My precious clustrmap

My poor little map, you started to break out in spots

Then I realised they that they were in fact good dots,

Somone was actually visiting me

So I started writing with glee!!

Giving you prime spot I put you right up at the top

But now that you are so red, you are at the bottom

However, even there you are never forgotten.

Once I had learned how to add widgets to my blog, I inserted a clustr map. The sheer delight and excitement of red dots appearing have to be experienced to be believed. I hear shouts of excitement in my classroom from students when dots appear. Now, when I start my lesson, I know that I have to allow several minutes for students to check out their maps as this is the first thing they do. Screens all around the room have maps enlarged (double clicking on them) and discussion takes place as to the country’s origin.

Do blogs improve learning outcomes? Yes, yes, yes! They are one of the most motivational factors that I have witnessed in teaching. For those wary souls out there, if nothing else, knowledge of geography has improved vastly with clustrmaps. In a recent post prompt of students, I asked students how they determined which countries the dots were from and these were their answers:-

-a real atlas
-the ditgital atlas on our computer network
-asking a teacher or fellow student.

However each 12 months, the clustr map is reset. I haven’t had the heart to tell my students that yet!!!

Some interesting comments on my post prompt, came from other teachers within our school and I shall add them below:-

Jess:-I love my Clustrmap too! I usually have it on the front page of my blog so I see it all the time. It makes me feel good to know that people are stopping by my blog! The effect that is has on my blogging is motivating me to write a post when maybe I wasn’t going to because it is confirmation that people think I have something to say that is interesting
Wendy S I love our class cluster map and we get very excited checking out who has visited our site. We are going to have to get a big map of the world to work out some countries. WOW, Yes, another country, where’s that?: are some of the words I have heard from the kids.

Margm Couldn’t agree more with all these comments Anne. I LOVE seeing my visitors and my own knowledge of geography is increasing as we rush to the map to see where the country might be. It’s actually lovely to feel the same excitement that the kids feel and you can appreciate the motivation it is to continue blogging. Thanks to you and Jess for your continued inspiration. We love you lots xoxoxox