Dear Commons Community,

Since Monday I have been traveling/visiting at the University of Illinois – Springfield.    Putting aside the time I spent in airports,  the trip was enjoyable.  On Monday, my connecting flight to Chicago which eventually would have gotten me to Springfield at 1:30 in the afternoon was canceled and I had to rebook a flight via St Louis instead.  I did not get to Springfield until 2:00am on Tuesday morning.  I was in Springfield at the invitation of colleagues Ray Schroeder and Karen Swan.  It was a good couple of days discussing with administrators, faculty, students and public school teachers, issues related to  online and blended learning.   Springfield has developed a number of excellent online programs and is enrolling students from throughout the U.S.A. and beyond.  Their story is remarkable given that a relatively small college (about 5,000 students) in a period of ten years was able to mount a major initiative to become a nationally recognized, high-quality online learning provider.

Tony