It's minus 12 degrees centigrade today and tomorrow doesn't look much better. Fortunately it's sunny and there isn't any snow on the ground. So, be seeing as I have the week off I'm not going outside at all. Matter of fact I'm still in my pyjamas, with my coffee and laptop in the music room, where I very well may stay for the better part of the day. Yup.
I've been reviewing my blog statistics and have promised a year end review. I can tell you how many reader visits I get each day and where they originate. There's more, but let's leave it at that. Today I will examine the number of visits, where they originate, and which have been my most read blogs. First I will do so by the year, and then for the last month also, to balance things out. Of course since my blogspot first came online in late March it's not been quite a whole year. At first I just tinkered about fine tuning nad setting it up.Then the blogs started flowing in earnest during April. That was during my TSU [Toronto Secondary Unit] teacher's union executive re-election campaign as your TSU 3rd VP, and continued into May. I've continued to grow the site from there. So here are some stats:
Readership: This is the total number of readers who visit my blogspot. As of New Years Eve, I had reached 8550 visits, or reader "hits" as they say in the biz, for the past year. It's slow right now, what with the teacher readers like myself just enjoying the Christmas holidays. Indeed 3/4's of my readers are here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 2nd place goes to the USA, 3rd to Russia, and 4th to the UK. That has remained pretty constant all year, with a smattering of other readers from South America, Asia, and the other European countries. Even considering this months tally of 900 visits the readership location breakdown has pretty much remained exactly the same all year long. However I have seen a constant rise in my Russian readership, recently up to 3rd place, especially for my travel blogs on Cuba, Mexico and New York. My non-Canadian readers also seem to like my Toronto stories, which may be of less interest here, for obvious reasons. Still it's nice to be able to tell folk about what life's like, and what we do.
Okay, so here are my Top 10 Most Read Blogs from April to now, based upon the number of reader hits for each. Please be reminded that my Blog Archive is located below this centre blog column on my site. I will give you the dates should you wish to read or revisit any;
#1] Youtube: Who Speaks For Children? [Sept. 16]. This was first posted in April, but I kept re posting it with additional comments during our teacher union campaign in this fall's Ontario provincial election. It outlines our OECTA teacher strategy to emphasis the need to elect an education friendly government.
#2] TSU Rocks The Madison Pub [June 18]. This was our teacher's kick off pub to launch the campaign, spread the word and recruit volunteers from our secondary schools, for the fall Ontario election.
#3] Our TSU Chalkers Pub Night [Oct 29]. This was our annual TSU fall pub night. A lot of our teachers seemed to enjoy it, as a night to get out and socialize with their colleagues from across the city.
#4] The Politics of School and Office [May 27]. A report, in part, on the ugly aftermath of our own May TSU union executive election. Some losing candidates take it pretty personal. They often go out of their way to make it difficult for the rest of us to constructively carry on with our union work for the membership. This will happen whether they are on executive or not. Sad but true! I'd guess they will continue until they get enough of their members elected to control the executive by themselves, or so they'd hope. This self serving nonsense has been going on with the same crowd for the past 3 elections. My blog continues to get a lot of reads, I'd suppose as folks put 1+1 together and figure out who these public figures are, and how they work.
#5] In School Voting By-law -A Pig In A Poke? [May 20]. A follow up on how hastily politically motivated legislation can wrack havoc, as it did this spring, when it was first fledgingly introduced as a result of a half thought out campaign promise by a few very desperate candidates seeking union election the year before.
#6] News Flash: Self Directed PD Approved! [April14]: This was basically my first biggie. It continues to gather reads as others find out about how our teacher's union worked with the school board, to create a system whereby our teacher members could set up and determine their own Professional Development Days, based on their own teacher needs. I posted this here right after it was publically announced, to some consternation. Our union executive has accomplished a lot with these joint committees over the past 4 years. A lot of other teachers elsewhere seem very interested indeed. I'm glad to share the good news, especially across Canada and abroad!
