Teacher Lois Pangburn uses technology to connect her first graders at Mapleton Elementary School in Mapleton with people in distant lands. Using email and the Internet, Ms. Pangburn's students have corresponded with students from Africa, produced and performed a play based on an African folktale, and written and illustrated African folktales of their own. She is one of only twelve people in Maine trained to assess early literacy in children and shares her expertise in the field through frequent workshop and conference presentations. She is a mentor teacher, a member of the district's staff development team, and has served on several committees involved in district and state Learning Results. Her work has been published in several national journals.