Many of today's new school librarians wonder how they can demonstrate their ability to lead in schools when they tend to have various roles and responsibilities within their schools. Beginning school librarians can establish leadership by assessing the needs of the school, attending grade-level planning meetings, mentoring new teachers, presenting…

Leading American schools is a multi-faceted and complex role as states have adopted requirements for the mentoring of new principals. Interactive problem-based simulations can offer novice principals opportunities to practice solving job-embedded issues. This study explored practicing administrators interacting with simulations embedded into an…

Online professional development (OPD) is gaining increasing popularity. However, online learning environments are not always considered effective venues for supporting authentic learning experiences, and the suitability of OPD for practical learning has not been widely explored. This case study paper presents findings of a pilot implementation of…

This article details the experience of one Educational Technology program's efforts to use the Association of Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) as an integral part of the mentoring experience for its graduate students. Outlined is how the program has held the resident doctoral seminar at annual AECT conferences and at the Summer…

In life, one will come across diverse types of leaders. While each leadership type has positive and negative qualities, each style fits appropriately in distinct situations. Supervisors must determine how to manage their staff in constructive ways, engaging and motivating them to learn more and do more within their specific professional area. The…

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of a Distance Mentoring Model (DMM), including performance-based feedback and technology support, on expanding the use of recommended home visiting practices by early interventionists. Data from 18 early interventionists indicated that participation in the DMM approach was associated with increased…

For three years, a flagship university-school partnership program developed a multifaceted approach to integrate news and current events into in-school and after-school instruction in K-6 schools. Three case studies detailing the program's impact on an undergraduate novice instructor, an in-school technology mentor, and an experienced classroom…

Quality and accountability mandates require institutions to monitor online instruction in a uniform and complete manner. In many institutions, instructor training is sparse and faculty evaluation occurs only through end-of-course student evaluations that may or may not yield adequate information on how the instructor performs online. Consequently,…

The Special Education Technology Integration Specialist (SETIS) program was created through an expansion of the Technology Integration Specialist (TIS) program. The original TIS program was designed to provide and coordinate professional development activities for all teachers and administrators on a school-level basis to assist them in becoming…

Purpose: Online programs rely on the use of educational technology for knowledge sharing in academic virtual communities of practice (vCoPs). This poses the question as to which factors influence technology acceptance. Previous research has investigated the inter-relationship between educational technology acceptance (ETA) and the vCoP context…

This study examined factors that influence K-5 teachers' technology integration efforts during a semester-long Collaborative Apprenticeship. Results suggest that shared planning time, shared curriculum, connection to an individual, expertise, physical proximity, and comfort level influenced interactions across the community of practice. Posing and…

This article uses the framework of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK; Mishra & Koehler, 2006) to analyze findings across projects from the U.S. Department of Education's Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) initiative. Approaches such as mentoring methods course faculty, teachers, and creating technology-rich…

Like a steady drip from a leaky faucet, the experimental studies being released this school year by the federal Institute of Education Sciences are mostly producing the same results: "No effects," "No effects," "No effects." The disappointing yield is prompting researchers, product developers, and other experts to question the design of the…

The focus of this chapter is the provision of teacher professional development as needed--just in time. The specific context is the application of peer mentoring in teaching and learning with interactive whiteboards. Data were gathered from two research projects that investigated aspects of teachers mentoring colleagues in Australia. In both…

This article examines the approaches to professional development for staff in mathematics departments in seven secondary schools when interactive whiteboards were provided under a government funded project. The analysis is based on observations of video-recorded lessons taught in the schools immediately after the technology was installed and again…