it.bfitz.me

We have a new blog on the LPS wordpress site called Global Posts. The site pulls in everything that is posted on the LPS WordPress site (”Posts”, not “Pages”) and makes it searchable. Not only this, but it creates a “Tag Cloud” where a visitor can easily see what folks are posting about. If you are using your site as a blog and not tagging this is a great time to start. Sample tags are “math”, “assignments”, “lincoln”, “nebraska”, “NETA”, “President”, “Government”, “LPS” and anything else that describes what you are posting. They are even more effective if you and your colleagues use the same tags. Try it out!

I haven’t posted www.lps.org analytics information in quite a while. I had to compile some information for our communications department today, so here is a copy of that for anybody that’s interested. It’s a lot of big numbers, except for the social parts near the bottom, but we are just starting that and I hope that we will be pushing that a bit more this fall.

–

Total Sessions:

6,532,815 sessions logged on www.lps.org between June 1, 2008 and May 31, 2009. (if you come to www.lps.org and view 4 pages, that is one session. If you come back the next day and visit 5 more pages, that is 1 more session for a total of 2 sessions). Total number of pages served from www.lps.org (this does not include school and other non-district sites that we also serve): 14,549,432.

Monthly Sessions:

• June 2008: 262,082 sessions.
• July 2008: 269,449 sessions.
• August 2008: 429,567 sessions.
• September 2008: 630,101 sessions.
• October 2008: 598,919 sessions.
• November 2008: 570,792 sessions.
• December 2008: 513,813 sessions.
• January 2009: 608,219 sessions.
• February 2009: 636,083 sessions.
• March 2009: 611,966 sessions.
• April 2009: 688,857 sessions.
• May 2009: 679,944 sessions.

Points:

• The average visitor spends 3 and a half minutes on our site and views 2 pages during that time.
• During the analysis period, 1% of our visitors from outside of the district network were accessing us using a dial up connection. 20% were accessing us using a speed that we were not able to identify. 79% were using an identifiable broadband connection.
• 53% of our external visitors use Macintosh, while 46.7% use Windows.

Pages

Top 10 pages to our external audience over the analysis period

1. District Home Page
2. Staff Center
3. High School Information
4. Jobs
5. Elementary School Information
6. Middle School Information
7. Calendars
8. Email address lookup
9. Human Resources front page
10. Lunch Menus

Social

• Our Twitter feed which has only been up for a couple of months has 105 followers and has been posted to 148 times. Among our followers on Twitter are: Lincoln City Libraries, KOLN/KGIN, Nebraska Game and Parks, Downtown Lincoln Association, and the Lincoln Arts Council.
• Our primary RSS feed which delivers site headlines and ednotes express (same as twitter) has 123 subscribers.

If there is a computer that you typically use to edit your wordpress site, there is something that you can do to make the pages in the editing area of wordpress load faster. It involves installing Google Gears. Here’s how:

NPR CEO Vivian Schiller discusses journalism in the digital age and ways that NPR is changing to stay relevant as things continuously change. It’s a very interesting address to watch:

Keynote: Vivian Schiller, CEO of National Public Radio from Merrill College on Vimeo.

Looking to use Firefox a little more efficiently? Mozilla has a nice page with some tips and tricks for Firefox users: Mozilla Products | Tips & Tricks

I’ve wanted to learn Ruby for a long time and perhaps this will help me get going. Ruby on Rails is attractive because it is free (it’s even already installed on Mac OS X), it has some nice default UI, and once learned can really help you build sites quick - so I’ve heard.

• Beginner’s Guide To Ruby On Rails: Part 1
• Beginner’s Guide To Ruby On Rails: Part 2

Smashing Magazine explores web design trends and mobile web design trends for 2009

• Web Design Trends For 2009
• Mobile Web Design Trends for 2009

Portland, Ore. (PRWEB) March 31, 2009 — Inspiration Software®, Inc. today announced the 15 educators and their students from around the world who will receive Inspired Visual Learning Awards. The 2008-2009 awards program recognizes three Gold Star and 12 Silver Star winners for creatively using the company’s visual learning software tools , Inspiration®, Kidspiration® and InspireData®, in their classrooms. More than 220 entries from 11 countries were received in the inaugural year of this award program.

Top honors went to the three Gold Star winners: Jason Rushing, technology integration specialist, Humann Elementary School, Lincoln Public Schools, Lincoln, Neb; Kimberly Seder, media specialist, Cathedral School, Diocese of Raleigh, N.C.; and Cheryl Teaters, biology teacher, Gateway School District, Monroeville, Pa.

… Gold Star winner Jason Rushing teaches educators in his school - and throughout the state of Nebraska - how to use Kidspiration with their students to teach math, language arts and science, mapping back to state and district standards. His award will support attendance at the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in June in Washington, D.C., as well as to purchase digital cameras and even more Kidspiration 3 upgrade licenses for his school.

via Inspiration Software Honors 15 Educators From Around the World With Inspired Visual Learning Awards.