First of all my apologies for the late submission. The reason is that I am really drowned in my academic and research activities right now. Anyways, the first week lessons were quite impressive in their viewpoint regarding e - learning and I believe that given the requirements MOOC is the way to go. Such a brilliant idea for guys like us who need access to quality education without feeling the pinch on out time and money. As I had commented earlier, being in an institution which is readily promoting e - learning as a part of the strategy to educate medical students I find it fascinating to immerse myself in this new found interest of mine. I am very interested in blended learning which is a mix of technology and face to face learning. Wikipedia defines it as "an education program (formal or non-formal) that combines online digital media with traditional classroom methods."¹ It provides both formal and non - formal education and is student - centric. 

Since my University is trying to introduce a learning management system (LMS) called D2L (Desire 2 Learn)² to impart education to the medical students, it would be a great tool to actually implement blended learning in the class. I was one of the select group of faculties to get trained and conduct workshops for the rest of the faculty members in a time bound manner. Now I believe that along with it blended learning will provide an enormous advantage to the students to learn medicine in an innovative manner while at the same time give the tutors a chance to follow them and also be available any time of the day. 

Does blended learning really helps in improving the educational system and is it effective? An article published online³ comments on a metaanalytic review done by the US department of education which states that "students exposed to both face-to-face and online education were more successful than students entirely in one camp or the other." Indeed, this could be one of the newer innovative methods needed to make education easier for students worldwide.

References: 

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blended_learning

2. https://www.mu.edu.sa/ar/node/89756

3. https://www.teachthought.com/learning/the-definition-of-blended-learning/