Schools serve an essential function for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and complex needs. However, school-based instruction may be interrupted due to pandemics, natural disasters, and school shootings, and as a result, schools are forced to stop traditional services and begin teaching students in their homes. Fortunately, distance…

Serving families who live in rural communities can be a challenge for early intervention programs. Factors, such as travel, family needs, and limited program and community resources, have been identified as ongoing barriers for this population. Technology, specifically teleconferencing, can be a solution to provide equitable services compliant…

The Early Childhood Opportunity (EChO) Scholars project was designed to address the following significant needs in Maine: (a) prepare highly qualified early interventionists and early childhood special educators through distance education, (b) develop a system of support through a mentor network, (c) provide a graduate-level early childhood…

Advances in online learning have benefited rural special education teacher preparation programs through increased recruitment, access, and collaboration. This paper describes how additional challenges, such as monitoring teacher candidate use of evidence-based practices, can be addressed through a digital teaching platform. Project REACH online is…

In order to promote high quality clinical experiences for teacher candidates, one of the recent changes to educator preparation accreditation standards specifically targeted clinical faculty qualifications. Qualified mentor teachers are critical clinical faculty because they serve as the model for training practices for teacher candidates, the…

The shortage of highly qualified special educators is most pronounced in rural schools serving populations characterized by poverty, low achievement, disability, and cultural diversity. The result is often untrained teachers serving students with the greatest education needs. This article describes efforts by a university in rural middle Georgia…

Integrating instructional technology into all classrooms has the potential to transform modern education and student learning. However, access to technology is not equally available to all districts or schools. Decreased funding and budgetary restraints have had a direct impact on technology acquisition in many rural school districts. One of the…

This article provides an overview of the planning and instructional delivery of a course in Applied Behavior Analysis using Adobe Connect Pro™. A description of software features used by course instructors is provided along with how each feature compares to resources found to deliver instruction in a traditional classroom setting. In addition, the…

Faculty and staff from three university departments (Special Education, Distance Learning Programs, and Distance Learning Networks) collaborated to develop a system for remote observation of student teachers. Colleges across the campus currently use the system. The development process from inception to implementation is described, and the specific…

Educational teams often are faced with the task of developing and implementing Behavioral Intervention Plans (BIPs) for students who present challenging and/or disruptive behaviors. This article describes the steps used to develop and implement a self-monitoring BIP that incorporated an innovative software system, iKidTools™. An authentic case…

Ongoing developments in educational technology, including web-based instruction, streaming video, podcasting, video-conferencing, and the use of wikis and blogs to create learning communities, have substantial impact on distance education and preparation of special educators in rural communities. These developments can be overwhelming, however,…

Web-based instruction is not a new phenomenon. There are 15-20 years of research and literature to support the effectiveness of web-based instruction. The purpose of this article is to synthesize the research in this field in order to determine which factors are critical to the success of web-based instruction. We created a toolkit to assist…