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I have found Barry to be a wealth of knowledge when it comes to instructional technology, online learning, and most sensible things. I find he is usually right about things, and admits when he is wrong and corrects his course. Here at the ITC eLearning Grand Debate arguing for the resolution: "Online faculty should be rooted and engaged in the traditional campus experience." While the debate/conference spaces is great for learning, the better discussions happen after the program ends for the day. Connect with people at conferences. It will change your life for the better.

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Barry, Michael, and someone else are in the front of a conference room for The Grand Debate at ITC eLearning 2017.

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Your Years of Service to the ITC Board are deeply appreciated and valued! 

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Congratulations, Barry, on your Lifetime Achievement Award!

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Congratulations, Barry, on your Lifetime Achievement Award!

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Thank you for being a builder, a doer, a dreamer, an innovator! WordPress Founder, Matt Mullenweg, said, “Technology is best when it brings people together.” That quote embodies much of your career and contributions to the Distance Education Community! Thank you for all you have done and continue to do! - Brittany Hochstaetter, ITC Chair

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Congratulations on your Lifetime Achievement Award!

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Congratulations on your Lifetime Achievement Award!

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I met Barry Dahl at a D2L Fusion conference in 2012. He has always been an amazing educator, speaker, collaborator, and champion for online learning.

Congratulations and thank you for everything! Leslie Van Wolvelear, Oakton College

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Barry awarding D2L Mooses to PCC faculty at the 2019 Online Learning Faculty Summit

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Barry has consistently supported the professional development of faculty in all his roles. Here he is in Portland, OR handing out D2L Mooses as prizes during the 2019 Online Learning Faculty Summit. He and D2L helped support the event, which some faculty have called "the single best professional development activity in their entire career."

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Barry is the man!! #LongLiveHawaiianShirts

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Barry is the man!! #LongLiveHawaiianShirts

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As a newbie to the Instructional Tech world, I am so profoundly thankful that I got to meet Barry through his work with D2L Fusion. His friendly introduction at my first Fusion helped me realize that I was in the right place and the right career field. You could always find him in a crowd by looking for his AMAZING shirts and I hope you embody his positivity and energy for the next generation of ITC folks! Congratulations Barry. I tip my hat to you.

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Congratulations on your Lifetime Achievement Award 2026 from the Instructional Technology Council. 

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Congratulations on your Lifetime Achievement Award 2026 from the Instructional Technology Council. 

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For someone with an accounting degree, Barry was unexpectedly funny and innovative. His service to D2L and contributions to the ITC were just some of the notable ways he supported the growth of online education across the county. I served on the ITC board with him and always appreciated his wit and wisdom.

Thank you, Barry for all you have done for community college innovation and technology. Even though you are retired, I never see you getting bored! Be careful on the Florida tennis courts!

All the best,

Carol Spalding

Previously from Florida, now from North Carolina.

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I met Barry at an ITC conference in San Diego - doing one of his famous MythBusters sessions. Since that first meeting we worked together on the ITC Board and then later (between gigs) he assisted us in Michigan with both webinars and in-person training sessions. I drove him all over the state of Michigan - including a stop in Frankenmuth at the Bavarian Inn for their famous chicken dinner!

Thank you, Barry, for your dedication, humor and energy. You are a great collaborator, innovator and most importantly, a friend. Learning from you made all of us better at our jobs - and I'm greatly indebted to you for your friendship and guidance.

Congratulations on this well deserved award.

Enjoy your retirement - I highly recommend it!

Ronda Edwards

Michigan Colleges Online (Retired)

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I'm always so happy when I'm Barry Dahl Approved!!

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Congratulations, Barry on this ITC Lifetime Achievement Award. So well deserved! After following you on Twitter, I learned about this thing called "ITC" which had some great keynotes and was in the cool city of Portland, OR.

I went to the conference alone but left with new friends...thanks to you taking the time to get to know me and introduce me to other folks.

Fast forward over a decade and a half, and here we are! You are one of the best folks I know and I'm so happy to call you my friend.!

