Get Connected! NCDLA Virtual Conference

Distance education leaders from North Carolina and across the nation came together for the first-ever K-20 virtual learning conference convened by the North Carolina Distance Learning Association (NCDLA). Get Connected!—The NCDLA 2009 Virtual Conference—was a 2-week learning experience designed to deepen understanding of distance education and how it is evolving to satisfy the different needs of both digital natives and digital immigrants. Kay Zimmerman, NCDLA President, and DELTA Associate Vice Provost for Marketing and Partnership Development, stated that the virtual conference was an extraordinary success. “Due to the economy and frozen budgets, NCDLA had an unbelievable challenge to meet the needs of K-20 distance education colleagues and provide professional development in a virtual conference format”.

Dr. Bobby Hobgood, conference chair, and UNC College of Education Learn NC Director of Research, led the development of the virtual conference. This was an enormous undertaking and proved to be very successful. Forty-nine sessions were offered online and through Second Life. Conference participants took part in the online virtual conference either synchronously or asynchronously through the archived sessions.

NCDLA Virtual Conference data:

• 655 registrations, K-20 distance educators
• Session offerings: 49 sessions
• Second Life: 5 sessions
• Featured national speakers: 4 sessions

Participation:

• Individual logins: 1817
• Number of sessions: 49
• Average participants per session (minus moderators): 37

Some conference participant’s comments include:

• “Kudos for a job well done.”
• “This was my first virtual conference and will be my preference for the future. NCDLA provided excellent and valuable orientation and training, along with repeated practice throughout the conference, in the use of Pronto, Elluminate and SL, all of which were new to me. The saving of time and money and the focused in-depth presentations all contributed to my positive experience. Thank you for all your foresight, planning and hard work. You have set a high standard for us to follow.”
• “This was my second virtual conf. and it was far better than the first. Everything worked so well and the support (when I forgot both my user name and password) was exceptional and very accessible. Excellent! The topics were on target and the presentations were very well researched and presented.”
• I was impressed how much it seemed like a “real” in-person conference! It was amazing to see what technology can do!

The North Carolina Distance Learning Association is a non-profit organization formed to promote the development and application of distance learning in education and training. Among NCDLA’s constituent communities are preK-12, community colleges, universities, independent colleges, government and corporate training organizations.

More information is available at www.usdla-nc.org.