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There are many descriptions of telecommunications projects able to be found on the web sites used by Australian teachers. These descriptions attempt to describe what teachers will do with classes and provide resources and background information. Most projects have a project coordinator who may be able to support teachers who wish to participate. Some projects provide teachers with opportunity to build a professional community of their peers, so they can share ideas about classroom activities, seek help, swap resource locations and make further contacts. Unfortunately many do not.

Some projects are designed to encourage anonymous participation by teachers and students. For example collections of web-based publishing may simply act as a gallery for student work. Such projects do not reflect that they are cognisant of the global context that surrounds the communities of people who are using the Internet as part of their lives. The "Communities" definition of the Internet ⁽¹⁾ as a core idea in Natcom 1 and Natcom 2, and the tone of the NOIE report on the Information and Communications networks ⁽²⁾ provide some direction for Natcom 3 participants. These ideas encourage associations to build activities for students to do online with others as a way of beginning to appreciate the online activity in global online commerce, as well as working patterns and lifestyles of new and changing communities. Ideas about development of different kinds of learning communities offer exciting prospects to explore in Natcom 3.

Although telecommunications projects are often seen as activities that happen in classrooms, they can be important professional development experiences for teachers. If teachers have access to supportive communities while learning how to participate and while participating, telecommunications project activities are significant just-in-time learning experiences for the teachers. Further to this, if the projects model exemplary curriculum interpretation, pedagogical approaches or best-practice classroom organisational strategies, the projects will change how teachers teach and often what they teach. This kind of thinking enables professional associations to articulate the rationales for designing and implementing telecommunications project, and umbrella projects.

It is important that national professional associations build a project that makes a difference. It is likely associations will want to model excellent curriculum interpretation (cognisant of global agendas, changing technological processes and cultural values, online communities shaping new social and cultural practices, new ways of working etc), model exemplary pedagogical approaches and demonstrate by example that professional development now has many forms and agendas. Teachers will look to associations who collect expertise, to develop a leading edge umbrella project which push the boundaries of curriculum (perhaps rewriting it) and pedagogy as well as exploiting the technological tools. By developing umbrella projects associations will be able to take advantage of the expertise throughout their professional community and disperse the efforts, use management of events as professional development activity and ensure ongoing renewal within the project.

These telecommunications (umbrella) projects must be better than those usually developed by the volunteer teachers and communities, who often work in isolation with limited resources. They must influence how systems and teachers plan projects in the future and develop a new standard for online activity in classrooms and professional development forums.