In a technological society, demands for higher literacy are ever increasing, creating grievous consequences for those who fail to meet these demands (National Research Council, 1998). Both legislative mandates, such as NCLB, and developments in the provision of reading instruction, such as RtI, have increased the demand for high quality tutoring services. However, the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE, 2005) and state officials (Richard, 2005) report that access to intensive supplemental tutoring may be limited in rural areas due to limited availability of qualified providers. One way to overcome this obstacle is to supplement classroom instruction with live systematic, comprehensive, and explicit online reading tutoring. The purpose of this manuscript is to describe and discuss a preliminary investigation of the effects of live online reading tutoring on 4th grade students in a high minority, high poverty school in Philadelphia, PA. Although this study was not conducted in a rural location, the implications are great for rural schools where qualified tutors may be nonexistent or inaccessible. Using a distance teleconferencing system, trained and supervised undergraduate students located at Utah State University delivered tutoring. The researchers employed a multiple-baseline across participants design to determine, the effects of 1:1 online reading tutoring on reading fluency scores for 3 students. In addition, they compared data on tutors' face-to-face and online tutoring behaviors. Data collected from parents, teachers, tutees, and tutors evaluating the effectiveness, efficiency, and feasibility of online tutoring for remediating students' skill deficiencies are presented and discussed.

NCLB requires states to provide highly qualified educators for all students. Highly qualified educators should have content knowledge in the areas they teach and the pedagogical expertise to produce student educational gains. In this study, researchers examined the effects of an online mathematics methods class on preservice teachers' knowledge of instructional planning, classroom instructional planning performance; and classroom pupil outcomes in mathematics. Preservice teachers acquired instructional planning skills taught through online instruction and utilized these skills in a subsequent classroom placement. Instructional planning combined with classroom supervision contributed to an increase in pupil's mathematics performance. Results are discussed in terms of participant acquisition of online course materials, classroom application of course materials, and pupil outcomes in mathematics.

Recent federal mandates have increased training requirements of special education and Title I paraprofessionals. State and local education agencies face challenges in meeting the mandates, such as locating and selecting from available training options, deploying local experts to deliver training, and funding development and delivery efforts. One alternative is to deliver a live, Internet-based course with real-time video and audio. In a 10-week course, an instructor interacted with groups of 16 to 20 paraprofessional participants at three remote sites. Site coordinators managed instruction and assisted participants at each site. In this article, authors describe the curriculum, instructional format, and technology, then summarize course evaluation data, and finally, examine the capacity of the delivery system in relation to training mandates.

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Shortages of fully qualified special education teachers have been present in rural, suburban and urban America since the formal inception of special education. Public schools have mitigated special education teacher shortages by hiring paraprofessionals. Though hiring of paraprofessionals has been common practice, it is becoming more difficult to recruit and retain paraprofessionals once hired due to factors related to, or exacerbated by, the lack of pre-service training that teachers receive to effectively supervise paraprofessionals. In response to this training need, a project developed, implemented, and evaluated two live internet-based real-time video and audio courses delivered to teachers and paraprofessionals in Rexburg, ID, Turbotville, PA, and Brigham City, UT. Teachers and paraprofessionals were presented with skills needed to build and maintain effective instructional teams. This article describes the need for the courses, format used for delivery, and course evaluation data.