Edutech for Teachers

Cool Tools for the 21st Century Classroom

Clustrmaps: Who’s visiting your blog?

April30

Clustrmaps is a must-have hit counter widget and geotracking tool that shows locations of all visitors as well as a cumulative total of visitors to any site.  All you have to do is add the HTML code provided by the folks at Clustrmaps, and just like that, your site is all pimped out with a tiny map that looks like this:

Visitors don’t even need to click on anything once they’ve arrived on your site!  Nope, not a thing!  That’s because a page view  automatically generates a “dot” on your map.  And get this—the size of the red dots that appear on your map become larger as repeat customers from a particular region visit your site.  The yellow dots are representative of  “real time” visitors who have recently checked out your site.

But wait…  There’s more!  You (and your visitors) can also click on the thumbnail map to zoom into a world map view.  In addition to this feature, you/visitors can see a more precise list of dates, times, and city details for your most recent visitors.  To the right of this time stamp, users can also find a breakdown of visitors based on countries.  This information is accompanied with a country flag as well as region level details that can be accessed via the expandable drop down menu located next to the country name.  (Click on the Clustrmap embedded in this post and/or on the thumbnail to the right to check out this cool “stuff”!)

BTW:  The Clustrmaps service is free—forever!

One widget yet so much information…  Is it any wonder that Clustrmaps is one of my all-time favorite gadgets!

Classroom Connection:

Anyone who writes a blog and/or maintains a wiki or web site obviously does so in order to share thoughts, ideas, etc. with others—but how does one know whether or not anyone is accessing the site?  The answer: Clustrmaps!  What an awesome way to validate that others are actually visiting your site.  I know that I personally love seeing those red and yellow dots populate my map; watching the numbers of total visitors grow is pretty cool too!

Well, the students in our classrooms are no different!  They really enjoy knowing that others—beside their teacher and classmates—have read their essays, poems and stories, watched their videos and listened to their podcasts.  With that said, add a  Clustrmap to your classroom wiki, blog and/or web site so you and your students have the opportunity to watch your world-wide audience grow!  If you don’t wiki or blog with your students—there’s no time like the present!

Besides providing instant gratification for teachers and students, Clustrmaps can be used for instructional purposes as well.  Yes, it’s true.  This widget can come in handy for geography, math and writing lessons.

» Geography: Begin class by visiting your Clustrmap.  Besides checking out how the visitor totals are progressing, be sure to note the U.S. states and countries that are represented.  Locate these areas on a map and identify capital cities.  Google Earth would be a neat tool to complement this activity!

Mimic the Clustrmap world map view on a bulletin board.  Add a “pin” each time a visitor from a new location visits your site.

» Math: What a neat way to teach a variety of math skills with meaningful data—all constructed around the number and location of visitors to your site!  Addition, subtraction, place value, and ratios (i.e. total number of visitors/particular country, state/state, etc.) to name a few.

» Writing: The information Clustmaps provide can give teachers the opportunity to incorporate an authentic writing activity into a lesson.  For instance, “Explain why you think our map does/does not have any visitors from —–.”

If you have additional ideas as to how this “cool tool” can be incorporated into educational activities, please feel free to share them!

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by posted under Cool Tools | 2 Comments »    
2 Comments to

“Clustrmaps: Who’s visiting your blog?”

  1. May 1st, 2012 at 9:00 am       ClustrMaps Team Says:

    Many thanks for the great review and comments! Don’t forget that if you add your Twitter Username on your ClustrMaps Admin page (look on the button called [Change personal details]), then tweets about you will be displayed as an overlay ‘Tweet Map’ on your big world map…. enjoy!
    -CJ on behalf of the ClustrMaps Team


  2. May 1st, 2012 at 4:53 pm       edutech4teachers Says:

    Hey CJ! Thanks for the positive feedback about the Clustrmaps blog post! I set up my “Tweet Map” last night, so I’m looking forward to utilizing this very cool feature! Jamie =}


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Looking for some technology integration ideas to enhance your classroom lessons? Then be sure to check out my "Tech Tips" for the latest and greatest Web 2.0 tools, applications and web sites that can be incorporated into activities and/or projects. Although some posts may not be applicable to your content area or grade level, be sure to check back often as I will be varying ideas in order to provide resources across the K-12 curriculum.

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