This interview is the third in our "Teachers' Voices" series, a monthly feature celebrating teachers who, with their students, have accomplished remarkable projects that combine literacy and technology. For more about the evolution of Teachers' Voices, visit the series introduction.

That's when I discovered what was out there--teachers having websites and digital portfolios for their students. It gave me the hunger to learn and be a part of it.

And then I became involved with collaborative Internet projects. It was so exciting to be a part of something big, to have the children be producers of information. My dream was to do my own project, and I started thinking about what could I do, still being so new to it all. Having been a teacher for so many years, common sense told me: I just teach myself how.

One day my administrator said she wanted to see me. I figured they were firing me! I'll never forget it. [But] she said, "Susan, what's your motive? You're doing so much with computers. What can we do for you?"

I said, "I just have a passion for this."

She said, "Well, I think it's wonderful. We're giving you a phone line."

It's a great story! I started going to more technology conferences and writing. I wrote several articles for various online magazines, and I was getting awards for my website and sharing this with my district. The year before last I was a part-time second-grade teacher and part-time computer resource person, and it just demanded too much time. This year I became the district computer teacher, and I love it.

What really freed me was when I stopped writing my own HTML and started using FrontPage [a commercial software package for webpage creation]. I was putting many graphics in, and I was becoming pretty proficient at scanning people's work. Then I started thinking I'd like to have a little interactivity in the projects. I came up with the idea for a word search, and went, I think, to Discovery School where you could word search printable materials for people (at that point I didn't know how to do online things so I would create activities that people would be able to print out). And it was just a natural progression, where I would decide I needed to enrich a project by linking to other resources within the theme and then would start finding websites on that topic. So, it's really been an evolution for me. It just gets better and better.

So, that's one of the things I'll do: if teachers want to create something, I'll work with them. I'll find projects for them to join. I"ll go in and demonstrate lessons. Basically I'll do anything that I can to be a resource for them.

School districts need technology integration specialists like myself to work with teachers. It's very, very hard to do it alone. It's an important job. There ought to be more of [us] around.

There is a perfect example of how this type of project gives teachers something concrete to use. Some children need a lot of repetition. It's so nice to be able to say, "Why don't you go back to the computer and see what your classmates did?" The student is able to take his or her time, look it over, and have a concrete understanding of what he or she needs to do. Once again, you're taking the role of the teacher from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side. You're facilitating.

Another thing is the online activities that are there, and just giving teachers ideas of things that they can do. Also, these exemplary teachers are networking among themselves.

So, it's probably the most exciting thing that has happened in my career, the most powerful tool.

When I was teaching second grade, I had a ball doing Frosty Readers. During the month of January when it's cold and snowy and the kids are kind of let down because Christmas is over, how wonderful it was to be able to say, "Oh, look at the book these kids from Arkansas just read." The kids would get so motivated that they would go to the library, get the book, and bring it to class. Then I'd read it, and they'd say, "Oh, they did a poem, or they did [something else]. Can we do it?"

"Of course!"

"Can we write a play like they did?"

"Sure! You know how?"

"Well they did it; we know how!"

Not to mention the communication that goes on between classes where students will write congratulatory letters to each other. They love getting feedback from their online peers.

There are tons of projects out there to join. Join something that you feel comfortable with; don't join one that expects you to use skills you are not comfortable with. Or join something like my projects--and, if you don't have time, get a class parent to send me the information. Or if you don't know how to scan something, I am sure there is a parent who would love to do that.

The other thing I would recommend is visiting Teachers.Net. There are lesson plans. There's a chat board by grade level and subject area, where you ask questions and get help. Once a week they'll have an online auditorium with a guest teacher. It's wonderful--very user friendly, a great place for computer-phobic teachers.

Then I had a class from a school in Canada that was so excited about being on a project that they purchased computers.

So I really feel like these projects have had such a positive impact. To have such a positive influence on places that I haven't been, people that I haven't met. For me, it's really the most rewarding part of my career.