Blogging is evolving from personal web-based journals chronicling individual opinions (and sometimes rants) into a new form of business communications.

Paul Justice, President of www.just-learn.com comments,
"So what has this got to do with learning? Well, while some of the blogs out there might be a bit, well, out there, others do contain some quite lucid and insightful comments and debating points. Once you start reading some of the weblogs, you may be surprised by the amount of detail and the regularity with which people are willing to share. You get a database of knowledge, a kind of informal knowledge management system, where your subject experts regularly and happily update their content."

Weblogs are invaluable to anyone with little time to scour through the vast amount of industry news and trends available online, and they can provide an excellent vehicle through which to share opinions and experiences.

Professor Ray Schroeder, Director of Technology-Enhanced Learning, continues,
"Bloggers tend to be vitally engaged in their field of interest. We are finding that more and more leading experts in online learning are blogging their best practices and perspectives. As blogs become an integral tool in disseminating information among those in a field, we are also finding that more and more educators are using blogs for student journaling and publishing of portfolios. Blogs have become an important new tool in online learning."

Visit some e-learning blog websites:

Online Learning Update: http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/onlinelearning/blogger.html
List of e-learning blogs: http://edtechdev.org/blog/archives/001032.html

Would you like to integrate blogging into your company intranet as a powerful communications tool? A customized JEDlet could help you. Drop us a line at info@jedlet.com

Need to learn how to develop a company ezine or use email more effectively? Subscribe to our new JEDlets "E-Mail: Writing for Results" and "Ezine Advice" now in the library at www.jedlet.com

Summertime and the living is easy...or is it? Some people have a tough time relaxing on their vacation. Those addicted to an adrenalin-rush lifestyle can find it difficult to leave the laptop, cell phone and pager behind to simply relax by a lake, hang out in a hammock, or go for a leisurely stroll. Does this sound like you? Learn how to turn off that inner taskmaster and truly enjoy your leisure time. Subscribe to Wrestling with Stress in the Lifestyle section at www.jedlet.com

JED New Media is pleased to announce that affiliate ZIGGOURAT Formation now offers JEDlets to students participating in their technical training. Founded in 1997, ZIGGOURAT is a learning centre based in Paris, France, and specializes in computer-assisted publishing. Training is offered in web-publishing, multimedia, 3D, video and desktop applications. For more information on Ziggourat, visit our collaborators page at http://www.jedlet.com/partners.asp

Although reading a book may be out of fashion, reading emails, using instant messaging, or surfing the Internet is growing. A weblog (or blog) can be seen as an extension of a web site consisting of journal-like entries for public viewing. Similar to the information sharing that occurs in communities (consisting of people passionate about a specific topic), weblogs can be considered as an important type of education and training.

However, since weblogs do not just deliver authoritative information--rather they provide information that reflects the personalities of their creators--it is important to be able to distinguish fact from fiction.

Weblogs can be extremely useful, especially in training environments, where students can create their own weblogs or use a common one. In either case, these weblogs provide trainers with insights into the thinking evoked by their course material, and allow for midstream adjustments to the curriculum. Alternatively, weblogs can be used to exchange information among trainers.

Although weblogs can be an important component of a personal or corporate training curriculum, extreme caution is necessary to ensure that all relevant information is made available and that facts are separated from fiction or personal opinion. If used in a prudent fashion, weblogs, in conjunction with communities, can be a key component to corporate knowledge sharing.

News:

JED New Media is now an official member of eLearning Guild. Visit: http://www.eLearningGuild.com

Don’t miss these events:

Driving Process Improvement into the Future. The Asia SEPG Conference, India. July 28 to August 2, 2003. Visit: www.qaiindia.com

Online conference on the Best Practices in e-Learning. University of Calgary, Canada, August 13-14, 2003. Visit: www.elearn.ucalgary.ca/conference/

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