Recently I have been considering the changing role of teachers who are adopting technology to extend the walls of the classroom. These are a new breed of teachers who do not necessarily accept that the classroom is contained within four walls. In effect, through the use of social media and telecommunication technologies, these teachers are becoming global educators. I consider myself a global educator and have tried to articulate my ideas on why this is a different role to traditional teaching. We are connected educators, linked in to a number of powerful global communities of practice, and we have access to resources, dialogue and audiences we would not enjoy in a traditional learning and teaching role. But what tools do we use to enable us to connect with these communities, resources, audiences around the globe? Here are my top five tools: