There is a moment at every OLC Accelerate when you realize you are no longer standing in a room full of strangers.
Maybe it happens over coffee when someone asks where you are from. Maybe you find yourself laughing with someone you met five minutes ago through an Engagement Hub game. Maybe you strike up a conversation on a Field Guide tour, during the Welcome Reception, or -if you are considerably ambitious – somewhere around mile two of the Accelerate 5K.
However it happens, that moment matters. Because as much as we come to Accelerate for the sessions, the ideas, the blow-your-mind concepts, and the latest trends in digital and blended learning, we also come for each other.
This year, we are going to Illuminate the Future together.
Your Conference Doesn't Have to Happen from a Chair
OLC Accelerate 2026 is packed with opportunities to learn, and some of the best parts of the conference happen when you close the laptop, put down the pen, and participate.
The Engagement Hub gives you a place to connect with other attendees through collaborative and entertaining activities throughout the conference. Think of it as permission to play a little, meet somebody new, and give your brain a change of scenery between sessions.
And there is a reason we keep making space for this. Play has a sneaky way of getting people talking.
Suddenly, you are not introducing yourself by job title or institution. You are teammates, competitors, co-conspirators, and colleagues. You are people trying to figure something out together.
Five minutes later, the activity may be over – but the conversation isn’t.
That is engagement doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
Find Your People
If you are new to Accelerate, walking into a conference this size can feel a little like showing up to a party where everyone else already knows each other. They don’t. We promise.
The Field Guide Program is designed to help you find your footing, identify sessions that match your professional interests, navigate the conference, and, most importantly, start making connections. There will even be Field Guide tours of the Dolphin Convention Center for those of us whose sense of direction disappears the moment we put on a conference badge.
First-time attendee? Start there.
Long-time attendee? Look for the person who looks like they are trying to determine whether Atlantic and Pacific are rooms, oceans, or entirely different wings of the building. Say hello.
You might just meet your next collaborator.
Explore Something New
This year brings back the AI Exploration Zone, where attendees can explore challenges and consider innovative approaches for reaching our learners.
And we love that it sits alongside the Engagement Hub.
Because the future of digital learning isn’t only about the technology we discover. It is about what happens when people gather around that technology and start asking questions:
What could we do with this? Should we do it? How could this help our learners? What haven’t we thought about yet?
Those conversations are where things get interesting.
Glow, Go...or Stretch
Of course, not all engagement requires a conference room.
Early risers can start Tuesday and Thursday with yoga, and Wednesday morning brings the Glow & Go 5K Fun Run/Walk.
Yes. At 6:00 AM.
For those who hear “6:00 AM 5K” and think absolutely! – your people will be waiting for you at the Swan causeway entrance. Your Engagement Hub support team will be there decked out in neon glow gear cheering you on.
For those who read that and immediately reached for another cup of coffee, your people are waiting for you too. Look for your Engagement Hub support team decked out in neon glow gear later and snag a selfie of your well-rested self.
That is the beauty of engagement at Accelerate. There isn’t one right way to participate.
Illuminate the Future—One Connection at a Time
This year’s theme, “Illuminate the Future: Envisioning our Next Era of Digital Learning,” naturally points us toward what comes next: emerging technology, changing learner needs, new approaches to teaching, and possibilities we probably haven’t imagined yet.
But here is something worth remembering.
We don’t build that future alone.
It happens through conversations. And through sharing ideas. Through finding someone who sees a problem differently than we do. Through asking a question after a session and continuing the conversation in the hallway. Through meeting the person who says, “We tried something like that. Let me tell you what happened.”
Sometimes it may even start with something completely ridiculous in the Engagement Hub.
Then. And especially then.
Our Challenge to You
So, when you arrive at OLC Accelerate 2026, we have a challenge for you.
Don’t just attend the conference.
Engage with it.
Visit the Engagement Hub preview and Welcome reception. Play Totally Rad Human Bingo and connect. Talk to vendors and snag their swag. Eat the snacks. Play Skee ball. Get prizes. Look for the neon and take a selfie with us. Explore the AI Exploration Zone. Take a Field Guide tour. Show off your response reflexes with OLC Feud. Test your gnarly knowledge with 80s Trivia. Join a networking break instead of checking email. Try yoga. Glow paint a shirt while zenning in the Sanctuary. Walk or run the 5K. Chat. Listen. Engage.
Months from now, you may not remember every slide you saw or every note you took during a session.
But you will remember the conversation that sparked an idea.
The person who made you laugh. The colleague who became a collaborator.
The moment you stopped simply attending Accelerate and became part of it.
Come ENGAGE with us at Accelerate 2026. And let’s illuminate the future together.
