#6 What 40 Years of DL Infrastructure Looks Like with James Hodges of UETN

Show Notes

James Hodges joins the crew to discuss his role as the Interactive Video Conferencing Department Administrator for the Utah Education and Telehealth Network, known as UETN IVC which is housed at the Eccles Broadcast Center on the University of Utah’s campus. In addition to sharing local knowledge about how to jump into living in Utah,  James explains the unique history and infrastructure that supports the cutting edge UETN Video Operations Center for Utah’s state of the art live, synchronous Distance Education system that is used by thousands of educators and teachers in Utah daily. After describing the impact of Utah’s distance learning model, James also gives insights into his work on the board of the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) and its upcoming conference. 

 

Links:

• Learn more about UETN by visiting their website here: https://uetn.org/
• Discover more about the history of UETN with a timeline of some of the high level benchmarks that James discussed: https://uetn.org/publicinfo/history.php
• Check out this awesome timelapse of the demolition and rebuild of UETN ops center space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-u0WCjFzdc
• Explore the United States Distance Learning Associations here: https://usdla.org/

Do not miss the opportunity to learn more from our co-host Seth who is providing a webinar for USDLA on June 2 at 1PM ET, register today here: https://banyangloballearning.com/2023/05/24/free-webinar-tech-sel-digcit/

Host Links:
Browse amazing virtual learning opportunities at CILC.org

Seth's  Banyan Global Learning prepares students for real life with live virtual learning experiences in Character Education: banyangloballearning.com

Creators and Guests

Host

Allyson Mitchell

SF

Host

Seth Fleischauer

TM

Host

Tami Moehring

What is Why Distance Learning??

Why Distance Learning? is a podcast about the decisions, design choices, and assumptions that determine whether live virtual learning becomes shallow and transactional—or meaningful, relational, and effective at scale.

The show is designed for education leaders, instructional designers, and system-level practitioners responsible for adopting, scaling, and sustaining virtual, hybrid, and online learning models. Each episode examines the structural conditions under which distance learning actually works—and the predictable reasons it fails when it doesn’t.

Through conversations with researchers, experienced practitioners, and field-shaping leaders, Why Distance Learning? translates research, field evidence, and lived experience into decision-relevant insight. Episodes surface real tradeoffs, near-failures, and hard-won lessons, equipping listeners with clear framing and language they can use to explain, defend, or redesign distance learning models in real organizational contexts.

Hosted by Seth Fleischauer of Banyan Global Learning, and Allyson Mitchell and Tami Moehring of the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, the podcast challenges outdated narratives about distance learning and explores what becomes possible when live virtual education is designed intentionally, human-centered, and grounded in evidence.