The Education Forum > Forum Usage Stats

Andy Walker

Dec 21 2004, 12:45 PM

Below are copied the latest statistics on how busy various sections of the forum have been recently. The numbers represent visits rather than posts.

It is very clear from these figures that we need to think of ways to enliven many sections of the forum if we are to develop as a forum for teachers. There may well also be strong arguments for rationalising the structure we have at present.

Members who have ideas on how this might be achieved are invited to post them here.

QUOTE

JFK Assassination Debate 63190
JFK Online Seminars 10174
Biographical Details 3183
Forum Information, Development and Communication 2396
Political Debates 2395
E-HELP Members 1727
Debates in Education 1161
Forum Birthday Party 1118
E-HELP Associates 1039
Political Conspiracies 1030
ICT 1014
Modern Languages 744
History:Resources 715
Non-Academic Discussions 688
Vietnam War 608
E-Learning 482
English:Curriculum Issues 433
History Debates 349
Media:Curriculum Issues 346
Social Sciences: Changes in Society 339
English:Resources 319
Cold War 289
ICT:Help 283
History 263
JFK Books 262
ICT:Curriculum Issues 253
English 250
Special Educational Needs 183
Music:Resources 164
Media Studies 154
MFL:Curriculum Issues 153
Second World War 147
History:Curriculum Issues 146
Life and Death of JFK 142
Nazi Germany 137
Website Management 135
History Student Questions: Ask an Expert 128
Black History 126
Art:Help 124
Science 118
First World War 117
EFL 116
Government Initiatives 106
Svensktalande 104
Maths:Curriculum Issues 98
Social Sciences:Resources 96
Black History 92
PE:Curriculum Issues 88
Spanish Civil War 84
History Department 83
History of Russia 76
ICT:Resources 73
Schools History Project 73
American West 69
Cross Curricular Teaching Resources 69
History of Medicine 67
Media:Resources 67
Geography:Curriculum Issues 64
Cross Curricular Cooperation 59
Design and Technology 59
Nederlands 59
History:Help 58
Science:Curriculum Issues 56
Economics and Business Studies 50
Holocaust 46
Science:Resources 42
Politics: Resources 42
Nordic History 42
MFL:Resources 42
Economics: Curriculum Issues 39
English:Help 38
Physical Education 35
2nd World War Debates and Questions 30
Environmental Issues 30
Music:Curriculum Issues 27
Resources 26
Science:Help 23
History of India 21
Spring Europe 19
Government and Politics 18
Student Teacher Support 18
Deutsch 16
Information 15
Social Sciences:Curriculum Issues 11
Pastoral Care 6
Welcome to Cooperative Learning 6
ICT: Ask an Expert 6
Philosophy of History 5
Cross Curricular Cooperation 4
Geography:Resources 3
PE:Resources 2
Economics: Resources 2
Geography 1
Art:Resources 1
Social Sciences 1
Politics: Curriculum Issues 1
Resources 1
History 0
Total 99409

John Simkin

Dec 21 2004, 06:22 PM

These figures reveal the problem.

Top 20 posters

John Simkin (2,345)

Andy Walker (759)

Wim Dankbaar (690) JFK

Graham Davies (544) ML and Education

Tim Carroll (497) JFK and History

Shanet Clark (409) JFK and History

James Richards (363) JFK

William Plumlee (298) JFK

Jack White (287) JFK

Derek McMillan (287) ICT, Politics and Education

David Richardson (274) ICT, ML and Education

Marco Koene (260) ICT

Ron Ecker (256) JFK

Richard Jones-Nerzic (240) History and Education

Larry Hancock (232) JFK

Larry Peters (220) JFK

Tim Gratz (208) JFK

Jean Walker (205) Education

Dalibor Svoboda (179) History

Nancy Eldreth (161) JFK

Andy and myself post in most sections. However, most other members concentrate on one or two sections. Except for the JFK section, most other sections do not have a body of regular posters. You need around five or six per group for it to really take off.

I have tried to get the JFK people to become involved in the history and politics sections. So far this has had only moderate success.

I have also mass-mailed members about threads that I think have overall appeal (books, film, education, etc.). This has obtained short-term success but it has failed to persuade members to be regular posters in that area.

