Invercargill speech teacher Miriam Erikson did not plan to develop an online teaching tool now being accessed by students in this country and overseas - she says it all happened by accident.
She used to give her students written homework until a couple of years ago, when a mother rang her saying she did not understand the instructions.
Ms Erikson recorded herself on her cellphone demonstrating the exercises and sent it off.
She was delighted and surprised when she found out her young boy pupil loved playing with his mother's cellphone and considered his homework a game.
''His results improved so much faster than I expected. I thought if he liked playing with technology, other children would too.''
So her website Say it Clearly was born, allowing clients to access video clips of their exercises on secure pages.
A speech teacher for more than 20 years, Ms Erikson (46) is also a primary school teacher. She works with people of all ages, including Southern Institute of Technology students with English as a second language who want to improve their language skills to gain jobs.
She is understood to be the only New Zealand speech teacher using online technology and puts it down to her age.
''I am probably 20 years younger than the other speech teachers in Invercargill. Most speech teachers are still using the traditional methods ... but I'm going beyond `how now brown cow'.''
She said meeting her students in person was important and she did that where possible, but online technology had enabled her to reach new students outside the city.
She now offers individualised lessons online via Skype and has also developed a 10-week general online programme which has attracted students from New Zealand as well as overseas. One lives in India.
Ms Erikson has also written a resource book called Say it Clearly, designed for classroom and speech teachers to use with children aged 4-8.
Published by Invercargill company Education Resources in 2012, it is selling in New Zealand and Australia.
She began writing the book after returning to classroom teaching in 2009 after an eight-year hiatus.
''I noticed there had been a real deterioration in [new entrants'] speech - children saying th as f, or memote instead or remote, or dirl instead of girl, or brudda instead of brother. It's because they are closing their lips in the wrong place or have their tongues in the wrong part of their mouth.
''It's amusing to hear a 3-year-old misannouncing [sic] a word, but it needs to be corrected by the time a child is 5 or 6, and it is often difficult for teachers to know how to do that.''
Speaking correctly and being understood was also important for boosting children's confidence, she said.
Ms Erikson, who emphasised she was not a speech therapist, said in her view parents needed to spend more time conversing with their children.
''To learn to pronounce words correctly children have to not only hear other people speak but watch how they speak as well. Parents need to talk `at' their children - face to face, eye to eye. It's no good if the conversation is competing with the television in the corner of the room.''
Speech New Zealand manager Maureen Gray, of Wellington, said Ms Erikson was the only speech teacher in the country she was aware of offering lessons and homework online.
Another South Island teacher was planning to do the same.
The Speech New Zealand board was excited about the possibilities online technology brought, especially for students in more remote areas and smaller towns.
There was a ''desperate shortage'' of teachers in some areas and some students had to travel long distances for face-to-face lessons, she said.
The board had successfully trialled online examinations linking candidates and examiners via video, and was ready to begin those as soon as teachers requested the service.
''From our point of view it is the way to go. At present we have examiners travelling the country two or three times a year. Using an online system give us much more flexibility; for example, we could have an examiner available every Friday.''
