As we celebrate National Distance Learning Week [Nov. 9-13] we have some things to cheer about at Poynter's News University. So break out the party hats and let's get to the updates.

First, NewsU hit another user milestone, registering our 125,000 learner.  Actually, we are a little late with this piece of news [it happen last month and we are now up to 127,000 users this week.]  We forgot to announce this news because of the next update item.

It looks like, if our technical wizards stay on track, the New NewsU site will launch in January 2010.  We are in "alpha beta" testing right now and we are getting excited about the new features planned to make finding and keeping track of your courses easier.  For more details about our new site check our project blog: next.newsu.org.  A new site design, a new technology platform -- Drupal -- and new content is keeping us very busy.

But we haven't been too busy to keep creating new training modules.  With our partners at the Suburban Newspapers of America Foundation, which received a grant from the Knight Foundation, we just launched "Innovation at Work: Making New Ideas Succeed ." Here's a tease from the course details page:

Innovation at Work: Making New Ideas Succeed explains how innovation is a craft – one you can learn about, practice and hone. You’ll study how your organization encourages (or holds back) innovation. And you’ll prepare to lead conversations in your newsroom about putting innovation to work for your publication.

 This is our fourth training module with SNA and this one has some folks very happy.  To quote one of the course's beta users, Heather Elizabeth Provencher at TriCities.com:

"This is the best online course from Poynter's NewsU that I have ever taken! Hands down, this is invaluable in today's newsrooms."

Wow. That's praise we can celebrate. In a few days we'll be launching another training module about covering climate change.  We'll have lots of details on this module in our next update.

Which brings us to this plans for this blog.  We we plan to expand its scope to help you learn about all the free and low-cost training we have at NewsU and Poynter.  We'll still find other e-learning outside of NewsU, but we'll also use the blog to tell you more about what we are doing -- not only the new courses being launched, but courses being planned and ideas for courses. 

We'll ask you for your help and ideas.  And, just as we have done on our Twitter account, @newsuniversity, we'll be offering special promo codes and other deals.  Just another reason to celebrate e-learning with NewsU.