Week1 Statistics for K12Online07

There are many ways to measure the “success” of an educational conference. Personally, I usually measure success by the quantity and quality of learning points I take away from a conference, as well as the personal connections I make with others. In the case of the K-12 Online Conference, organizers hope each participant as well as presenter experiences a variety of “success measures” both during and following the two weeks of the main conference.

Although not completely descriptive of “success” as measured in personal ways, the number of people participating in the conference is important and reflects a growing awareness about K12Online07 in a variety of educational circles. The following screenshots were captured at the end of the day on Friday, October 19th, and reflect participation after the first week of the conference.

The K-12 Online Conference’s ClustrMap was given a free upgrade by ClustrMaps, and as a result now reflects participation levels by continent. The following shows hits to the main conference website by IP address and global location, indicating 63,281 visits since mid-September 2007:

To put this into perspective, based on server statistical analysis for the 2006 K-12 Online Conference, organizers estimate over 54,000 people participated in all. The conference website ClustrMap on Day 1 of the 2007 Conference (October 15, 2007) showed 44,056 prior visitors:

Based strictly on user IP addresses accessing the conference website, therefore, it appears 19,225 NEW site hits to the conference website took place in week1. It is important to remember these VISITS do not represent “hits,” but rather visits based on unique IP addresses to the conference website. There are large numbers of blog spambots as well as webcrawlers which are likely included in the total visits statistic (66,281) for the conference website. It seems unlikely, however, that almost 20,000 new spambots visited the site during week 1 of the 2007 conference, however.

A reasonable conclusion? Lots of educators around the world are participating in K12Online 2007!

The upgraded ClustrMap for the conference now permits visitors to click on individual continents or regions to see how many visitors from that area were recorded in the current measured time period. Between September 16, 2007 and October 19, 2007, these maps show:

2,185 visits from computers in Europe:

709 visits from South America:

2,894 visits from Asia:

898 visits from Africa:

5,464 visits from Oceania:

52,609 visits from North America:

Technorati charts of blog posts with the tag “k12online07” (the official “anchor tag” of the 2007 K-12 Online Conference) also show increasing numbers of posts during October:

These statistics indicate high levels of participation in the 2007 K-12 Online Conference, but it’s not necessary to view maps and charts to know participation in the conference is very active this year! The web feed for conference blog comments reflects LOTS of conversations around the week 1 presentations!

K12Online07 continues tomorrow on October 22, 2007, with week 2 of conference presentations. Join the continuing conversations on the conference blog, and share K12Online with other educators with whom you work and socially network!