Google Analytics and Research Partners

The old way, yikes!

The Google site Shared with parents of the Gifted Academic Program students now has Google Analytics enabled so data can be capture identifying how many visitors view the site, how many per page, how long they stay, and what percentage of new to return visitors. This will add another layer of data to what the surveys say and how many comments were left by the visitors.

Initially, getting this feature installed was a bit of a problem. Repeat visits to IT personnel kept everyone on alert as day after day codes were not 'sticking' to pages and tracking appeared uninstalled. However, after a couple weeks the glitches were identified (or actually, were overcome since some snags seemed to disappear after repeated attempts to install).

Another arm to a digital class...

This year we address another aspect of digital learning in this middle school research class -- connecting home experts to school research efforts. A website called Research Partners has been built with different pages for each research topic this semester. Parents and families of class members are encouraged to review the site, choose one or more topics that appeal to them and offer ideas for expert resources. The point is to use the digital arena to have these 7th and 8th grade researchers learn that local resources can be primary sources.

Connecting home experts to school research efforts. Libraries offer
workshops and tutorials for finding primary sources.