National Rural Education Association Official Podcast

Recorded on November 8th, 2024. In this podcast, we welcome Lisa Rahn, Chief Product Officer at eDynamic Learning, to discuss the company's impact on rural education. Lisa shares that eDynamic Learning, founded by a high school teacher in 2008, provides online career and education resources for middle and high schools. The company's digital curriculum is designed to overcome geogra

We interviewed Annette Logsdon-Rodriguez of Proximity Learning and discussed the teacher shortage issues within Rural Education and how companies like Proximity Learning meet these challenges through synchronous online learning. We talk about the challenges of finding qualified teachers to meet the unique needs of rural school districts, particularly in remote areas. This is partic

In today’s episode, we interview one of our listeners and rural high school teachers, Rachael Straughn, from Russell County High School in Seale, Alabama. In this episode, Rachael shares her educational journey and narrative. Rachael talks about her childhood dream of being a broadcast meteorologist and storm chaser. She worked hard to be a chief meteorologist on television withi

Imagine you are in a small town, and several industries have moved out of your community. Many of your citizens have lost their jobs. What do you do now? Meet Jon Chadwell, the Executive Director of the Newport Arkansas Economic Development Commission. Jon’s community rallied together and formalized a plan to revitalize their community. The community worked together to find indus

In this episode of the Rural Voice, we are discussing student data privacy and best practices in technology for protecting student data. We explore the importance of protecting student data, why rural schools particularly should be focused on data protection, and ways that teachers and administrators should be thinking about data protection. We discuss the free resources provided b

For this episode, we interview Dr. Brian Noland, the President of East Tennessee State University (ETSU). ETSU is a rural university serving the states of Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. ETSU is located in a mountainous area of the country and has a strong presence in these states. ETSU has a strong education program for developing Rural Southeast United States t

We interviewed Dr. Casey Jakubowski about teacher retention, policy, and practice. Dr. Jakubowski shared that Appalachia extends into New York State, and we reflected on how New York has large rural communities. Much of Dr. Jakubowski's work has focused on these communities and beyond (including West Virginia). We discuss the changing trends of job availability to applicants. We di

In this episode, we discuss rural initiatives to train students in computer science. We interviewed Ms. Karen Mix, the co-director of CS4NorCal, a five-year research grant. This program creates K-12 computer science training. CS4NorCal was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program and sponsored by SSDA to support Comput

In the first episode of the new season of the Rural Voice, we talk about the research of place and process of rural education from a data-informed perspective. We discuss the role of Ground Truthing and connecting data within the domains of politics, culture, and fear of consolidation. Dr. Mitchell talks about somewhere (rural) and anywhere (urban and suburban). The politics of the

Dr. Valerie Rutledge, Dean of the College of Health, Education, and Professional Studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, discussed the large, diverse mix of accredited and licensure programs her college oversees. With an extensive background as an educator and administrator, Rutledge highlighted impressions from the record-setting National Forum to Advance Rural Educ