Friday, December 31, 2010

You Never Know (Top Ten Posts From 2010)


New Year's Eve is my least favorite holiday, mainly because I'm a lifelong early riser and staying up past midnight screws me up for several days thereafter. That said, I like the idea of celebrating the new year, being a natural time to reflect, to take stock, and then get on with your life of doing. So without further ado, I'll get on with what all the cool kids are doing and take a look at my first full Gregorian calendar year as a blogger.

Here are the posts you read the most this year, followed by a few statistical details about Teacher Tom's blogging year that I, at least, found interesting.




2.  Ghost Mud



4.  Boy Art



The blog saw a 1001.23 percent increase in readership in 2010, perhaps not particularly impressive given that I was only at it for the last 6 months in 2009, the comparison period, but still it feels good to look back and see the last year has been a time of growth. Nearly 100,000 visitors dropped by the site, viewing nearly 200,000 pages in the process.

Most of you live in the U.S., but one of the beauty parts of the internet is that geography is no longer a factor, although language continues to be. The top ten Teacher Tom reading nations in 2010 were:

  1. U.S.
  2. Australia
  3. Canada
  4. United Kingdom
  5. Singapore
  6. New Zealand
  7. Italy
  8. Germany
  9. Philippines
  10. India

And, of course, it's only natural that my home town (Seattle) was number one when it came to breaking it down by cities, but Australia lead the way with 4 of the top 10:

  1. Seattle
  2. Melbourne
  3. Sydney
  4. London
  5. Silver Spring (MD)
  6. New York
  7. Austin (TX)
  8. Perth
  9. Chicago
  10. Brisbane

Most of the other statistics are even more navel-gazingly boring than these, although I was interested in the top "key words" typed into search engines to find the blog. If you exclude all the versions of "Teacher Tom," or "Teacher Tom's blog," the top searches are:

  1. preschool water wall
  2. reflection of a preschool teacher
  3. sea otter lyrics chris david

Now I get how the "water wall" search takes people to Teacher Tom because I wrote a couple posts on the topic, and "reflection of a preschool teacher" makes sense because the tag line at the top of the blog used to read "Reflections on teaching and learning from preschoolers," but since the folks who used that search term only spent an average of 2 seconds on the site it tells me they are deeply disappointed. "Sea otter lyrics chris david," however seems odd, even though I know what these people are after: we sing a song in class called "Sea Otter" and I learned it from Chris David, my own daughter's preschool teacher. The sad part is I've never written a post that includes those lyrics, meaning that 255 of you have clicked away empty handed. I suppose I ought to be writing a post that includes those lyrics in the new year.

But the oddest thing of all . . . Several times a week, someone finds my blog with some version of the search term "J. William Oldenburg," and if you add them all together it amounts to one of the top ten searches used to find Teacher Tom in 2010. I tried it on Google myself, and sure enough, my post entitled "The Blueberry Story" from back in July of 2009 is at the top of the list with a "star" no less. Mr. Oldenburg, who I'm not saying is guilty of anything, is obviously still out there being charming.

It just goes to show, you never know. Blogging is a strange and wonderful thing.

Happy New Year!

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9 comments:

Miss Carrie said...

Tom...as a preschool teacher of 20 plus years I want to say that you are amazing...I would love for you to be my Childs teacher...keep up the good work!
Miss Carrie from Missouri

MOM #1 said...

I have no idea how to track stats on my blog, so I just blog blind for the few people who stop and comment, LOL.

I love stopping by and seeing something interesting, unusual, but always inspirational. I do occasionally swipe ideas for interesting things to do with my granddaughters. They don't know it yet, but they owe a lot of our fun times to you, LOL.

I guess my tiny town doesn't register as one of the top cities visiting . . . maybe I'm included in the Austin stats . . . I'm pretty close to there.

I'll stop rambling. I love all the top ten posts, they were some of my favorites too, Especially pendulum painting!

Scott said...

I'll keep spreading the word and try to get your stats up in the South.

Thanks for all the great inspiration this year.

Hanne said...

Teacher Tom is my favorite goodnight reading here in Denmark. I am a retired preschool teacher, mostly outdoors, with 35 years of working and the fantastic children still on my mind.
I love the way you reflect on your day and the way you tell the stories of your children. I really miss teaching when I read about your school and your words are touching in a very good way.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Happy new year from Hanne

Let the Children Play said...

See, now you will definately have to come visit us in Australia given we are so high up there on the list!

Just wanted to say that all of your posts this year have been favorites of mine :)

Juliet Robertson said...

What interesting stats and the posts must have been good because I remembered them all!

I'm a bit of a stats sort of person - The past 6 months have me fascinated in that someone from Rosyth which is a small town just outside Edinburgh spends over 3 times longer than the average time on my site and visits every weekend and more often.

Strangely too, it's London that I get the biggest hits from rather than Scotland. Also I get almost as many visitors from the US as I do the UK - California being the top state.

But the biggest thanks go to you, Jenny and Donna & Sherry. Your 3 websites send huge numbers of visitors my way - over 1400 visitors from you alone!

Happy New Year and Thanks!
Juliet

Play for Life said...

Like Miss Carrie ... I think you are amazing!
Like MOM#1 ... I swipe your ideas!
Like Scott ... I thank you for the great inspiration!
Like Hanne ... I love the way you tell stories!
Like Jenny ... I think you really must come and visit us!
Like Juliet ... I remember each and every one of these posts too!

Have a great New Year Tom!
Donna :) :)

Anonymous said...

Teacher Tom is my favorite goodnight interpretation at this point all the rage Denmark. I am a retired playgroup teacher, mostly outdoors, with 35 years of working and the fantastic children still on my mind.
I have a weakness for the way you consider on your day of the week and the way you expose the stories of your children. I really grieve for credo whilst I read more or less your discipline and your terms are affecting all the rage a very high-quality way.
Thank you on behalf of sharing your judgment.
Contented in mint condition time from Hanne

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Anonymous said...

J.William Oldenburg is the biggest con man that I have ever met.

He uses a phony financing scheme to con people out of up front fees.

To my knowledge, Oldenburg hasn't funded anything in several years.

Oldenburg is a chronic, lying drunk that tells stories to impress people.

This lying, drunk owes millions of dollars in judgments and IRS Liens.

Don't give this con man a penny.