Marjan Glavac grew up in Welland, Ontario, Canada (a 15 minute drive from Niagara Falls) before microwaves, camcorders, VCRs, popcorn makers and personal computers were even invented! Hard to imagine isn't it?

He received his B.A. from the University of Toronto, St. Michael's College; his B.Ed from Brock University and a Masters from Carleton University, all in Ontario, Canada. He's been teaching elementary school for 21 years and currently is a grade 5 Home Room and French teacher (and sys op) at Wilfrid Jury Public School in London, Ontario, Canada. He has been involved in computers in education on the first day he began teaching at Mariposa Elementary School in rural Ontario in 1982. (There a student had to show him how to turn one on!) Since 1993, he has introduced thousands of students K-University, parents and teachers to the Internet through online courses, websites, online moderating, online chats on www.teachers.net, classroom lessons, workshops, speeches, articles, his past Techno Plug column for kidsworld magazine, his present Web Stuff column for TEACH magazine, his book The Busy Educator's Guide to The World Wide Web 2nd Edition and his Busy Educator’s Newsletter.

He has been a software tester for Family PC magazine, and a reviewer of educational CD Roms. He has also moderated a number of online conferences for the Ontario Teachers' Electronic Network of Ontario Internet service and MIT's Junior Summit in 1998.

He has taught the Navigating the Internet online course at the University of Western Ontario Part Time Continuing Education faculty, in addition to teaching over 100 teachers how to navigate the Internet through a part-time course offered by the University of Western Ontario's Technology Leadership Centre at Althouse College.

(Caricature of Mr. Glavac by Tim, former grade 6 student)

In 1993, his school was the first elementary school in London and one of 300 schools in Canada to be connected to the Internet through the Federal Government's SchoolNet project. In 1994, he was a member of the school team that won the Roberta Bondar award (named after Canada's first female astronaut) for Science and Technology.

In 1995, he was a member of a team from Ontario that had its NewsOntario online student newspaper proposal accepted for a Nortel National Institute Award for Excellence in Teaching. Also in 1995, he designed an award winning web site for his former school Bonaventure Meadows Elementary School, the first public elementary school with a web site in London and one of the first in Ontario.

In 1996, he won the Prime Minister's Award for Excellence in Technology Education and Mathematics Award. He was also asked by Nortel to return to the National Institute as a returning member during the summer of 1996 and present 3 workshops for Nortel in Dallas, Texas, USA and again in 1997 to present a workshop in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 1997, he won the Roy C. Hill Award for educational innovation. Since 1993, Marjan has been involved in dozens of telecommunications projects involving students from K-University on every continent of the world. His students have been involved in projects sponsored by Global SchoolNet Foundation, Kidlink, Academy One, CCCnet, AT&T Japan, Lycos and in the creation of the NewsOntario online newspaper project with their contributions from their Meadow News newspaper. His K-8 students have also participated in e-mail, travel buddy, research projects and most recently polishing mirrors for the NASA Starshine project. He and his classes have been filmed by TVO and Global's Kids-TV; featured in all local media newspapers, TV, radio in London, as well as the Toronto Star, Globe & Mail, Today's Parent, Home and Educational Computing and internationally on WGN radio, websites and dozens of student newspapers worldwide.

Marjan is a parent, a teacher and a firm believer that: “there are no boundaries for the journeys of the mind” and that every student, parent and teacher is capable of achieving great journeys, especially with the help of the Internet. Lastly, he couldn't do any of this without the assistance and support of his number one computer programmer and spouse Maria and children Vanessa and Collin.