Asynchronous event 16th Nov to 30th Nov 09

Electronic learning (e-learning) as we all know is the use of technology that enables learning and teaching online so anytime and anywhere through synchronous(real time) or asynchronous(delayed) delivery .Selection of these methods however would depend on individual learner and of course the subject matter too.

In this context collaborative learning is creating waves in e-learning like:wikis are becoming popular,discussion forums are at large and blogs are also incorporated as online learning tool.These tools help learners overcome feeling of isolation and achieve learning outcome in a synchronous or asynchronous mode of their learning.The use of these various tools offer us opportunity for information sharing,and ease of collaboration.

The other reason of its growth could also be that many tools are free ,easy use and open source nature.Ummm yeah!

Today,as part of my mini conference assignment i choose to facilitate asynchronous event on "Blogs as asynchronous means of online learning".
If effectively implemented blogs like other e-learning tools, can offer a great medium of enhancing learners engagement and enriching their learning experience.
If we go back long ago...beyond technology blog like features existed from before in different forms eg journals that people have created "offline".In our current Facilitating online communities course too, we shared ,read,reflected ,made comments and learnt from one anothers blogs. Here i am looking forward to facilitating his event and achieving outcome on Educational blogging, how it can be achieved.

Jagadish Ghimire my guest speaker is working as a Research Engineer @ Telecom SudParis after completing his Masters in Information Communication Technology from A.I.T Bangkok last year. He has been a blogger for 5 years . He will be following the blog, so if there are any questions for him he is happy to answer.

He has prepared a 8.24 minutes presentation and uploaded in Youtube.He shares valuable insights in his youtube link on educational blogging. He talks about how implementing blog as a tool can help peer to peer sharing, exchanging ideas and how we can have links to many resources to dvelve deeper in the subject.

There is a slide that talks about creating map, i like this point of my guest speaker as its true that we record our thinking, and its also true that, through blogs/journal we capture changes in our thinking....pattern.Dont we all agree??????Although Jagadish doesnt elaborate much on this topic, it is thought provoking.What do you guys reckon?

Having said that there are lots of downside to blogs:they cant be the best modes of discussions for many reasons one being the blog author has more influence in facilitating and moderating blogs. They have full control on the original content.

Jagadish has some critical views on implementing blogs in e-learning like monitoring progress of learners and difficulty maintaining learning flow,we can discuss more on this issue.

So guys what do you all think about using blog as a e-learning tool, how effective it can be and what could be its shortfalls?

Please comment as a thread rather than in the youtube link, so that we can create a threaded discussion and can make conclusions @ the end of the two week open forums.(i mean through comments).The reason i choose gmail-blogger for the discussion is its free, as if you wished to comment directly in youtube you would have needed a account.
Just keeping it simple.
Cheers
Meena Adhikari