Rita has led hundreds of workshops, conference presentations and courses about integrating technology in education. She has used and created online educational communications, activities and lessons since 1975. She earned a PhD in educational applications of media (Indiana U.) and is author of 10 books, including one on technology professional development published by NSBA. As director of ed tech in Miami-Dade County Public Schools for more than seven years, she won grants exceeding $10 million. At Barry University, she was chair of the educational computing and technology department and associate professor. In the 1980s, she was education editor of the first U.S. online service with color and graphics, called VIEWTRON. Early in her career, she taught high school language arts and journalism in an urban, a rural, and a suburban school in Kansas, after earning degrees in curriculum and instruction and in journalism at the University of Kansas. She has made district, regional, state and national presentations, keynotes and workshops. In 2010 she was recognized with the Lifetime Ed Tech Leadership award by FACE, and made a member of the CoSN Volunteer Hall of Fame. At ePals, she works with state and national education leaders and large districts to successfully implement ePals LearningSpace, a virtual workspace optimized for creating, sharing, collaborating and managing educational content, and the free web 2.0 tools such as ePals SchoolMail, Classroom Match, Forums, Projects and Focus Areas.