research. To achieve its aim, TeLLNet focuses on the eTwinning network, a community for schools in Europe made up of more than 100,000 members, which offers a platform for staff (teachers, head teachers, librarians, etc.) working in European schools to communicate, collaborate, develop projects, share practices and be part of a cross-border learning community. This report gives the findings of an expert workshop organized by JRC/IPTS carried out within the TeLLNet project to start the debate on how teachers' networks are currently contributing to the modernization of the educational systems, and what they will be like in 15 year time.
