300,000 hits: What does it mean?

Over Easter weekend, Water for Sixth Grade hit 300,000 page views. WSG began in the school year of 2008-2009, making the current school year the fifth school year I've used this blog to help teach my class. Over the last five years, WSG has changed looks many times and evolved as a learning tool to hopefully provide a good resource and learning opportunity. Each year saw a rise in blog posts. In 2008: 52 blog posts. 2009: 57 blog posts. 2010: 62 blog posts. 2011: 131 blog posts. 2012: 189 blog posts. Overall, I've published 543 blog posts. These blog posts have been a variety of learning tools, writing prompts, informational, review, and sharing. During the school year, WSG gets on average 15,000 page views/month. With the 300,000 hit for WSG, I have been doing some reflecting. Water for Sixth Grade has 300,000 hits, so what does that mean? Simply put: not much. I have learned that getting a lot of hits isn't and shouldn't be the focus. The focus of a website should be helping your students learn. Isn't that the overall goal anyway? Of those 300,000 hits, many are random, meaningless hits. It's not like people all over the world are flocking to WSG to partake in some ancient civilization assignments or checking everyday to see what new posts I've published. To be honest, I have no idea how/why it has so many hits. WSG is not going to change the world, it is not going to "go viral" and make national news. And that's okay. The point of this blog and any educational/class website isn't to get famous or to try to get hits. It's to help students learn. I don't care how many countries view my site. All I care about is that it helps my students learn, review, share, interact, collaborate, and grow. The only stat I care about is 127, which is the number of students I have this year and the number of students I want to help and impact. Yes, I am proud of my website but not because of 300,000 hits, but because I know my students and parents use it and benefit from it. My blog will not change the world and I'm okay with that. My blog will not make me famous and I'm okay with that. From the start, my goal has always been to provide a website, an extension of  my classroom, for my students to help them learn.  If you look at WSG, you will not find a hit counter unless you scroll way down on the site. The top of the page should be things the students need or things that will help them learn or things they can do. The only reason I have a "cluster map" on my site at all is because....actually, I don't know why. Perhaps I'll take it off.  Well, enough about stats and page views. Maybe I'll talk about them again with hit number 400,000 but between now and then, I'm going to talk about the ancient worlds and skills that will help my students succeed. So, my students, you might be asking yourself, "Why is Mr. Klumper telling me this?" The answer is simple: I want to make sure you know the point of having this website is to help you learn. If you think having a lot of hits is cool, that's okay. But what I really hope is that you come here and learn!

So, should we have a piece of cake in celebrating hit number 300,000? Nope. No thanks. However, I will share a piece of cake with you in celebrating learning, growing, and being good people. Enjoy!

-Mr. Klumper