We hope that you will join us in Phoenix to Celebrate E-Learning’s Bright Role in Transforming Higher Education.

For 20 years, the WCET has been the organization focused on helping the pioneers in distance learning map new trails, settle new territory, and bring order to the wilderness. I don’t remember exactly how long it took to tame the Old West, but in many ways I believe we have “tamed” the distance learning landscape over the past two decades. These 20 years of working to turn distance learning into the powerful and access-extending tool it is, have created a platform, like the transcontinental railroad, upon which higher education is building.

We will gather in Phoenix, grizzled veterans of the distance learning wars, and new practitioners, fresh from constructing a homestead on Second Life, to share stories about our transformation of higher education. And these stories will be shared at a conference noted for its welcome to newcomers. Each of the many sessions of the conference will be led by several presenters, who all work to bring the wisdom, experience and questions of the audience into the discussion. We will have special breakfasts for newbies, thematic threads that organize the conference into special tracks, keynote speakers, and a showcase of our members’ newest developments.

I have been attending this conference for more of its 20 years than I care to admit, and I serve as the organization’s Steering Committee Chair, because I believe that the WCET is simply the best organization for distance learning professionals in the country, and this conference is the most important meeting of the year.

Whether you are an online instructor, a distance learning administrator, an instructional designer, or even a college president (all of which I have been), you will meet like-minded people who want to learn from you and share what they have discovered.

I look forward to meeting all of you during our November conference.

Ed Klonoski
Steering Committee Chair