This blog post written by:

Janet Major
USDLA Board Member
Associate Director Facilities
Arizona Telemedicine Program
Arizona Health Sciences Center,  Tucson, AZ

Throughout the next several months the USDLA Board of Directors will be blogging about the 2017 USDLA Award winners.  If as a reader you see your organization doing some amazing things in the name of “Distance Learning” please consider submitting an award next year!

And the winner is… The Center for Learning Environments & Connected Environments at the University of Central Oklahoma, not once – but twice! The USDLA International Awards Program for 2017  focused upon several major areas that exemplified the dynamic nature of distance learning.  The University of Central Oklahoma certainly exhibited excellence by winning both the USDLA 21^st Century Award for Excellence as well as the USDLA Innovation Award for their Learning Environment Modeling Language (LEML) project. LEML is a visual toolkit for communicating and representing instructional design ideas and plans. LEML is used for designing, evaluating, prototyping, and revising designed learning environments such as courses, training programs, or workshops.  It is used as a framework which consists of a set of symbols, each with defined meaning, that can be assembled together to represent information about the design of learning environments.

From left to right:

Bucky Dodd, Executive Director
Stacy Southerland, Faculty Director
Linda Banks, Associate Vice President of Academics
John Flores, PH.D., C.E.O/Executive Director USDLA

Bucky Dodd, Executive Director of the Center for eLearning @UCO states that his group is “dedicated professionals who are trying to visualize the future of education and trying to come up with innovative ways to make our students successful”.  His team agrees that an innovative mindset can unlock potential.

Please check out The Center for eLearning and Connected Environments  to learn more!

CeCE’s eLearning division is committed to supporting the design, development, and delivery of elearning courses at the University of Central Oklahoma. They support UCO’s commitment to transformative learning through the strategic use of consulting, production, logistics, and innovation services designed to provide high-quality, flexible, and student-centered learning opportunities.  The service center offers assistance in learning design, strategy and project development as well as technology development.  They are truly doing award winning work and the United States Distance Learning Association is proud to present them with the 21^st Century Award for Excellence and the USDLA Innovation Award.

USDLA Upcoming Events – 2017

October:

2017 ICDE World Conference

November:

National Distance Learning Week

Thirty 30 years in distance learning.
One of the things that makes USDLA helpful and attractive to me is perspective.  Regardless of the constituency I’m engaged with and the media I use, I find I learn amazing lessons from those in other distance learning fields.  Thirty years.  As we celebrate USDLA’s 30^th anniversary we will be blogging and sharing some interesting nuggets through USDLA’s social media channels. Your participation in this is important!  You can help by reading, commenting, or forwarding our 30th Anniversary posts.  Or you can take a direct hand it by sending anecdotes, pictures, or reflections on your history with either distance learning or USDLA.  We’ve set up a mailbox just for this: thirty@usdla.org.  Let your voice be heard!

USDLA membership opportunities.
Remember our invitation: “Come learn from a community that is broader than your own. Whatever your learning specialty, welcome home!” Join USDLA today!!

USDLA Sponsorship opportunities.

Please consider joining USDLA as a Premium Sponsor and take advantage of everything membership has to offer.  It is our goal to work with our Sponsors to ensure all membership needs are fulfilled

www.usdla.org

The United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) is a non-profit association formed in 1987 with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. The association reaches 20,000 people globally with sponsors and members operating in and influencing 46% of the $913 billion dollar U.S. education and training market. USDLA promotes the development and application of distance learning for education and training and serves the needs of the distance learning community by providing advocacy, information, networking and opportunity. Distance learning and training constituencies served include pre-k-12 education, higher and continuing education, home schooling as well as business, corporate, military, government and telehealth markets.

This block post written by:
 Dr. Darcy W. Hardy
USDLA Chair Emerita

Conferences.  What is it about them that draws us to attend en masse?  Why some more than others?  What is it we get out of these events?  Some people will say, “I learn new things,” while others might say, “I share my expertise.”  Many will tell you it’s all about the networking, while still others tell you they’re looking for jobs.  There are many, many reasons why people attend conferences.  But let’s forget why people attend for a minute – let’s instead consider why a conference is established in the first place. 

