Mr. Higgins’ Blog

In a previous post titled ClustrMaps as Student Motivation I pointed out how my students affected by visitors to my school website.  I made the post after being motivated by the words of Will Richardson (weblogg-ed) at the 2007 Ohio eTech Conference.  I wanted to take some time to share a few more of my thoughts about how a little map served as motivation in my classroom.

• In my Web Development class, we made many different webpages and I was happily surprised at how many of my students wanted to know how to get that "little map."  It was not just about HOW MANY visitors rather WHERE the visitors originate.
• The student made it an unofficial contest.  They wanted to see if anyone from the middle of the ocean would visit their website.  For instance, on my ClustrMap, there are these two occurrences…
  
• Ever since I was very young, I have loved Geography.  Talk about a cross-curricular opportunity. I had one sitting right in front of my face.  It gave me an opportunity to discuss the World Wide Web and what countries have access. I also would weave this into a discussion about web searches around the world.
• Finally, I learned from the students that even the smallest Web 2.0 tool could make a difference and provide motivation.