The Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL) programs (USA and Global) center the opportunities / barriers to advancing local-global online learning. Explore the impact of building networks through leadership development and borderless collaborations across the digital learning landscape. Share your own story and hear how IELOL communities have transformed professional growth, the impact of leadership, and locally-contextualized global change work.
The Online Learning Consortium features two core leadership development programs: The Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (USA) and The Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (Global). Designed to speak into each other in important ways, both programs offer the OLC community an opportunity to develop not only an in depth understanding of what leadership looks like in our local contexts, as well as in global collaborations, but also the skills required to engage in leadership across these contexts (including the critical development of professional networks which help to sustain this work).
IELOL-USA is a unique leadership development program that was originally launched in 2009 as a way to support the professional growth and preparation of the next cadre of digital learning leaders. IELOL participants collaborate with colleagues from around the globe to explore and understand both the opportunities and barriers to advancing local and global digital learning. In its 13th year, the IELOL-USA program now has over 390 graduates who have joined a network of leaders in digital and online education. Focused on improving and advancing the impact of digital learning in all aspects and formats of education, IELOL-USA graduates form personal and professional bonds with fellow graduates that extend beyond the IELOL-USA experience.
Inspired by the collective need for the field of online, blended and digital learning to address ubiquitous issues of access to education more broadly, OLC gathered the first cohort of IELOL-Global in 2020. This new offering was focused on the transformative power of global collaborations in enacting change work in digital learning at the local and global levels. Now in its third year, IELOL-Global is designed to build global communities of practice around transformative and sustainable digital transformation that collect and amplify international perspectives. Through the program, participants engage with exemplars of impactful cross-institutional/regional collaboration through global coalitions by iterating with and learning from partners from around the world. They also contribute to the curation and dissemination of participant-created artifacts, use cases, and other resources that contribute to connected and aligned global change work. Its ultimate goal is to support the growth of a community of leaders dedicated to collaborative global change efforts.
This session welcomes back graduates from both programs to story the impact of intentional networking building with leaders across the world. We invite participants to share in their own experiences of local / global change work. Together, we will explore the impact of leadership-focused and change-oriented professional development, as well as the opportunities borne out of borderless collaborations.