I wish to express gratitude to my DDL colleagues for encouraging my candidacy for DDL President-Elect. AECT has been my "home" association for over 15 years and I feel privileged to have the opportunity to give something back to the field. My AECT experience includes prior service as an affiliate President (CCAIT), as an AECT Conference Intern, as a Summer Leadership Conference Fellow and as recipient of the ECT Mentor Endowment Scholarship. For several years, I was the Coordinator of the Graduate Student Center at the AECT Convention. My distance learning experience goes back to the late 80s and includes online and videoconferenced teaching at a distance, designing instruction for myself and others, training faculty, technology management and serving as principal designer of an accredited online masters program in instructional technology. I currently supervise the area of my university that administers Blackboard and provides training and instructional design for faculty wishing to teach online. I also teach online and hybrid courses for two universities. My doctoral dissertation dealt with the institutionalization of distance learning in higher education. If elected, I will build upon the solid foundation of electronic communications promoted by our Current and Past DDL Presidents, increase the profile of the 2006 Crystal Awards, establish a distance learning best practices exchange and explore options for online mentoring of new and future distance educators and how best to utilize AECT publications, website and other resources to further DDL's mission. Thank you for considering me as a candidate for your next President-Elect.


Anthony A. Piña, Ed.D.
Coordinator of Learning Technologies
Northeastern Illinois University