The citizens of South Burlington, Vermont never used to think of their town as a center for high technology, but some students of South Burlington High School are changing all that. As a result of their achievements in technology, the students have been featured in NEA Today, the National School Board Journal, and Technology and Learning magazine, among others. What's all the fuss about? An on-campus facility called the Imaging Lab, where students learn computer-based 3D animation, video production, and other high-tech creative skills using state-of-the-art computer workstations from Intergraph Computer Systems.

The founder and overseer of the Imaging Lab is Tim Comolli, a teacher who spent most of his 35-year career teaching English in this quiet Vermont town. With this background, no one was more surprised than Comolli to find himself accepting the National Technology Teacher of the Year award. The story of how a teacher of Shakespeare became a spokesman for high technology is a testament to what can happen when you mix the energy and curiosity of youth with the extraordinary capabilities of today's computers.

The Imaging Lab had its beginnings in the early 1990s when Comolli was assigned to do a video production class. Comolli had heard about an inexpensive computer-based system from NewTek called the Video Toaster, so the class purchased one with money they had raised through a drug-free schools grant. The class agreed to produce anti-drug commercials featuring the students as a condition of receiving the grant.

Once the students began experimenting with the Video Toaster, it wasn't long before they began using the system in ways that Comolli had never envisioned. For example, after discovering that the computer included software for creating 3D animations, the students began creating animations of their own, which eventually led to the school offering a new class on Electronic Arts. "The kids started playing around with it and the system became very popular," says Comolli. "In fact, some of them started asking to get into the lab on Saturdays. Well, when the school board got wind of that, they wanted to know what was making kids want to go to school on Saturdays."

The school board requested that the class make a demonstration at their next meeting, which they did. The non-technical audience was suitably impressed, including an enthusiastic parent who approached Comolli and offered to get involved. Comolli was familiar with short-lived promises made at board meetings, so he didn't think much of it at the time. But skepticism turned to surprise when the parent walked in the next week with two brand new Amiga 2000 computers, which served as the platform for two new Video Toaster systems. "That got us started," says Comolli. "In fact, there was so much interest that they gave us a little more room than the broom closet we'd been working in."