#7] My Blogspot Manifesto [Nov 15]: This has been re posted twice, first appearing in June. I want to make sure my readers, especially in our union, know what my blogspot is all about. Our members either seem to love it or hate it. There has been a certain amount of, I believe, unwarranted angst. I felt the need to set the record straight on what I am doing and why. I refer back to this manifesto a lot myself. I am happy to say I stayed the course providing a report and commentary for you, the TSU teacher union members, who elected me as your representative. I believe I've at least touched upon each of the many different issues I raised and look forward to continue developing these further in the year ahead. Read it sometime if you haven't all ready. Know my aim is true.
#8] Just Supposin' -A Christmas Blogger's Tale [Nov 9]. Some political satire here on events within our unit this fall. It seems to get a lot of repeat reads from our members as they put 2+2 together. If anybody doesn't like it, well so be it. As politicians we are public figures. I would doubt if more than 12 to a maximum of 24 members have a really good idea of our internal political affairs. We have over 2200 members. That is just plain wrong.
#9] My Team TSU A+ List Candidates Report Card [May 9]. My TSU election picks for the spring election, and an explanation of why I recommended them.
#10] A Canuck's Guide To Manhattan NYC [Sept.1]. My blogspot kept active throughout the summer holidays. My travel blogs from Mexico [July] and Cuba [August] were also very well read. They were more of a series than a specific post like this one. The number of reader hits for each is split and therefore don't add up enough to push any one specific blog into the Top Ten. Basically, in July I went diving along the Mayan Riviera and visited the ruins at Chichen-Itza. In August I visited the schools and my teacher buddies in Santiago de Cuba. The latter is an ongoing part of the education development aid work I began with the CSP: Cuba Schools Project in 1992.
So there you are. Now let me list the Top 5 Blogs for the last month. They haven't had as long a run on my blogsite because they are more recent. My blogs with the most reader hits often seem to gather momentum and thus numbers over time. So to perhaps balance things out here these are too;
#1] Our Chalkers Pub Night [Oct 29]. I guess a lot of folks had a really good time or just like my party reviews because it's on my year's Top Ten list too. Hmmmm.
#2] Our Social Media and Confidentiality Agreements [Dec 11]. A pretty big news story that attracted a lot of member attention. Sometimes it's necessary to be the whistle blower, though you might well imagine how this went over in some quarters. Knowledge is power. I would be remiss as your elected executive member to sit by and say nothing. In this social media cyber age none of us are, politically speaking, kings living in castles anymore. A lot if not all of my concerns seem to have since been very well addressed and clarified in a more transparent public manner by your duly elected reps whom you chose to serve and represent you. It just took a long time because of all the other nonsense going on.
#3] Holding hands [Dec. 6] A Christmas story about my mum, my sister and me.
#4] Politics of Shool and Office [May 27th] Yup. Folks are still reading this one a lot. For shame on the culprits. This is not what our teacher's union is all about. It's about serving the members and not ourselves. There are of course a lot of very fine executive members who I have worked with over the past 4 years. I am very proud of all the great work we have done for our members. It is an honour to work with them. Yet there's always another very loathsome and odious, not to mention unprofessional undercurrent among other, let's say personally ambitious wannabies, which continues through to this day. I would venture to say we will be seeing a lot more of this b.s. in the run-up to our May TSU Executive election this year, especially since it's also a Presidential election, and then of course, there are the other 2 school release time positions up for grabs too. Ho boy.
#5] Just Supposin' -A Christmas Blogger's Tale [Nov 9]. Ditto. More of the same.
Bubbling just under the top 5 is my December Update and Summary [Dec 18], the last blog before we broke for Christmas holidays and my regular local readers went off on your merry ways. It's still a pretty good catch-up on what I have been doing recently as your duly elected TSU 3rd VP, and my own teacher and union views on how things are going.
Anyhow, thanks for reading. I will continue with my teacher and union news and views, travel blogs, stories and whatever else comes across my cyber-scanner. Don't forget there's lots of artwork, photos and the like to see. There's my Youtube Videobar. The polls and games. My pets to feed. I plan to travel a lot again this year. I'd like to add a Poetry and Prose page. We'll see. It's definately not all teacher and union stuff here on my Blogspot, and I plan to keep it as interesting as possible for all my readers. Here's to another blog year ahead as I continue to develop this site!