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Twenty years ago, I acquired my first job in online learning with little competence, and Barry saved my bacon. He was hosting statewide gatherings at his campus just down the road, bringing together everyone trying to figure out this thing called online learning. He welcomed newcomers like me without hesitation. That's who Barry is: radically open, deeply collaborative, and the kind of person who makes you feel like you belong, even when you're not sure you do.

I started calling him the Godfather of Online Learning. Not because he'd make you an offer you couldn't refuse, but because he was the one building the network, setting the standard, and showing the rest of us how it was done. He also has strong opinions about the right way to do things, and higher ed is still trying to catch up.

When Barry joined D2L, he took that same spirit of openness, connections, and collaboration and scaled it globally. I've heard people from around the world talk about Barry the same way I do. That's not a coincidence. That's a legacy. If you're doing online learning well today, there's a good chance Barry told you how.

Barry, congratulations on this lifetime achievement award from ITC. It is so deeply deserved. Thank you for being a mentor and a friend for the past two decades. The field of online learning is better because of you, and so am I. -Michael Amick, Pima Community College

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Photo of a digital pioneer "rolling their own" created by my very good friend Google Gemini.

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First Contact

Barry was the sage on the stage, and I was just a face in the crowd. He was presenting an early iteration of his "Online Learner Satisfaction" data. Back then, my exposure to online learning made it feel like the Wild West, where everyone "rolled their own" and decisions were driven by intuition, luck, and the hope that the server wouldn't catch fire.

We were so amazingly primitive that we still thought digital shovelware was a neat idea. We knew there was a better way out there, but we lacked the warp drive to reach it.

Enter Barry, Stage Left, Bearing Data

(no, not the android, the other stuff)

Barry’s presentation opened my eyes and set me on a path toward righteousness (though, sadly, not riches). I became an acolyte preaching "data-driven decision-making" long before I had the funding to actually do it. By the time my college finally found the funds to support a nationally benchmarked, validated survey, I had entirely forgotten the name of the survey instrument I learned about from Barry at an ITC conference a long time ago in a hotel far, far away.

The Search for Dahl

I finally had the opportunity, but I needed that survey name! So, I set out to ask the inimitable Mr. Dahl.

Finding him, however, was a bit like tracking a cloaked Bird of Prey. He had been at Lake Superior College for years, but by the time I reached out, he had moved on. The business card he’d given me for his consulting firm had also reached its final frontier.

Fortunately, playing "Where’s Barry?" wasn’t too difficult. His Desire2Work at Desire2Learn had come to fruition, and he was actually as easy to find as a life size Morris the Moose in a hotel conference room. Being a gentleman and a scholar, Barry graciously shared everything I needed to know, and then some.

The Undiscovered Country

The undiscovered county remains, well, undiscovered, mostly because no one knows what he'll get into next!

Today, we are here praise Barry, not to burry him.

Whether advocating for infrastructure, supporting student satisfaction with hard evidence, or serving on the ITC Board, he has navigated the shifting nebulae of community college ed tech like a seasoned starship Captain.

I doubt that a lifetime of achievement will stop just because the "day job" has reached its series finale.

Although Barry talks about tennis and fishing, I suspect his Desire2Blog stems from a passion that won't simply turn off like a server when the UPS battery dies.

I am confident that Barry still has many "enterprises of great pitch and moment before he makes his full quietus."

He isn’t retiring; he’s just entering a new season, and if you believe in Moore's law it will probably have even better digital effects.

I can’t wait to see what’s next. To quote the man himself:

"Anyone who thinks that they have the 'best practices'... is just blowing smoke. We’re nowhere near 'best' as of yet."

So true! But as we strive to boldly go where no educator has gone before, Barry will be there in the background, pushing us along. He has been for years; he will be for many more.

He just thinks he's retiring. I think we all know better. There's no escape. Resistance is futile.

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Well-deserved! Thank you for generosity, expertise, mentorship, support, and friendship!