William M. Ferriter – @plugusin on Twitter – is a sixth-grade language arts and social studies teacher in a professional learning community (PLC) near Raleigh, North Carolina. A National Board Certified Teacher, Bill has designed professional development courses for educators nationwide. His trainings include how to use blogs, wikis, and podcasts in the classroom; the role of iTunes in teaching and learning; and the power of digital moviemaking. Bill has also developed schoolwide technology rubrics and surveys that identify student and staff digital proficiency at the building level.

He is a founding member and senior fellow of the Teacher Leaders Network and has served as teacher in residence at the Center for Teaching Quality. An advocate for PLCs, improved teacher working conditions, and teacher leadership, Bill has represented educators on Capitol Hill and presented in state and national conferences. He is among the first one hundred teachers in North Carolina and the first one thousand in the United States to earn certification from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. He has been a Regional Teacher of the Year in North Carolina, and his blog, the Temper Radical, earned Best Teacher Blog of 2008 from Edublogs.

Adam Garry is a former elementary school teacher. He is currently the manager of Dell’s global professional learning organization. He has presented and keynoted at technology conferences around the world, including Alan November’s conferences and National Education Computing Conferences. He has published many articles on technology integration for several education magazines and authors his own blog. Since 2001, Adam has consulted in school districts across the country on school change, professional development, 21st century skills, technology integration, curriculum and instruction, and leadership.

Adam is also a facilitator for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills’ Professional Development Affiliate program and the International Society for Technology in Education’s School 2.0 workshops. Adam received a BA in elementary education, a master’s in teaching and learning with a technology emphasis, and a certificate in administration and supervision from Johns Hopkins University.

Since 1998, Solution Tree has worked to transform education worldwide by empowering educators to raise student achievement. With more than 30,000 educators attending professional learning events and more than 4,260 professional development days in schools each year, Solution Tree helps teachers and administrators confront essential challenges. Solution Tree has a catalog of more than 515 titles, hundreds of videos and online courses and is the creator of Global PD, an online tool that facilitates the work of professional learning communities.