Each year, USDLA recognizes innovators and leaders within the distance/digital learning industry as part of our international Awards program. These highly coveted awards are presented annually to organizations and individuals who compete across several categories of excellence. The USDLA International Distance Learning Awards are created to acknowledge major accomplishments in distance/digital learning and to highlight those instructors, programs, and professionals who have achieved and demonstrated extraordinary achievements through the use of online learning techniques, innovation, and video delivery technologies globally.
This year, the following institutions were chosen by the review committee to receive awards in their respective categories:
Leadership category
Higher Ed
– Gold: Dr. Don Olcott, HJ & Associates/University of South Africa
– Silver: Michelle Jungbauer, Environmental Barrier, Western Governors University
K-12
-Gold: Peter J. Noonan, Leading with Love: Pandemic Performance & Minimizing Learning Loss in the Pre-K-12, Falls Church City Public Schools
Government
-Gold: James P. Woolsey, President, Defense Acquisition University (DAU), The New DAU: A Customer-driven Learning Platform
Research Category
Higher Ed
– Gold: CIN EdTech Student Survey, WGU Labs
– Silver: Nurturing Cognitive Dexterity in Generative AI Learning Spaces – An Empirical Comparison of Human vs ChatGPT Responses, Dr. Rebecca Blankenship, Florida A&M’s College of Education
– Bonze: Shelly Wyatt, University of Central Florida
Rising Star Category
Higher Ed
– Gold: Rebecca McNutly, University of Central Florida
Teaching/Learning Category
Higher Ed
– Gold: Paula Bramante, Cambridge College / Bay Path University
– Silver: Alexia Cormier Pollock, Dr. Claudia Arcolin, Dr. Lorenzo Brancaleon, Academic Innovation Division, The University of Texas at San Antonio
– Bonze: Jamie Lathan, North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
Not for Profit
– Gold: Allyson Mitchell & Tami Moehring, Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration
Corporate
– Gold: Rachel Bolton, Lucy Duncan, Lynnda West, WESCO Distribution Inc.
Trendsetter category
Higher Ed
– Gold: Education Technology, Savannah College of Art and Design
– Silver: Right-sizing the Four-Year Baccalaureate, Western Governors University
– Bronze: Digital Accessibility Coalition, Darren Denham, Assistant Director of Digital Accessibility, Tracy Fairless, Director of eLearning, Center for eLearning & Connected Environments, University of Central Oklahoma
Not for Profit
– Gold: Tiffany Morgan, Iowa Science Phenomena, Iowa PBS
Government
– Gold: Dr. Marina Theodotou and Brenda Sedlacek, DAU’s Extraordinary Web Events Series, Defense Acquisition University (DAU)
-Cheryl Dowd, State Authorization Network (SANS)
Award Questions
- Email Wendy Pate at wpate@usdla.org