If anyone has heard me speak informally in the past couple of months, you know that I have been championing the idea of encouraging the increased use of personal technology (ex: smart phones, I-Touches) and universal connectivity in schools. We have to free up our people and our students or risk becoming the buggy-whip industry of the 21st century. Along these lines I have started to use Twitter to increase the reach of the LYS Nation network. With Twitter, you have 144 characters of text to make your point and it is always live. I love it. For me the blog is the deep thought, the tweet is the summary. If you don’t have a Twitter account, just go to Twitter.com and sign up. It takes less than three minutes. For those of you the LYS Nation who are not yet following @LYSNation, here are the top ten LYS Tweets for the past two weeks, as tabulated by the accountants at Price Waterhouse. Week of February 13th, Top 10 Tweets 1. Districts should make campuses Wi-Fi hotspots. Increase connectivity. Tax dollars pay for it, give taxpayers access. Build knowledge and good will. 2. Coach Odom has her lesson framed, is in the PZ, has kids writing and talking, and is passing out the R&R. 1st observed 5 tool player in 2011. 3. Fullan keynote address (at AASA) is a great opening act for the LYS Presentation. 4. LYS Presentation at AASA: Enthused crowd, great discussion (Fun 5 works in every setting). Audience amazed by the Zen of the Foundation Trinity. 5. Leadership has a physical component. Ignore that fact and your body will let you down when you most need it. 6. Schools should use Twitter for “wake-up” morning announcements before school starts. Embrace bootleg technology! 7. Watching 3 year olds work an I-Phone like a master. Embrace bootleg technology in the classroom! 8. Just used BeeTag reader on my I-Phone to download free copy of Ben Franklin’s Autobiography. Embrace bootleg technology in schools! 9. Student discipline is improved by better adult practice, not stiffer consequences. LYS schools typically have 40% drop in referrals in year 1. 10. Article says some teachers don’t like C-Scope. No one likes change. Everyone likes success. You don’t have to like the play to run the play. Week of February 6th, Top Ten Tweets 1. We must make an effort to embrace bootleg technology in the classroom or be irrelevant. Starting to think that tech departments may be the problem. 2. Perpetually better schools and perpetually lower taxes are mutually exclusive. 3. Just saw critical writing in a math class. BooYah!!! 4. More observed critical writing on the same campus. Red Letter Day! 5. Principal asks: What do we do next year? Answer: The same, with less hesitation and more insight. Good to Great: Keep rinsing the cottage cheese. 6. Ms. Granger cleaned up her act and the kids have loved every minute of it. Halfway there and making progress. 7. Ms. C. Gallagher better organized her room this semester and it looks awesome! And the kids have responded positively! Shelves next. 8. At LBJ Elementary – shiny floors, good lesson frames and a building full of hard working students. Nice! 9. Saw great lesson frames at Whitt ES. 10. Sometimes you have to create a problem to solve THE problem. Think. Work. Achieve. Your turn…Follow Sean Cain on www.Twitter.com/LYSNationHear the LYS Presentation at the TASB Winter Legal ConferenceVisit the LYS Booth at the NASSP ConferenceHear the LYS Presentation at the Texas Middle School Association Conference