I have tried to bring members together with the online party. I will do another of these mass mailings later today.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those in this list who have worked so hard to make the forum a success. We have a long way to go but we have had a promising first year.

Andy Walker

Dec 21 2004, 06:36 PM

QUOTE (John Simkin @ Dec 21 2004, 06:22 PM)

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those in this list who have worked so hard to make the forum a success. We have a long way to go but we have had a promising first year.

I second this!

My aim in the New Year will be to enliven the curriculum areas. This I think is the greatest challenge but could bring the most rewards. Many organisations with significantly greater resources than us have tried to create fora for teachers across the curriculum areas and failed - the GTC, and the Technology Colleges Trust are two very noted examples who have failed to grab the interest of teachers.

I would also like the acknowledge the extraordinary number of hours John puts into trying to make this forum work. We have had some success this year - JFK thrives, E-Help is taking off and their have been some very interesting debates involving a wide variety of posters. All of this is down to John's phenomenal work rate and persistence.

I will be looking in the New Year for volunteers within subject areas who would be willing to a) lead a discussion related to their curriculum area and b ) upload and share some resources online with colleagues.

I will mass mail people after christmas and hopefully I will be deluged with volunteers.

Andy Walker

May 9 2005, 02:11 PM

Latest activity on the forum listed below

Topic Views (8 February 2005 to 10 May 2005)
JFK Assassination Debate 103183
Political Conspiracies 11154
E-HELP Seminars 7752
Watergate 3517
Biographical Details 3351
History Debates 2451
E-HELP Associates 2096
Political Debates 2047
E-HELP 1639
Debates in Education 1384
E-HELP Members 1086
JFK Online Seminars 1049
E-Learning 886
History:Resources 769
Non-Academic Discussions 761
Government Initiatives 721
Special Educational Needs 583
JFK Books 578
Debates 521
Black History 455
Dance and Drama 443
Svensktalande 425
Forum Information, Development and Communication 419
Media:Curriculum Issues 406
EFL 404
Design Technology:Resources 375
ATW Departments 367
English:Curriculum Issues 357
PE:Resources 346
Science 333
English 330
Ceská a Slovenská cást fóra. 319
History of Russia 312
Social Sciences: Changes in Society 308
Nederlands 288
ICT 287
Resources 276
Music:Curriculum Issues 258
ICT:Help 220
2nd World War Debates and Questions 214
Experiences of International Schools 213
Environmental Issues 210
Pastoral Care 204
Curriculum Issues 186
Economics: Curriculum Issues 178
Art:Curriculum Issues 148
Modern Languages 146
History of India 142
Information 139
History:Curriculum Issues 137
History:Help 126
History 121
Holocaust 114
MFL:Curriculum Issues 113
English:Help 107
Life and Death of JFK 100
MFL:Resources 99
ICT:Resources 95
Economics and Business Studies 87
Philosophy of History 84
Government and Politics 82
Politics: Resources 81
Social Sciences:Resources 72
English:Resources 62
Administration Issues 62
Watergate 55
Social Sciences:Curriculum Issues 44
ICT 39
Music:Help 33
Politics: Curriculum Issues 15
Sección en español 11

Mike Tribe

May 9 2005, 02:50 PM

Do you see any trends in the new set of figures?

John got angry with me when I mentioned that it seemed to me that the forum was coming to be dominated by JFK and conspiracy theory messages, so I hesitate to mention it again. There have been times in the past couple of months when almost all the active topics have been related to some sort of conspiracy... I can understand that this is absorbingly interesting to a restricted sort of audience, but its purely educational application must be seen as somewhat limited.

The effect of this is a bit off-putting. There are other forums which are not so dominated by a single topic, and perhaps many potential contributors prefer to spend their time there. I understand that there wouldn't be an Education Forum without John's efforts, that the JFK thing is one of his enthusiasms, and that he has every right to indulge this on his forum, but it would seem to me that there must be a downside if people check in to the forum for the first time and see 23 threads relating to various arcane aspects of the JFK conspiracy, 12 relating to a variety of other conspiracies, and 4 of a more generally "educational" nature. First impressions are important, and a new visitor could be forgiven for thinking they'd strayed into the website of a conspiracy theorists' convention...

