FAIRBANKS, Alaska—Back in 1989, Skip Via had just made a switch from special education to a general education classroom in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District. He was teaching in a brand-new school, built to incorporate technology that was considered cutting-edge at the time. "I was teaching a class of fifth-graders who were very bright," he recalls, "but they weren't thinking well." Via decided to take a risk and set aside the traditional curriculum for the entire month of January. Instead, students had to come up with projects of their own design. Using computers for research, they also kept a weekly planner and daily journal to help manage their work. The results—especially the spark in student engagement—opened Via's eyes to the benefits of "constructivist learning."

Technology may have provided the tools to create and manage classroom projects that piqued students' interest, but computers alone wouldn't have generated the same results. It also took a "philosophy to teach that way, to actively engage kids in learning," Via says. "Those kids are now graduating from college," he adds, "and I still see some of them. They tell me they still remember that January."

For the past eight years, Via has been an instructional technology (IT) specialist for the North Star district. "It's more 'I' than 'T,'" he says of the job, stressing that his role is to model effective instructional practices that incorporate technology. Via and the district's two other IT specialists help teachers launch ambitious projects that engage students in interdisciplinary studies, using technology in a supporting role. A project worth tackling, he says, "needs to be curriculum-based, and involve as many kids as possible. And it needs for teachers to take some leaps, to change their instructional process a little."

Some of the best results, many of which have won awards, are showcased on a district Web site (www.northstar.k12.ak.us/schools/projects.html*). Via says the project site is often what convinces teachers to try using technology in a new way in the classroom. "They'll see someone else's project and say, 'I'd like to do one like that with my kids. Where do I start?' That's where we come in," Via says. The IT staff provides teacher training and modeling in the context of the teacher's own classroom.

A few of Via's favorite projects include:

• Alaska Gold: Developed at University Park Elementary (the same well-wired school where Via conducted that January experiment more than a decade ago), Alaska Gold involved nearly every classroom in an interdisciplinary study of mining and the Alaska gold rush. "Of the 600 kids in that school, probably 500 can point to their part in the project," Via says. "This was all done by kids." The project involved a variety of disciplines. Science came into play when students studied simple machines, then researched historical photographs to find examples of mining machinery. Students polished language arts skills when they wrote about women of the gold rush. They learned more about their local community when they took digital photos of road signs that refer to gold or mining. "They saw things in a fresh, new way. Highway signs they've passed for years now mean something to them," Via says. And almost every day, the school still receives email from people who have discovered the online resource that students created. Even some commercial gold sites have linked to the school project site. "Being a resource to the world is a big deal to kids."
  
  

• Histórias: This collection of illustrated children's stories, written in Spanish, was produced by second-year Spanish students at North Pole High. It's a good example of project-based learning at the secondary level, which Via says he sees less often than in elementary schools. "It's a structural challenge. There's not as much collaboration across subjects. Time periods are less flexible," he notes, which limits teachers' interest in pursuing projects. This one, however, shows what can happen when a teacher tries a new approach. Each student wrote a children's story, in Spanish, and used computer-generated art to illustrate each frame. "There was a high level of student involvement," Via says, which was a goal for the teacher. "Students were determined to make a good effort. They put a lot of time into revising and editing their work."
  
  
• Virtual Alaska Room: Developed by Tina Maynor's fifth-grade class at University Park Elementary, the Virtual Alaska site uses virtual reality software to take visitors on a tour of a collection of Alaska Native artifacts gathered from around the state. Moving their computer mouse to navigate, visitors "roam" the site, then click to "pick up" an object that strikes their curiosity. That opens a new page with the object displayed, along with accompanying text written by students. The software allows viewers to rotate the object on the screen so they can see it from all sides. To help Maynor and her students create the site, Via first taught skills in digital photography, lighting, and photo composition. "All the photos were taken by fifth-graders. Kids did all the photo editing and writing. The result is awfully cool," says Via.
  
  

Although these examples and many other featured projects get Via excited about the integration of technology in the classroom, he stresses the message he's been sharing with colleagues for more than a decade: "The introduction of technology by itself doesn't change anything. You need to alter the way instruction is done." When teachers are willing to make that happen, he adds, "the potential is exciting."