I've been reviewing my blog statistics and have promised a year end review. I can tell you how many reader visits I get each day and where they originate. There's more, but let's leave it at that. Today I will examine the number of visits, where they originate, and which have been my most read blogs. First I will do so by the year, and then for the last month also, to balance things out. Of course since my blogspot first came online in late March it's not been quite a whole year. At first I just tinkered about fine tuning nad setting it up.Then the blogs started flowing in earnest during April. That was during my TSU [Toronto Secondary Unit] teacher's union executive re-election campaign as your TSU 3rd VP, and continued into May. I've continued to grow the site from there. So here are some stats:
Readership: This is the total number of readers who visit my blogspot. As of New Years Eve, I had reached 8550 visits, or reader "hits" as they say in the biz, for the past year. It's slow right now, what with the teacher readers like myself just enjoying the Christmas holidays. Indeed 3/4's of my readers are here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 2nd place goes to the USA, 3rd to Russia, and 4th to the UK. That has remained pretty constant all year, with a smattering of other readers from South America, Asia, and the other European countries. Even considering this months tally of 900 visits the readership location breakdown has pretty much remained exactly the same all year long. However I have seen a constant rise in my Russian readership, recently up to 3rd place, especially for my travel blogs on Cuba, Mexico and New York. My non-Canadian readers also seem to like my Toronto stories, which may be of less interest here, for obvious reasons. Still it's nice to be able to tell folk about what life's like, and what we do.
Okay, so here are my Top 10 Most Read Blogs from April to now, based upon the number of reader hits for each. Please be reminded that my Blog Archive is located below this centre blog column on my site. I will give you the dates should you wish to read or revisit any;
#1] Youtube: Who Speaks For Children? [Sept. 16]. This was first posted in April, but I kept re posting it with additional comments during our teacher union campaign in this fall's Ontario provincial election. It outlines our OECTA teacher strategy to emphasis the need to elect an education friendly government.
#2] TSU Rocks The Madison Pub [June 18]. This was our teacher's kick off pub to launch the campaign, spread the word and recruit volunteers from our secondary schools, for the fall Ontario election.
#3] Our TSU Chalkers Pub Night [Oct 29]. This was our annual TSU fall pub night. A lot of our teachers seemed to enjoy it, as a night to get out and socialize with their colleagues from across the city.
#4] The Politics of School and Office [May 27]. A report, in part, on the ugly aftermath of our own May TSU union executive election. Some losing candidates take it pretty personal. They often go out of their way to make it difficult for the rest of us to constructively carry on with our union work for the membership. This will happen whether they are on executive or not. Sad but true! I'd guess they will continue until they get enough of their members elected to control the executive by themselves, or so they'd hope. This self serving nonsense has been going on with the same crowd for the past 3 elections. My blog continues to get a lot of reads, I'd suppose as folks put 1+1 together and figure out who these public figures are, and how they work.
#5] In School Voting By-law -A Pig In A Poke? [May 20]. A follow up on how hastily politically motivated legislation can wrack havoc, as it did this spring, when it was first fledgingly introduced as a result of a half thought out campaign promise by a few very desperate candidates seeking union election the year before.
#6] News Flash: Self Directed PD Approved! [April14]: This was basically my first biggie. It continues to gather reads as others find out about how our teacher's union worked with the school board, to create a system whereby our teacher members could set up and determine their own Professional Development Days, based on their own teacher needs. I posted this here right after it was publically announced, to some consternation. Our union executive has accomplished a lot with these joint committees over the past 4 years. A lot of other teachers elsewhere seem very interested indeed. I'm glad to share the good news, especially across Canada and abroad!
