Michael Simkins is creative director of Portical.org, a Web portal commissioned by the State of California to support California's 25,000 K–12 school administrators as technology leaders. Previously, he was director of technology initiatives at Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, where his responsibilities included directing the Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project. Simkins's career includes 15 years in the classroom as an elementary school teacher and 9 years as an elementary principal. He holds a master's degree in teacher education and a doctorate in curriculum. His articles have appeared in Educational Leadership, Technology and Learning, and Principal. He regularly presents workshops at state and national educational technology conferences. Contact Simkins at P.O. Box 6361, Los Osos, CA 93412; phone: (408) 482-9492; fax: (805) 528-0246; e-mail: mbsimkins@charter.net.

Karen Cole is a senior research associate at WestEd, a nonprofit research, development, and service agency with headquarters in San Francisco. Prior to that, she was a research scientist at the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL). A 20-year veteran in the educational technology field, she has worked in research, curriculum development, assessment development, evaluation, and teacher professional development. Her award-winning projects include the Middle School Math through Applications Project curriculum and the CD-ROM A Video Exploration of Classroom Assessment. Contact Cole at P.O. Box 27, Garrett Park, MD 20896; e-mail: kac@karencole.com.

Fern Tavalin is the executive director of the WEB Project, Inc. (http://www.webproject.org). She was one of the prime conceivers and developers of the federal technology innovation grant The WEB Project: Creating a WEB of Evidence. Tavalin specializes in project-based learning, using collaborative inquiry as a process for improvement, and offers experientially based summer multimedia institutes to teachers. Her concepts about educational technology and applied learning have been formally translated into a pragmatic design called Applied Learning Studios (http://www.appliedlearning.org). She also specializes in developing systems of collaborative online inquiry. Contact Tavalin at 270 Putney Mountain Road, Putney, VT 05346; phone: (802) 387-4277; e-mail: tavalin@sover.net.

Barbara Means directs the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International, an independent nonprofit research organization based in Menlo Park, California. Means collaborated on the original design of the Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project and supervised its evaluation activities. She has directed numerous research projects concerned with the design, implementation, and evaluation of technology-enhanced approaches to education reform. Her recent work includes case studies of technology use in urban high schools, published as The Connected School. Her earlier published works include the edited volumes Technology and Education Reform and Teaching Advanced Skills to At-Risk Students. Contact Means at SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025; phone: (650) 859-4004; e-mail: barbara.means@sri.com.