I began blogging in January of 2004. e e learning was initially intended as a way to share the hundreds of bookmarks regarding learning and development that I had accumulated over the years with my colleagues. (If you go back to the first entries you'll see that they are lists of links.) But as I got used to blogging I started to venture out and check out other blogs. I realized that other than Jay Cross's Internet Time Group Blog, there was very little on workplace learning. So I stretched myself and started blogging about topics in workplace learning. When I was sited by George Siemens and Stephen Downes within a week of each other in the spring of 2004, it felt like I had made it.
But blogging is tough and takes time and that summer and early fall other priorities meant that e e learning was neglected for a while. So much so that in the fall of 2004, e e learning was once again sited by Stephen Downes - this time as an example of how blogs go extinct! While I was actually activel blogging again at the time of his post, it was true that e e learing had almost died off.
When I found myself unemployeed at the end of 2004, I called Jay Cross, who I had met the previous summer because of a connection we made through our blogs and a manuscript on metrics he was authoring, and asked if he'd help me with my job search. In return I asked if there was anything I could help him with. As it turned out there was.
It seems Learning Circuits Blog, a team blog that Jay had created in 2002 to be adjunct to ASTD's Learning Circuits online magazine had almost died off at the same time e e learning was left fallow. He asked me if I'd be interested in taking it on as its blogmeister. Of course, I said yes and haven't regretted it since. I put together a proposal of what I'd do with LCB and Jay and I met with Ryann Ellis, editor of Learning Circuits, to get her approval. Which she gave.
Working with some of the biggest names in elearning, we built the visitor traffic from literally a few people a day in January of 2005 to a peak of nearly 2000 in one week in September 2005. We have experimented with adding flash polls, a discussion wiki and a feature called "Beyond the Blog." Each has had it's success and has given us more ideas for future efforts to enhance traffic to Learning Circuits Blog.
2006 has been a remake year for e e learning. A visual makeover taking advantage of Typepad's tools to customize the design, a rethink of the categories for content to narrow the focus, and the addition of the e e learning wiki and, at the end of September, a web 2.0 review mash-up created in Ning are all changes designed to expand the opportunity for dialogue with my readers. CLICK TO CLOSE