#7] My Blogspot Manifesto [Nov 15]: This has been re posted twice, first appearing in June. I want to make sure my readers, especially in our union, know what my blogspot is all about. Our members either seem to love it or hate it. There has been a certain amount of, I believe, unwarranted angst. I felt the need to set the record straight on what I am doing and why. I refer back to this manifesto a lot myself. I am happy to say I stayed the course providing a report and commentary for you, the TSU teacher union members, who elected me as your representative. I believe I've at least touched upon each of the many different issues I raised and look forward to continue developing these further in the year ahead. Read it sometime if you haven't all ready. Know my aim is true.
#8] Just Supposin' -A Christmas Blogger's Tale [Nov 9]. Some political satire here on events within our unit this fall. It seems to get a lot of repeat reads from our members as they put 2+2 together. If anybody doesn't like it, well so be it. As politicians we are public figures. I would doubt if more than 12 to a maximum of 24 members have a really good idea of our internal political affairs. We have over 2200 members. That is just plain wrong.
#9] My Team TSU A+ List Candidates Report Card [May 9]. My TSU election picks for the spring election, and an explanation of why I recommended them.
#10] A Canuck's Guide To Manhattan NYC [Sept.1]. My blogspot kept active throughout the summer holidays. My travel blogs from Mexico [July] and Cuba [August] were also very well read. They were more of a series than a specific post like this one. The number of reader hits for each is split and therefore don't add up enough to push any one specific blog into the Top Ten. Basically, in July I went diving along the Mayan Riviera and visited the ruins at Chichen-Itza. In August I visited the schools and my teacher buddies in Santiago de Cuba. The latter is an ongoing part of the education development aid work I began with the CSP: Cuba Schools Project in 1992.
So there you are. Now let me list the Top 5 Blogs for the last month. They haven't had as long a run on my blogsite because they are more recent. My blogs with the most reader hits often seem to gather momentum and thus numbers over time. So to perhaps balance things out here these are too;
#1] Our Chalkers Pub Night [Oct 29]. I guess a lot of folks had a really good time or just like my party reviews because it's on my year's Top Ten list too. Hmmmm.
#2] Our Social Media and Confidentiality Agreements [Dec 11]. A pretty big news story that attracted a lot of member attention. Sometimes it's necessary to be the whistle blower, though you might well imagine how this went over in some quarters. Knowledge is power. I would be remiss as your elected executive member to sit by and say nothing. In this social media cyber age none of us are, politically speaking, kings living in castles anymore. A lot if not all of my concerns seem to have since been very well addressed and clarified in a more transparent public manner by your duly elected reps whom you chose to serve and represent you. It just took a long time because of all the other nonsense going on.
#3] Holding hands [Dec. 6] A Christmas story about my mum, my sister and me.
#4] Politics of Shool and Office [May 27th] Yup. Folks are still reading this one a lot. For shame on the culprits. This is not what our teacher's union is all about. It's about serving the members and not ourselves. There are of course a lot of very fine executive members who I have worked with over the past 4 years. I am very proud of all the great work we have done for our members. It is an honour to work with them. Yet there's always another very loathsome and odious, not to mention unprofessional undercurrent among other, let's say personally ambitious wannabies, which continues through to this day. I would venture to say we will be seeing a lot more of this b.s. in the run-up to our May TSU Executive election this year, especially since it's also a Presidential election, and then of course, there are the other 2 school release time positions up for grabs too. Ho boy.
#5] Just Supposin' -A Christmas Blogger's Tale [Nov 9]. Ditto. More of the same.
Bubbling just under the top 5 is my December Update and Summary [Dec 18], the last blog before we broke for Christmas holidays and my regular local readers went off on your merry ways. It's still a pretty good catch-up on what I have been doing recently as your duly elected TSU 3rd VP, and my own teacher and union views on how things are going.
Anyhow, thanks for reading. I will continue with my teacher and union news and views, travel blogs, stories and whatever else comes across my cyber-scanner. Don't forget there's lots of artwork, photos and the like to see. There's my Youtube Videobar. The polls and games. My pets to feed. I plan to travel a lot again this year. I'd like to add a Poetry and Prose page. We'll see. It's definately not all teacher and union stuff here on my Blogspot, and I plan to keep it as interesting as possible for all my readers. Here's to another blog year ahead as I continue to develop this site!