My life on the Internet all started off with a wonderful lesson about ancient Mesopotamia and Hammurabi that was very kid-tested and approved in my classroom.  I decided to put the lesson online when I needed to create a website for a graduate class I took over the Internet.  The lesson and the site had a life of its own.  It grew and grew, eating up enormous hours of time over six weeks, and included lots of original illustrations.  Then, when finally finished, the professor suggested we submit it into the Microsoft Encarta Lesson Collection contest. 

Hammurabi won the Grand Prize!    And, it really wasn't a fluke. Six months later, Microsoft had a second competition and my Liberian Folk Tales won the grand prize again. With that came a lot of attention including Microsoft Encarta's Featured Teacher of the Month and a computer, back in 1998 when nobody owned a laptop. 

All this honor and still no autographed picture from Bill Gates. And, to the best of my knowledge, Microsoft never had another lesson plan competition.