University of Oregon education major Sunshine Swanson was surfing the net one day last fall when she landed on a web site that helped her transform a group of third-grade students into published authors. The web site, sponsored by the educational technology company Chapbooks, Inc., offered grants to 100 teachers willing to help their students publish Internet books. The company awarded Swanson a $250 grant to combine her on-line skills, her newly developing teaching skills and the enthusiasm of 43 third-grade writers at Corridor Elementary School, where she is completing her teaching practicum. The third graders were already working on a creative writing project with teacher Jeanne Ruiz and they had already used computers. It seemed natural, Swanson says, to combine the two skills. "My specialties are education and technology," she explains, "but I never realized elementary students could do so much with a computer." Swanson coached the young writers, re-typed the edited copy and guided the children as they selected the Internet book title and type fonts and then choose a color for their book cover. The finished book will be available on the Internet. Each student author, their teacher and Swanson will receive a bound hard copy of the book at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 8, at Corridor Elementary School, 250 Silver Lane in Eugene. CONTACT: Sunshine Swanson, UO education major, e-mail swanson@gladstone.uoregon.edu or Jeanne Ruiz, third grade teacher, Corridor Elementary School, (541) 687-3165.

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