The History of ALCA Funded through the US Department of Education, ALCA originated as a Technology Innovation Challenge Grant project, involving a university and eight public and private K - 12 schools. The project engaged many Oklahoma teachers in creating innovative lessons,  Locally-collected data would ultimately be shared through ALCA. During the project's first years, groundwork for a collaborative online educational community was laid.  ALCA ensured Internet access to the original school sites, selected teachers, recruited web masters, and purchased the equipment necessary to bring technology to the schools.  Trainers, were trained in Total Quality Learning techniques, , Concerns Based Adoption Model provided by SEDL, Austin TX, and critical thinking standards provided by Crtical Thinking Institute. At the end of the six-year grant period, ALCA became a nonprofit association and began expanding services that includes:

Meeting at Bishop McGuinness High School

• Partnership with Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education in developing their iCAT Learning Community.
• Developing Comprehend for data analysis of student testing results. Over 75 school districts in Oklahoma are reaping the benefits of its use.
• Introduction of version four of the web-based learning community application called the Arch Server.
• Partnership with Osage Interlocal to identify needs and expand services.
• Support Oklahoma Association for Academic Competition (OAAC) efforts to go online with academic completions using ALCA's test resource.

During the days of the Aurora Project over 450 teachers were trained and more than 8,000 online resources were housed on the ALCA Home Community alone. Once Arch Server is updated these resources will be freely available to be utilized by community members in different areas of the country. Additionally, over one thousand K-16 online lessons, on all subject areas and grade levels, have been created by ALCA educators. These lessons, plus other resources which are continually being developed, provide professionals a remarkable opportunity for such things as data sharing with distant communities.

As ALCA continues to support ODCT and Oklahoma School Districts, the vision to improve and expand our services continue. Learning communities are about communication and acknowledging that we never know enough.