SlideShare, Diigo, and Google Analytics
The PowerPoint presentation on SlideShare I chose to look at was titled Teaching Well Using Technology. This presentation immediately caught my eye because my thesis and dissertation both involve improving teaching and learning. Two years ago I also interviewed more than 60 faculty to discover the value of large and small technology projects in teaching. This PowerPoint presentation gives some good statistics profiling the average learner in college. It also provides some good thoughtful questions every faculty member should ask when thinking about using technology in the classroom.
I have attached below an excerpt from John Hilton’s blog. I highlighted a portion of his blog using Diigo, a fun tool that I like.
I am actually having the same problem John is experiencing with getting Google Analytics on my site. I believe the problem stems from not having the latest version of Word Press downloaded. I did download the files, however, the problem is that I don’t have access to the server at the moment where I can upload those files, and then insert the code into my blog. Hmm. I will have to figure something out.
We do use Google Analytics where I work at FamilyLink.com. I think analytics are very important. They help you know what is going well with your site, what is not working well, where people are visiting on your site, how long they are staying there, who is visiting, what kinds of browsers they are using, etc. Information is power. Google Analytics are powerful information.
I think we should definitely utilize analytics more readily in education. First, I think we need to teach students how to use access and use this information. Second, we need to have something in education that we are trying to measure or simply something that we want to make better. This way we can use the analytics as a guide for improvement.