The first two Country Reports of the 2012/2013 series of Country Reports on ICT in education are now available. The other reports will follow shortly. The reports are drafted based on the information provided by Ministries of Education through an annual questionnaire. This initiative is one of the major activities undertaken by European Schoolnet to gather and analyse information on ICT in education for Ministries of Education across Europe. The main aim of the reports is to foster the active information exchange between Ministries on ICT in education-related topics of common interest.

This dossier addresses the crucial topic of teachers’ professional development and how social networks can support it. So called Learning networks have been discussed more frequently since the rise of social media and social web. Learning networks are technology supported communities through which learners share knowledge with each other and jointly develop new knowledge (Sloep & Berlanga, 2011). This way, learning networks enrich and compliment the experience of continuous professional development (CPD) and lifelong learning.

The evolving role of the teaching profession and the role of teacher networks in response to changing skills needs in society are discussed in a new book "Teacher Network - Today's and tomorrow's challenges and opportunities for the teaching profession". The book argues that teachers can be the main change agents for reforms of education, provided that they are well supported and enabled to do so.