I also understand that you and John have no control over who chooses to contribute to the forum. If everyone who writes wants to write about JFK, then those will be the active threads. I know John works very hard to try to persuade people of contribute across the board, and he had some success with the Holocaust denial debate, the Vietnam debate, and various Christian things, but the balance is still off to one side, isn't it?

Andy Walker

May 9 2005, 04:10 PM

QUOTE (mike tribe @ May 9 2005, 02:50 PM)

Do you see any trends in the new set of figures?

John got angry with me when I mentioned that it seemed to me that the forum was coming to be dominated by JFK and conspiracy theory messages, so I hesitate to mention it again. There have been times in the past couple of months when almost all the active topics have been related to some sort of conspiracy... I can understand that this is absorbingly interesting to a restricted sort of audience, but its purely educational application must be seen as somewhat limited.

The effect of this is a bit off-putting. There are other forums which are not so dominated by a single topic, and perhaps many potential contributors prefer to spend their time there. I understand that there wouldn't be an Education Forum without John's efforts, that the JFK thing is one of his enthusiasms, and that he has every right to indulge this on his forum, but it would seem to me that there must be a downside if people check in to the forum for the first time and see 23 threads relating to various arcane aspects of the JFK conspiracy, 12 relating to a variety of other conspiracies, and 4 of a more generally "educational" nature. First impressions are important, and a new visitor could be forgiven for thinking they'd strayed into the website of a conspiracy theorists' convention...

I also understand that you and John have no control over who chooses to contribute to the forum. If everyone who writes wants to write about JFK, then those will be the active threads. I know John works very hard to try to persuade people of contribute across the board, and he had some success with the Holocaust denial debate, the Vietnam debate, and various Christian things, but the balance is still off to one side, isn't it?

Forums do develop with people's enthusiasms.

Arguably this forum has far too broader aims to achieve the sort of success we would all like to see in all of its component parts.

However, what has been achieved is the coming together of a very interesting and diverse set of posters - this I think is very much worth keeping hold of. I am therefore against any radical restructuring at this stage. The quality of discussion here is also far superior to that of the "bear pits" of the TES forum and others. This too is something we should carefully nurture.

It is very difficult to get teachers to contribute regularly and sadly even harder to get many of them to share resources and ideas

This does not mean however that we should give up!

John Simkin

May 9 2005, 04:16 PM

I think the amount of page impressions for the E-HELP seminars is very encouraging. So also is the section on Watergate that was only established a week ago.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showforum=217

The idea is to create teaching resources and forum debates on Watergate. I suggest we do something similar on European History. First we need to come up with a topic that creates passion in its contributors. It would also help if it is linked to the history of other big internet users such as America, Canada and Australia. One possibility is something controversial on the Second World War. Maybe an examination of the concept of a “war crime”.

Any other ideas?

John Simkin

May 10 2005, 10:05 AM

As part of the E-HELP project I have started an international discussion on war crimes in the 20th Century.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3813

Hopefully, people from a wide range of different countries will join in this debate. To start the ball rolling I have posted an article that appeared in today’s Guardian. Richard Drayton is senior lecturer in history at Cambridge University.

Shanet Clark

May 15 2005, 11:20 PM

John and Andy;

I want to thank the members,
(I became a SUPER MEMBER today for my 1000th post).

More importantly; nearly one hundred people have read my recent Social Sciences post on Dr. Raymond Dart, and twenty have read it in just the past day.

This is firm evidence that the JFK assassination/government oversight group and the academic international group are coming together and forming a community.

When I joined last year the academic posts were often unread, but the dynamic of the group synthesis has changed, and grown, thanks to both the academics and the JFK people ...

Thank you all very much.....

Derek McMillan

May 30 2005, 04:55 PM

I think it was inevitable that the JFK section would grow. It is a rather good one.

I have sought to encourage NUT members to take an interest in the forum, for example by putting links on the West Sussex Teachers Association website http://wsta.org.uk and the http://socialistteachers.org.uk website.

It might be a good idea to encourage members of other teachers' organisations as well (well except PAT obviously

I think the "view new posts" could possibly group postings on the same subject if people are being put off by the number of JFK posts. This would make it easier to see new postings in an area which interests new visitors.

OTOH that might be one of those things which seem easy to ask but are actually quite difficult in practice.

