The Virtual Conference Room: Online Problem Solving for First Year Special Educators

Virtual teams, using existing telecommunications technology, are employed by government and industry to meet the changing needs of the new millennium. The use of virtual teams by business has become part of the new workplace phenomena. Despite their obvious potential, virtual communications in Special Education are limited to electronic mail, video-conferencing, and discussion forums. The use of virtual teams in field of education is largely unexplored. The following is a description of a web-based, virtual, problem-solving process used by teams of Special Educators to address problems encountered by first year teachers. Assessment by team participants indicates that an in vivo problem solving and collaboration process was successfully replicated as an online phenomenon and a representative case, illustrating the process, is presented. A web-site, titled The Conference Room, is proposed as a model for building electronic bridges between teacher preparation faculty and their graduates and for offering confidential consultation, support and mentoring for first year teachers.