Written by Allyson Mitchell
Date: August 14, 2026
Great connected learning does more than deliver information—it creates moments of curiosity, connection, and discovery.
At the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC), we believe that learning can happen anywhere when people have meaningful opportunities to connect with experts, ideas, places, and experiences.
That is why each year we celebrate organizations that are doing live virtual learning exceptionally well through the CILC Pinnacle Awards.
Celebrating Excellence in Live Virtual Learning
The Pinnacle Award recognizes CILC Content Providers whose programs receive the highest ratings from the educators and activity coordinators who participate in their live virtual experiences.
The award celebrates programs that demonstrate three important qualities:
- High educational value
- Active learner engagement
- Professional delivery through live videoconferencing
The Pinnacle Award has been part of CILC's tradition since 2008, helping schools, libraries, hospitals, and clubs identify high-quality live virtual experiences.
For the 2024–2025 academic year, recognized Content Providers earned average program evaluation scores of 2.85 or higher on a 3-point scale.
But behind those ratings is something even more important: the experiences of the learners and educators who participated.
Connected Learning Is About More Than Technology
It can be easy to think of virtual learning as simply putting a program on a screen.
We see it differently.
A successful live virtual experience can transport a classroom into a national park. It can bring a museum educator into a community learning space. It can allow students to interact with a scientist, historian, artist, performer, or other expert they may never otherwise have the opportunity to meet.
The technology is the connection point—but the people, stories, questions, and interactions are what make the learning meaningful.
Research and practice within the field of interactive virtual learning have long emphasized the importance of active engagement, educator interaction, and collaboration in creating meaningful virtual experiences. CILC's Pinnacle community has also provided a space for virtual educators to exchange best practices and collaborate around the continued development of live interactive learning.
Meet the 2025–2026 Pinnacle Award Community
This year's recipients represent the incredible breadth of organizations participating in connected learning—from museums and zoos to national parks, science centers, historic sites, cultural organizations, and educational institutions.
The 2025–2026 Pinnacle Award recipients include organizations such as Alaska SeaLife Center, Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, Center for Puppetry Arts, International Spy Museum, National Archives, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, National Museum of the U.S. Army, Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Zion National Park, among many others.
Together, these organizations demonstrate something powerful: there isn't one way to create a great connected learning experience.
Learning might happen through art, science, history, nature, culture, movement, storytelling, or hands-on exploration.
What connects these experiences is the ability to engage learners in meaningful ways.
Celebrating a Decade of Excellence
The Pinnacle Award Hall of Fame recognizes an even smaller group of Content Providers: organizations that have received the Pinnacle Award 10 or more times and demonstrated continued excellence year after year.
This year's Hall of Fame inductees are:
- Longwood Gardens
- Manhattan School of Music
- The Mariner’s Museum and Park
Reaching this milestone is more than an award—it represents years of creating experiences that educators continue to value and learners continue to remember.
Why Educator Feedback Matters
One of the most meaningful aspects of the Pinnacle Awards is that recognition comes directly from the people participating in these experiences.
Educators and activity coordinators evaluate programs based on their experiences, helping CILC recognize organizations that are successfully engaging learners and delivering meaningful educational value.
That feedback creates an important cycle:
Experience → Feedback → Improvement →
Connection → Impact
It encourages Content Providers to continue experimenting, improving, and finding new ways to make live learning more interactive and relevant.
And it gives educators another way to identify trusted experiences for the learners they serve.
The Future of Connected Learning
As education continues to evolve, access to meaningful learning experiences should not be limited by geography.
A school shouldn't have to be located next to a major museum to learn from its educators. A community shouldn't need to travel across the country to connect with a national park expert. A lifelong learner shouldn't have to live near a cultural institution to experience its collections and stories.
Connected learning helps remove those boundaries.
At CILC, our work is about creating those connections—between learners and experts, communities and institutions, classrooms and the world.
The Pinnacle Awards are one way we celebrate the organizations making those connections possible.
And to every 2025–2026 Pinnacle Award recipient: thank you for continuing to expand what is possible in live learning.
Your work reminds us that when we connect people to meaningful experiences, learning doesn't just travel farther—it becomes more powerful.
Explore the Pinnacle Award Winners
Discover the full list of the 2025–2026 Pinnacle Award recipients and Hall of Fame members here on CILC's Pinnacle Award page.
Interested in bringing exceptional live learning experiences to your school, organization, or community? Explore CILC's connected learning opportunities and discover what's possible when learning knows no limits.