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The College of Education’s Learning Design and Leadership program is celebrating its 25th anniversary this fall. The program has long assumed a leadership role in helping educators use technology tools to enhance teaching and learning.
The College of Education’s Learning Design and Leadership program is 25 years old and running stronger than ever.
Begun in 1998 and then titled Curriculum, Technology, and Education Reform (CTER), the program offers a certificate of specialization, a graduate certificate, an Ed.M., an Ed.D. (all online), and a Ph.D. (on campus).
The Ed.M., initially offered in 1998, is believed to be the world's first fully online regular university degree. In 2014, Bill Cope developed a proposal for a fully online Ed.D. for Learning Design and Leadership. The program was launched in 2016 and became the first online doctorate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“CTER was one of the first—if not the first—online education programs in the world,” says Cope, professor in the Education Policy, Organization & Leadership (EPOL) department. Cope and fellow EPOL professor Mary Kalantzis have been in charge of the Learning Design and Leadership (LDL) program since 2011.
During that time, they’ve developed nine Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) for LDL, attracting more than 150,000 students. “It’s a great way to introduce people to the Illinois brand,” Kalantzis says. “They take the MOOC, like it, and decide to enroll in a degree program.”
- Full article at this link.
The Learning Design and Leadership (LDL) program’s 25th anniversary is truly a milestone worth celebrating. It’s inspiring to see how the program has continuously evolved to meet the changing needs of education, especially in the integration of technology and digital learning. The fact that it offered the world’s first fully online Ed.M. degree as early as 1998 shows how forward-thinking and innovative the University of Illinois has been in reshaping the future of education.
What stands out most is the program’s consistent commitment to empowering educators—not just to use technology, but to design meaningful, learner-centered experiences. The creation of MOOCs that have reached over 150,000 students worldwide also reflects how education can transcend borders when guided by vision and innovation.
Overall, the LDL program is a strong example of how higher education can lead by example—by embracing change, fostering accessibility, and inspiring lifelong learning among educators and learners alike.