I’ve been involved in distance and online education since the late 1980s.  I’ve attended hundreds of conferences and meetings over the past almost 30 years, sometimes searching for knowledge or information I need, sometimes seeking the solace of old friends in challenging times.  Back in the early 2000s, USDLA didn’t have an annual conference, although we were starting to discuss the opportunity.  Some of you old-timers may remember back in the day when USDLA hosted conference/trade shows called Tel-Con, but those ended in the mid-90s and were focused more on products and services as opposed to substantive issues (although there were some). 

It was during the time that the Board of Directors was considering establishing a “new” annual conference that conversations about IFWE were born.  I was USDLA president in 2003 and, along with some other women, proposed to the Board that even before we host an annual conference, USDLA should host a women’s conference – something to put us on the map that wasn’t “just another conference.”  An event that would bring women together to celebrate the successes we’ve had in the field, and provide a forum for conversations around work/family balance, finding your voice at the table, and dancing on the glass ceiling.  We would call it the International Forum for Women in E-learning (IFWE).  It was during discussions with the Board that I was asked, “Will we also offer an event for men?,” to which I responded, “No, because then it would be IFME – and that’s not what we’re looking for.   

We hosted the first IFWE in 2004, and it’s now an established event that takes place every two years the week after Thanksgiving.  Around 120 women from across the country and around the world attend IFWE, and for many it has been a life-changing experience.  IFWE is a sisterhood of e-learning professionals from all walks of life and from every constituency.  It is a combination of knowledge sharing, mentoring, networking, and supporting.  It’s where attendees can celebrate new opportunities and where they can also receive guidance when needed.  Powerful keynotes and successful leaders’ stories are always a highlight, along with the infamous IFWE Pajama Rama, an evening where everyone can let their hair down, enjoy fun music and fun times while getting to know each other better.   

IFWE sees return attendees (some have attended all seven!) and welcomes new participants as well.  There is something for every woman at an IFWE event.  If you’ve never been, your chance is coming in 2018.  Stay tuned and plan to join us.  I can personally promise you there’s no other event like IFWE.

Top 10 Reasons to Attend the 2017 USDLA Conference

USDLA 2017 National Conference

April 30 – May 3, 2017 in Indianapolis, IN

The USDLA 2017 National Conference is the premier event for professionals in the distance learning industry. This year’s conference celebrates USDLA’s 30^th year and promises to deliver an action-packed agenda that will bring together distance learning practitioners from across the country and around the world.

*Click here for more information about this USDLA signature event.

Join the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA)

www.usdla.org

The United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) is a non-profit association formed in 1987 with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. The association reaches 20,000 people globally with sponsors and members operating in and influencing 46% of the $913 billion dollar U.S. education and training market. USDLA promotes the development and application of distance learning for education and training and serves the needs of the distance learning community by providing advocacy, information, networking and opportunity. Distance learning and training constituencies served include pre-k-12 education, higher and continuing education, home schooling as well as business, corporate, military, government and telehealth markets.

This blog post written by:

Marci Powell

Chair Emerita and Past President, U.S. Distance Learning Association

Happy 30th birthday USDLA!

Over the last 30 years, we have made tremendous progress in the field of technology-enhanced education.    Gone are the days when course modules were little more than a series of lecture notes and PowerPoint hand-outs published and delivered online, and online instructors broadcast lectures through video conferencing without engaging their students on the other end.  Even though studying online, as such, could feel lonely and be somewhat boring, at least it was an acceptable tradeoff for the privilege of learning from anywhere, at any time.

Fortunately, we can fast-forward 30 years to find that technology has advanced greatly, providing us with an amazing array of interactive technologies at our disposal.  Today, we can provide an ideal learning experience for our students – one that is authentic, engaging, and personalized according to their needs.   Technologies like virtual, augmented or mixed reality, artificial intelligence, robotics, gamification and simulations are enabling us to drive the future of online education.  But how do we effectively use these technological capabilities to better serve our students?

While technologies can be empowering, they are also constantly evolving. Simultaneously, we have a far better understanding around how students learn – knowledge that can be applied to the way we develop our content and design our courses.   So how will these advancements influence online learning and drive innovation?