J. Raymond Carroll

May 31 2005, 12:29 AM

QUOTE (Derek McMillan @ May 30 2005, 04:55 PM)

I think the "view new posts" could possibly group postings on the same subject if people are being put off by the number of JFK posts. This would make it easier to see new postings in an area which interests new visitors.
OTOH that might be one of those things which seem easy to ask but are actually quite difficult in practice.

I think members of the JFK forum would not feel the least bit slighted if our stuff was shunted off the front page. I suspect most of us go directly to the JFK page anyway.

Re: Passionate History Topic: I don't know if this has come up on the History Forum yet, but the recent controversy sparked by President Bush's remarks about Yalta has led some commentators to ask whether Yalta was a sellout to Stalin. Would that topic get the juices flowing?

Graham Davies

May 31 2005, 11:08 AM

Derek writes:

QUOTE

I think the "view new posts" could possibly group postings on the same subject if people are being put off by the number of JFK posts. This would make it easier to see new postings in an area which interests new visitors.

The JFK section has turned into a "site within a site". While I can appreciate the interest that this topic has generated, it may also lead some visitors to perceive the Education Forum as being irrelevant to their subject area. I would like to see more postings on e-learning pedagogy, for example. The DfES in the UK is pouring vast amounts of money into e-learning (which, incidentally, is defined by the DfES as "using ICT" and does not necessarily imply distance learning), and I therefore believe that one of our major concerns should be how e-learning can really contribute to improved learning and teaching across the curriculum.

Caterina Gasparini

May 31 2005, 08:28 PM

QUOTE (Graham Davies @ May 31 2005, 11:08 AM)

Derek writes:

QUOTE

I think the "view new posts" could possibly group postings on the same subject if people are being put off by the number of JFK posts. This would make it easier to see new postings in an area which interests new visitors.

The JFK section has turned into a "site within a site". While I can appreciate the interest that this topic has generated, it may also lead some visitors to perceive the Education Forum as being irrelevant to their subject area. I would like to see more postings on e-learning pedagogy, for example. The DfES in the UK is pouring vast amounts of money into e-learning (which, incidentally, is defined by the DfES as "using ICT" and does not necessarily imply distance learning), and I therefore believe that one of our major concerns should be how e-learning can really contribute to improved learning and teaching across the curriculum.

I find it positively amazing to see that the JFK debate can attract so many people and have so many postings. I have never had enough time to read more than a few of them, nor do I feel particularly involved in the debate, but the fact that so many people are interested in the topic could represent a history case study itself.
While I agree that new visitors may find this a little strange, it is also an indicator of what (many) members' interests seem to be at present.
I also agree with Graham that there should be more postings in other subject areas as well.

Dan Moorhouse

Jun 4 2005, 11:45 PM

QUOTE (Derek McMillan @ May 30 2005, 03:55 PM)

I think it was inevitable that the JFK section would grow. It is a rather good one.

I think the "view new posts" could possibly group postings on the same subject if people are being put off by the number of JFK posts. This would make it easier to see new postings in an area which interests new visitors.

Agreed, the JFK debate was an ineviatable 'big' area on this forum. If someone isn't interested they can of course use their user settings to block even seeing the contentes of that sub forum, or the posts of any particular poster they don't wish to read. Assuming that Andy and John have got the most recent version of the sotfware, all of that is entirely feasible. Simple enough for an individual user to block another user, group, forum, sub forum or thread from appearing on his / her updates list.

John Simkin

Jun 5 2005, 12:11 PM

QUOTE (J. Raymond Carroll @ May 30 2005, 11:29 PM)

Re: Passionate History Topic: I don't know if this has come up on the History Forum yet, but the recent controversy sparked by President Bush's remarks about Yalta has led some commentators to ask whether Yalta was a sellout to Stalin. Would that topic get the juices flowing?

I would very much like to have a dynamic section on the Cold War. We in fact a large number of members from both sides of the Iron Curtain who could contribute a great deal to debates on this topic (in fact far more than the number of JFK posters). These people also hold very different views on the subject ranging from extreme right-wing Cold War warriors to left-wing libertarians. We even have a few people willing to defend the communist governments of Eastern Europe.

