The USDLA National Distance Learning Week (NDLW) Conference
Part of my role as a Board of Directors member of the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) is to produce the annual National Distance Learning Week (NDLW) conference. Unlike any other conference in our field, this is a free, virtual, weeklong thematical conference meant to celebrate advancements and shed light on current issues impacting distance learning in the United States and beyond. While NDLW typically attracted around 100 participants a year, in 2021, the year I enacted my vision for producing the conference, my team and I were able to attract over 800 participants from all over the globe.
NDLW 2021
In 2021, I once again had the honor and pleasure of chairing and, for the first time, also producing the United States Distance Learning Association’s 2021 National Distance Learning Week Conference. Since we were still in the middle of COVID-19, with the previous year’s lessons learned, this year I chose to make the conference bigger than ever. For the first time, we streamed live through our new partner platform, EduVision, with streams available in English and, for the first time ever at in USDLA's 35 years of operation, also in Spanish.
The focus I set for the 2021 NDLW conference was on our ability to adapt and manage the insecurity of a pandemic that has been affecting the world for two years now. How to stay nimble. What is the best course of action in training, teaching, and learning.
Dr. Kelvin Thompson, University of Central Florida Executive Director of the Center for Distributed Learning and co-host of the Teaching Online Podcast kindly agreed to open up the conversation with his keynote titled “Online learning: What was, what is, and what could be”. A remarkable set of speakers agreed to present, including, among others, the leaders of mainstream organizations in our field: Quality Matters, the Online Learning Consortium, UPCEA, WCET, and, of course, the United States Distance Learning Association. Each conference day was accompanied by a newsletter article I write for the record 800+ conference registrants, cross-pollinating key online education leadership information.
15th Anniversary Logo Redesign
For the last 14 years, we loved an NDLW logo that was beginning to deteriorate with the modifications made to it year after year. To celebrate the 15th anniversary on NDLW, in 2022 I commissioned a new logo, designed for us by the talented Daniela Mastropierro. This new logo pays homage to our old one, keeping our color palette as well as our traditional clean and crisp lines. This updated logo design will take us into the next decade, as we mark a new level of maturity in distance learning in the United States, while staying rooted in the valuable lessons of the past.
NDLW 2020 - 2022
Hover over the image gallery below and use the left and right arrows to scroll through samples from NDLW 2020, 2021, and 2022—the pandemic years when I produced the conference before passing the torch to the next organizer. For a closer look, double-click the gallery to enter full screen and view the images at their full size.
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