In recent years, enrollment and overall student performance in rural schools have declined. Research shows that principals are critical to the success of a school system and that implementing a virtual community of practice (CoP) at the principal level has solved some of the issues associated with rurality in some organizations. Such…

While the microblogging service Twitter is increasingly popular among educators and offers numerous affordances for learning, its relationship with formal education systems remains complicated by generally ambivalent educator attitudes and institutional policies. To better understand the role Twitter plays in education, we conducted a survey of…

School administrators rarely have the opportunity to confer and share their challenges with colleagues. To address this problem in 2005 the Educational Administration Department (EAD) at Central University (a Midwestern PhD granting institution located in a thriving city of about 100,00 people) created a virtual/local doctoral cohort for 14 school…

The purpose of this study was to examine reasons for teacher participation in online communities of K-12 teachers. The authors interviewed 23 teachers from three self-generated online communities and analyzed more than 2,000 postings in those communities. The findings indicated five reasons for participation: (a) sharing emotions, (b) utilizing…

In regional, rural, and remote areas of Australia, geographic and professional isolation take their toll on professionals, particularly in the first 5 years of practice. The attraction and retention of human service professionals and paraprofessionals in regional Australia is a significant problem affecting the sustainability and social cohesion…

Advances in computer technology offer opportunities for rural social workers to reduce their isolation and enhance professional communication and for social work educators to stay in touch with the real-world environment of practitioners. Development of an online journal to enhance professional competence is discussed, focusing on meaningful…