Like Graham I would also like to see a lot more postings about e-learning. The E-HELP seminars on ICT and history have been fairly successful. I am very keen to do something similar for the rest of the curriculum. Maybe on topics that are not subject specific. Anyone willing to volunteer to start threads/seminars on e-learning?

Susan Wilde

Jun 21 2005, 01:48 PM

I rarely look in any other sections, but I tried quite hard to stimulate interest in the English section because I believe in the theory of sharing resources and discussing teaching issues - but I see that there have been hardly any posts in there since Xmas .. (tho the Lang List email /newsgroup thing still flourishes)

I am a veteran user of other forums and there seem to me to be a couple of key reasons why elements of this one have floundered - but you wont like what I have to say !

firstly the structure here is far too complex - there are too many subdivisions, so it is very hard for passers-by and inexperienced users to find a niche --- but I dunno how easy that is to unpick now? Obviously loads of work went into it, but without enough awarness of new end-users

Also - sad but true - some posters are too fond of their own voices or pet themes, and long posts that are guaranteed to alienate casual users ..

(and usually with no white space either --- if you MUST write reams, allow ppl to scan it and leave a line! )

Then there was the overspill of conspiracy theories into real-life which led to a sudden surge in the verbosity of posts from here, and the compexity of log in process that killed off a few ppl who were fledging users - including myself for a while ... (tho I seem to have managed it today!)

I would suggest that this time of year is a good one for recruitment, as we have a bit less stress in this term hence I was browsing about and popped back in

But this is probably the biggest issue: I heard on the grapevine that ppl prefer to use the TES site, so maybe they dont need this one for English? I just had a quick look and it is immediatly easy to see that it is clearer and more user friendly, and there is just ONE forum for English, so you can sift through threads, back over 52 pages and ones that ppl want to add to can be brought back to the top ...

*shrugs*

John Simkin

Jun 21 2005, 02:40 PM

QUOTE (Susan Wilde @ Jun 21 2005, 12:48 PM)

I rarely look in any other sections, but I tried quite hard to stimulate interest in the English section because I believe in the theory of sharing resources and discussing teaching issues - but I see that there have been hardly any posts in there since Xmas .. (tho the Lang List email /newsgroup thing still flourishes)

We are very dependent on forum section leaders. If that person is not very active in encouraging debate, that section tends to die. The forum has become unbalanced because some moderators are much more active than others. We are aware of the problem, but until we can persuade people to become much more active moderators, we will not be able to solve it.

Mike Toliver

Jun 21 2005, 02:41 PM

A few days ago, I asked Andy to take me off the forum. My reasons are very well stated by Susan (thanks!). I especially find the obsession with conspiracies troubling, primarily because much of what I've seen on those threads is tightly-held opinion, little tolerance for alternative points of view, and a lack of critical thought. Such things are horrible examples for educators and students.

I initially joined because John asked me to, based on my presence on his Spartacus site as a Vietnam veteran who was willing to be interviewed by students. I envisioned this site as an expanded version of that, with people sharing resources on various topics and exchanging ideas. While that has happened, much of it has been buried by CT.

If it was my site, I'd find a way to spin off all the CT stuff and leave the rest of the site for the rest of us. And I agree with Susan; the site is overly complex (even w/o CT).

I do appreciate the amount of work that's gone into this, but until the site becomes more about education, I'll say "so long".

Graham Davies

Jun 21 2005, 04:00 PM

I tend to agree with Susan and with Mike. The conspiracy theories sections have dominated this forum to such an extent that teachers coming in from disciplines that have no interest whatsoever in conspiracy theories may well be put off joining and contributing to the forum. And the structure of the forum is a bit complex. It's not easy to locate individual sections or to browse the archives. I have tried to enliven the modern languages section, but discussions either fail to start or die within a few days - which is not very encouraging. It's not that teachers in my discipline have no interest in education issues in general and no interest in ICT in particular. I am a member of the Linguanet Forum and the Languages ICT forum, both of which are active throughout the year and both of which have archives which are easy to search:

http://www.mailbase.org.uk/lists/linguanet-forum
http://www.mailbase.org.uk/lists/languagesict-forum

Teachers of foreign languages have a lot to discuss. Our subject is in real danger of dying out in secondary education in England, as a direct result of a goverment policy that no longer requires a foreign language to be studied by children over the age of 14. We are all very p*ssed off by the way the government treats our subject.