This presentation demonstrates how three teachers used Tech Tools to build collaborative communities between their campuses. The idea was born out of a collaboration designed to do something very traditional between English classes. Growing from a shared interest to try something different, teachers experimented to understand the organic but deliberate aspects of one instance of collaboration, made possible by technology and open-minded spirits. In the beginning, however, the idea was largely traditional: to host a collaborative, inter-institutional paper conference for high school students. This is the story of how a traditional vision became the catalyst for 21st century learning practices – attempting, from there, to outline the emotional anatomy of such collaborative experiences.