Today's students have iPads and smart phones, spend more time with Facebook and YouTube than with television, and text about as much as they talk.

"They are digital learners. They've grown up with technology that is foreign to many of us, and they learn differently than we did," said James Barker, 17-year superintendent of Erie schools and a former state Board of Education member. "There's a revolution going on, and schools need to join that revolution or they're going to get left behind."

Dr. Barker is in a position to help schools join the revolution. He recently was named executive director of the Pennsylvania Digital Learning Network.

The network was created by the National Network of Digital Schools, a Beaver-based spinoff of the Midland-based Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School. It got a federal grant to help develop 10-12 school districts to share resources and ideas on educating in the era of social media.

Dr. Barker said he envisions an emphasis on project-based learning, with students using the full range of digital tools to take challenges and solve problems.

The idea is that rather than trying to simply store knowledge in their memories, students will learn how to recognize what knowledge they need, how to access and apply it and how to synthesize ideas from various disciplines into something new.

"Teachers become co-creators of knowledge, instead of standing in front of the class telling kids everything," he said, calling it a "guide on the side" style as opposed to the "sage on a stage" familiar to past generations.

More than anything, though, Dr. Barker said he does not want to prejudge the program. Right now, he and other leaders are still finalizing the list of school districts in the group of schools. After that, they will do an inventory of each school's technological capacity and existing programs.

Next, the plan is to start organizing people and see what they come up with.

Dr. Barker himself will likely keep his home base in Erie, but the network will also use part of the former Mount Gallitzin Academy in Baden as an "Innovation Center."

Stephen Catanzarite, director of partnerships and special projects for the Network, said the innovation center would be a sort of incubator where network-member schools can collaborate on potential projects and teach each other about their advances.

"A lot of education reforms have been short-lived," Mr. Catanzarite said, "sort of going from one fad to another.

"We're trying to look at what we call 'greenfield' efforts - something that's really, really new, not just a digital duplicate of what we had before."

Mr. Catanzarite is also executive director of Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in Midland, another PA Cyber spinoff, but has spearheaded a number of projects for the Network. "It really just describes what I've been doing anyway," he said.

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.