What is TxDLA?
TxDLA is the leading Texas membership association for digital learning professionals. Our members represent public and private education institutions at all levels as well as corporate training professionals and digital learning equipment and content providers. All of our members have a strong interest in keeping abreast of the ideas, technologies, and content that will help them develop and maintain leading-edge digital learning programs and products.
Our Story
The impetus for forming the Association, as our late Founding President, Mr. Don Foshee of Innovative Interactions, Inc. observed at the first annual meeting on January 30, 1996, was to "provide an accessible clearinghouse of useful information that can be shared by ALL distance learning practitioners and planners, and which is non-biased, timely, and transcends the special interests that provide only fragmented pieces of the big picture."
Key leaders in Texas from primary and secondary public schools, community colleges, higher education institutions, state government, major corporations, the military, and the telecommunications industry worked diligently towards formation of the TxDLA, which was established in 1996 as a not-for-profit professional association affiliated as a state chapter of the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA), at that time. TxDLA was the first organization in Texas to bridge the boundaries between the diverse range of professionals interested in the field of distance learning.
TxDLA members choose to represent their organization as an association of "distance and digital learning" professionals in order to invite broad participation in the networking and exchange of information demanded by our mission. We use the broad term "distance or digital learning" to encompass all of the persons and tools employed today in bringing about effective distance and digital learning. Digital and distance learning is recognized as taking place whenever a learner is using digital resources for their learning.
Our broad definition of digital or distance learning results in an inclusive Association. We address issues of interest to the entire digital learning community, which includes the learners themselves as well as the administrators, educators, instructors, corporate trainers, content, equipment, software producers/publishers/providers, telecommunications providers, and others involved in the typical digital learning situation.
Since its establishment, the Texas Digital Learning Association has grown and matured under the leadership of a dedicated Executive Committee, Board of Directors and many hard working members. The group facilitates the sharing of information, services, expertise, research, and peer networking among its constituents.