History of DLAC

(Updated March 2024)

The concept behind DLAC began to take shape in early 2018, as a diverse group of people and organizations felt that there was no current conference that was focused on the full range of online, hybrid, blended, and digital learning. Many — but not all — of those people and organizations were associated with the Digital Learning Collaborative (DLC).

That summer, a small group organized by the Evergreen Education Group began planning, and the first DLAC was announced for spring 2019. A long list of experienced educators signed on as advisors, helping to ensure that the conference would meet the needs of a wide range of practitioners.

• The inaugural DLAC ran in April 2019. It attracted 525 attendees, which was a sign that the interest we had heard about did in fact exist. It was, however, below our projections, as we had not fully accounted for how long it would take to spread the word about a new conference, and how many people would have interest but would not have funds available for a new conference. Still, attendees were overwhelmingly positive and supportive of the conference goals, ideals, and format, as captured in the inaugural video below.

• The second DLAC ran in February 2020. Attendance was up by 80 percent, to 935 attendees. Much of the increase was driven by districts and other organizations that in 2019 sent a single person, who returned in 2020 with a small group. We were also gratified that our attempts to reach mainstream schools and districts were fairly successful, as many new attendees were from such organizations.

• Our timing was very fortunate, because the COVID-19 pandemic hit in force just a couple of weeks after DLAC 2020. Because of those concerns, we shifted DLAC 2021 dates from February to June, and turned DLAC into a hybrid conference with a cap on onsite attendance. We were happy to have 500 people join us in Austin, and over 700 attendees online in 2021.

• In 2022 we returned to February dates and continues the onsite/online/hybrid format. We again grew substantially, by 33%, to 1600 attendees total. With COVID-19 waning at that point, we had 1100 registered for onsite in Atlanta and 500 online.

• In 2023 we continued the hybrid format, and grew to 1450 onsite attendees in Austin, and 450 online.

• In 2024 DLAC continued to grow, with 1,735 attendees in Austin. Pre-conference, programming, general sessions, and networking hours were extended to a full three days. We did not run a concurrent online conference, because the DLC is hosting a separate virtual event in October 2024 to extend the DLAC professional learning experience to even more practitioners and leaders.

DLAC 2025 is already in the works for February 24-26, 2025 at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis in Atlanta. Future locations include Sacramento and Denver.

We have grown and evolved with the support and guidance of the DLC’s Executive Committee and with the advice from many friends and colleagues. If you have suggestions or ideas to improve our annual conference, please email us at dlac@evergreenedgroup.com.