One of the most important projects for me was Quill—a software package developed to foster an environment for literacy in classrooms, both within a single classroom and between classrooms at great distances. I worked with Andee Rubin and others at BBN and in Alaska.

The software, teacher’s guide, and workshops were used widely, including in urban, suburban, and rural settings.

I helped implement Quill in village schools in Alaska. My three trips there offer a model for education reform in diverse settings. It also led to the book, Electronic Quills: A situated evaluation of using computers for writing in classrooms, which showed a generation of educators ways to apply computers in education and to evaluate their effectiveness.