Several teachers are using blogs with their students this year because they want them to have a reading audience outside the campus. To this end, the blogs are public. However, comments are restricted to teachers and students at our site. How can we show the students that other people are, in fact, reading their work?
An easy way to do this is to include a visitor map on the blog. Visitor maps add a ‘virtual pin’ every time the blog is accessed. Within 24 hours students can begin to see where their blog visitors are coming from, letting them know that they actually do have an audience outside the school walls. Two free resources to try are ClustrMaps and StatCounter. ClustrMaps embeds a map right in the blog main page. StatCounter embeds a counter which can be clicked on to access a map.
Submitted by: Susan Brooks-Young
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