‘That was the year that was – it’s over, let it go’ to adapt the title song of a 1960’s British satirical TV series.
To analyse where the interest was in e-learning, I did some analytics on hits on my web site posts. I published 366 posts in 2010 (up to now) and 1388 since the site opened in 2008. Taking out the home page, which had over 27,000 hits, and personal stuff, such as hits on my biography and books, here’s the top 12 for 2010:
There were also a couple of odd results. I got so many hits for An e-learning web site from Tunisia that I had to remove it, because it was distorting my weekly statistics. Similarly, I also had a huge number of hits for A personal view of e-learning in Saudi Arabia. I don’t want to sound paranoid, but are Arab countries or Al-Qa’ida using bots for intelligence purposes? Or does anyone have an alternative explanation for the relatively very high number of hits on these posts?
Interestingly, items 1, 4, 9 and 12 were posted in 2009 but continued to attract attention throughout 2010.
I leave you to draw your own conclusions from these results.
There will be two more posts on the world of e-learning in 2010:
e-learning retrospective 2010: 2) how good were my predictions?
e-learning retrospective 2010: 3) a summary of the year
Dr. Tony Bates is the author of eleven books in the field of online learning and distance education. He has provided consulting services specializing in training in the planning and management of online learning and distance education, working with over 40 organizations in 25 countries. Tony is a Research Associate with Contact North | Contact Nord, Ontario’s Distance Education & Training Network.
