Annette Slaba faced a tough choice. She loved teaching. The pay supplemented the income from the ranch that she and her husband operate with the help of their kids in the remote northwestern corner of South Dakota. But in 2003 her new school assignment meant driving 40 miles one way on gravel roads in all kinds of weather. The travel would cut into the time she needed for ranch chores in the pre-dawn and late afternoon hours, especially during lambing and calving season. Common sense dictated that she would have to quit.

After turning in her resignation, Annette had an idea. A couple of years earlier she had a attended a workshop where she heard about Sylvan Learning’s online tutoring program. They were looking for teachers. Through Sylvan, she could continue to do what she loved and supplement the family’s income. She could do it on her own schedule because Sylvan had students in a dozen different time zones. The only challenge she faced was getting connected.

The Slaba ranch is located outside Ludlow, South Dakota, a wide spot on the two-lane Can Am highway that runs along the western edge of North and South Dakota. It’s gorgeous, but desolate country where herds of antelope and deer grazed the wind-blown grass protruding from a thin layer of snow on the day of our interview. The telephone cooperative that serves the area has a territory as big as some states but a population smaller than many urban high schools. The cooperative didn’t offer broadband in 2003, and without broadband Annette couldn’t work for Sylvan.

Annette and Ron tried satelite, but the latency delays made real-time two-way communication difficult. They heard that Consolidated Telecom in North Dakota had a super cell 30 miles away that could deliver line-of-sight broadband wireless to a dish on their roof.  They signed up for the service, installed the antenna and Annette was in business.

As a teacher for Sylvan’s online program, Annette logs in on her computer from her ranch house. During each one-hour session she has up to three students assigned to her virtual classroom. They may be working on reading or math skills. They log on from Montana, Michigan, Illinois, California, Japan, the United Kingdom and a host of other places far from Ludlow, South Dakota.

Annette often tries to imagine the lives of her students. She grew up attending one or two-room rural schools surrounded by wide open prairie and sky. When she went away to college, she went as far as she could go and still pay in-state tuition. At the University of South Dakota (USD), she studied education, and she met Ron. As soon as they had both graduated, they moved to Ludlow. Ron went to work with Annette’s father on the ranch and Annette began teaching in a rural school. Her only colleague in the building was her aunt.

Despite her isolation, Annette has always been curious about the world. As she works with her online students, they talk about their different lives. “Some of them have no idea what we do on a ranch,” she says. In turn, she tries to imagine the lives of her students in inner city Chicago. She is awed by the multi-lingual capabilities of the immigrant children she teaches. She worries about the situations that a few of her students face at home.

Comparing teaching online with the years she spent in the classroom, Annette is extremely positive. “I don’t have to worry about writing lessons, going to meetings, or dealing with parents, administrators or paperwork,” she says. Her supervisor at Sylvan can monitor her teaching remotely. “Now I spend 100 percent of my time with the students.”

Sitting at the kitchen table in their modest ranch house, Ron and Annette talk about the opportunities that the online world is bringing to them and their community in Harding County. It’s a region that has been losing population for decads. Some have even proposed that the land should be given back to the buffalo and returned to wilderness.

Annette’s teaching offers the promise of other possibilities. Her income pays for the extras in Slaba household. It helps to stabilize the family’s cashflow if prices drop in the livestock markets. It could provide the margin of difference for some families.

Locally, people often ask her about her work. “They are amazed,” she says. “It shows others that with these new technologies it is possible for people to make a living from home.” On any given day, she comes in from the wind, the snow or the summer heat with the smell of grass in her hair and sits down to teach children worlds away from her home. For Annette, a flat world means she didn’t have to choose at all.

To learn more about Sylvan Learning opportunities for teachers, check out http://tutoring.sylvanlearning.com/about-us/jobs.cfm