Closing keynote and more

We all come to conferences like this one to answer questions such as these; to explore what is possible and how others are applying it.  By the same token, this quest for knowledge drove us to launch a rigorous research project at Drexel University Online (DUO), with the goal of uncovering “pockets of innovation” in the technology-enhanced education arena.

Having conducted dozens of discovery interviews with faculty, administrators, and training officers worldwide, we have thus far produced more than 70 case studies, featuring a wealth of trailblazing approaches for using the latest and greatest technologies to support an ideal learning experience.  And after unearthing so many “pockets of innovation,” we realized we were sitting on a gold mine of information that must be shared with our colleagues, through presentations such as the closing keynote for the USDLA conference.

We hope to inspire you by showcasing examples of some of the brightest minds and best practices in connected teaching and learning.  We also want you to return home from the conference and share these ideas with your colleagues.  To make that possible, we have taken our research project one giant step forward, by creating a website called Virtually Inspired, which will provide you with the content you need to fuel your discussions back at the office.

Virtually Inspired features a series of high-quality videos that highlight some of the many ways educators are inventing the future of connected teaching and learning.  Likewise, this website will incorporate interviews with online learning experts; a section for visitors to share their own leading-edge practices; and a space for reviewing published books and articles in the field – all of which are designed to encourage ongoing collaboration, as we explore the ever-expanding frontiers of our profession.

Racing to Virtual Success

Given the lightning speed with which technologies such as these are moving into the mainstream of academia, there is no doubt that the future of connected education is well within our collective power to invent.  We look forward to sharing the closing keynote with you, Racing to Virtual Success.  We think the content will be just what you are looking for.  We also hope that you will join forces with us to create that future and make Virtually Inspired both an ongoing source of ideas and a nexus for collaboration.

You may reach us at info@virtuallyinspired.org.

Dr. Susan Aldridge, President, Drexel University Online

Marci M. Powell, Chair Emerita and Past President, U.S. Distance Learning Association

USDLA 2017 National Conference

April 30 – May 3, 2017 in Indianapolis, IN

The USDLA 2017 National Conference is the premier event for professionals in the distance learning industry. This year’s conference celebrates USDLA’s 30^th year and promises to deliver an action-packed agenda that will bring together distance learning practitioners from across the country and around the world.

*Click here for more information about this USDLA signature event.

Join the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA)

www.usdla.org

The United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) is a non-profit association formed in 1987 with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. The association reaches 20,000 people globally with sponsors and members operating in and influencing 46% of the $913 billion dollar U.S. education and training market. USDLA promotes the development and application of distance learning for education and training and serves the needs of the distance learning community by providing advocacy, information, networking and opportunity. Distance learning and training constituencies served include pre-k-12 education, higher and continuing education, home schooling as well as business, corporate, military, government and telehealth markets.

This blog post written by:

Janet Major
USDLA Board Member
Associate Director Facilities
Arizona Telemedicine Program
Arizona Health Sciences Center,  Tucson, AZ

What’s Telehealth? According to Wikipedia: Telehealth involves the distribution of health-related services and information. Distribution is via electronic information and telecommunication technologies. Telemedicine is defined as the use of telecommunication and information technology to provide clinical health care from a distance.  Great definitions – and I agree!

I personally prefer the word “telehealth” much more than “telemedicine” – and here’s why: for over twenty years I have had the greatest job on the planet!  I make telehealth happen – and connect folks at a distance for medical services and for education. I connect patients to their healthcare providers, medical students to their mentors – and I connect our teachers at the University of Arizona College of Medicine to their peers AND their students all over Arizona… and the world! 

Telehealth is not simply medicine at a distance but there is so much more that we are doing at a distance to help improve the health of our community, our country and the world.  It takes technology, telecommunications connectivity and some great best practice protocols to do this important job. 

