Dear Commons Community, 

The INNOVATE Conference here in New Orleans is moving apace.  Dozens of workshops and presentations made for difficulty in choosing which sessions to attend. The lunch meeting started with music by The St. Mary’s Academy Marching Band.  There were quite good and brought the 1200 plus attendees to their feet.  Kathleen Ives, the Executive Director of the Online Learning Consortium, gave the audience a report on the Consortium which generally had a very good year.  Part of lunch included lightning talks (6 minutes each) from five speakers, all of whom had something important to say.

In the afternoon, I was on a panel entitled, Higher Education’s Digital Future.  The room was filled and there was good give and take with the audience.  On behalf of the panelists, I thank all who attended our session.

About a dozen of us associated with the Online Learning Journal had dinner at Tableau in the French Quarter.  We had our own room in the Library which opened to a small balcony overlooking the busy street below.  I enjoyed catching up with Barbara Means who I had not seen in a very long time.  She authored one of the really important studies on online learning back in 2010.

Wonderful evening in New Orleans and a fine day of conferencing.

Tony