Sarah Kimball

Uses of the Internet: Rural Special Education Materials for Teachers and Parents.

The Internet offers important educational and resource information and interactive opportunities for teachers and parents of children with disabilities in rural areas. In this paper, Internet locations for teachers are highlighted and include multipurpose sites, sites for special education teachers, general disability sites, and sites related to specific disabilities. Parental education sites related to learning about disabilities, home coping strategies, finding special education information and organizations, legal issues and IEP processes are provided. Rural special educators can use the Internet information and interactive opportunities to further their knowledge as well as to assist parents of children with disabilities in learning more about disabilities, organizations, and resources for families. It is hoped that rural special educators can empower parents to use Internet services themselves to better understand their childs disability and the resources available.

Risk Communication in Rural Special Education.

Risk communication, a methodology adapted from environmental science, is proposed as a method of communication which has a rich history of use and research in other disciplines. This methodology is recommended for those in rural special education programs who communicate with parents and teachers in the more remote districts. Coming from risk decision making literature, risk communication is part of that process described as: (a) hazard identification, (b) hazard assessment, (c) risk assessment, (d) risk management, (e) risk analysis, and (f) risk communication. Each of these processes is described using rural special education examples. Additionally, risk communication factors, psychological and socioeconomic/cultural factors, are explored. Processes for improving risk communication from presentation style, trust development, reliability, outrage prevention, evaluation of communication and personal/cultural factors are also explored.