I have also had the great opportunity to network with my peers in the United States Distance Learning Association and the American Telemedicine Association to share presentations, best practices and what’s happening in the world of distance learning with the many applications in telehealth. Every year at the annual USDLA conference I meet more professionals in my field who are doing some amazing things in the world of telehealth.  I have met mid-wives who produce online courses for their peers in New Zealand.  I have also met folks who are doing tele-pharmacy and not only providing their patients medication at a convenient location but also offering a visit with the pharmacist just as you would get if you went to your local pharmacy in the big city. Last year @USDLA 2016 we shared best practice protocols that are enhancing professional education among health science centers across the country.  Distance learning is a format that is becoming a requirement for our academic health centers as we produce interactive events to prepare our students and communities for emergency preparedness and flu epidemic exercises.  This is more than a trend – it’s our future.  Connecting people to healthcare and health education at a distance is a critical part of the future of our planet.  It’s no longer just as a matter of convenience or accessing experts at a distance, it’s a much more efficient way to get the job done – and it’s GREEN! In addition, we are  improving the health of our PLANET by not driving for services, training and education that, instead,  be done from a distance. 

Please join me in Indianapolis to hear more and share information about Distance Learning in Telehealth!

USDLA 2017 National Conference

April 30 – May 3, 2017 in Indianapolis, IN

The USDLA 2017 National Conference is the premier event for professionals in the distance learning industry. This year’s conference celebrates USDLA’s 30^th year and promises to deliver an action-packed agenda that will bring together distance learning practitioners from across the country and around the world.

*Click here for more information about this USDLA signature event.

Join the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA)

www.usdla.org

The United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) is a non-profit association formed in 1987 with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. The association reaches 20,000 people globally with sponsors and members operating in and influencing 46% of the $913 billion dollar U.S. education and training market. USDLA promotes the development and application of distance learning for education and training and serves the needs of the distance learning community by providing advocacy, information, networking and opportunity. Distance learning and training constituencies served include pre-k-12 education, higher and continuing education, home schooling as well as business, corporate, military, government and telehealth markets.

USDLA: Driving 30 Years of Excellence in Distance Learning
April 30 – May 3
https://usdlastaging.wpengine.com/events/2017-national-conference/

This blog was written by Michael Baker – #32 in the picture!

Recently, I was asked to write some thoughts about my experiences and memories of the United States Distance Learning Association.  I had the honor of voluntarily serving on the Board of Directors and executive team for over 24 years.  As it turned out…it was the best team of professionals, the hardest working volunteers, the best management team and the most fun I had as a board member on any association board.

My memories include two-day meetings trying to determine if it would be US “Distant” Learning Association or US “Distance” Learning  Association. From “inclusion and diversity” to some pretty interesting arguments (disagreements) on policy and direction between two very vocal board members.  My time as president was challenging and exciting as I had to fight with the then executive director on direction and policy of USDLA.

The best part of the 24 years included getting Darcy involved …getting calls from Don Foshee starting off with “Mikee”…the many challenges in growing the association …seeing the organization grow through a very difficult transitional times …but most of all, I am proud to have some of the best friends in my life from my time at USDLA. USDLA would not exist if it were not for John Flores. He is a true friend of mine and a friend of education as a whole. Of course, his team at headquarters is magnificent.

As USDLA celebrates their 30^th year I challenge you all to think out of the box in growing the association, its membership and credibility in the distance learning market.  I will never forget you all and wish you continued success for the next 30 years.

God Bless,
Michael Baker
Vice President, VDO360

USDLA 2017 National Conference

April 30 – May 3, 2017 in Indianapolis, IN

The USDLA 2017 National Conference is the premier event for professionals in the distance learning industry. This year’s conference celebrates USDLA’s 30^th year and promises to deliver an action-packed agenda that will bring together distance learning practitioners from across the country and around the world.

*Click here for more information about this USDLA signature event.

Join the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA)

www.usdla.org

The United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) is a non-profit association formed in 1987 with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. The association reaches 20,000 people globally with sponsors and members operating in and influencing 46% of the $913 billion dollar U.S. education and training market. USDLA promotes the development and application of distance learning for education and training and serves the needs of the distance learning community by providing advocacy, information, networking and opportunity. Distance learning and training constituencies served include pre-k-12 education, higher and continuing education, home schooling as well as business, corporate, military, government and telehealth markets.