We made a big step yesterday. At 5:30 p.m., Eastern Time, we made the first of two technology changes to the new site and technology platform for Poynter's News University project: We turned off the registration system on the old site and are now signing up folks only on the new platform.

After 133,804 users, our final sign-up on the platform was a student from the journalism school at the University of Minnesota. Go Gophers.

We think our new registration is easier. There is one big change, however. We now require you to complete the registration by clicking on an e-mail sent to the account you used to sign up. If you don't, you can't start using the more than 150 e-learning modules on NewsU. This is a system we have seen work successfully at other sites, so we don't expect any big issues.

For those educators who use NewsU in the classroom via an education portal such as eChalk or Blackboard, we are working on a simple way to get your students signed up and using the site. Stay tuned for that change within the next couple of days. Our friends at Aten Design Group have figured out a solution.

We have added lots of places where you can send us feedback. And yes, there's a human on the other end. And me, too.

Next step: Turn off the old site. Turn on the new site.