tutor2u adds 9 million unique user visits in 2011
tutor2u has recorded a 9 million increase in unique user visits to www.tutor2u.net, rise of 64% over 2010.
In the twelve months to December 2011, unique user visits are expected to reach 22.5 million compared with 13.6 million in 2010.
The tutor2u website continues to draw visitors from a broad range of international schools, colleges and other educational institutions. Whilst the UK continues to be the leading source of visitors (38% in 2011), significant user growth was sourced from India (8.5%), Malaysia (3.3%), Singapore (1.9%), Hong Kong (1.8%) and the UAE (1.8%).
A noticeable feature of the user growth was the growing use of mobile devices to access the tutor2u teaching and revision resources. Visits using smartphones and tablets increased by 332% in 2011 and now represent over 5% of visits.
The user statistics exclude traffic for tutor2u’s other family of websites including the Moodle VLE which currently hosts over 5,000 A Level students and teachers.
The most significant growth in user visits has arisen in the current academic year (2011/12) and, as a result, it is expected that traffic in 2012 will exceed 35 million visits.
Coming soon from Zondle - our new Phonics resource
The team at tutor2u’s sister firm Zondle have been hard at work developing a superb new resource for primary phonics teaching and learning. Watch this space in early 2012 for the launch. Here is a sneak preview:
Zondlescape 05
Welcome to zondlescape 005, more ideas, news and links from the team at zondle!
Primary/elementary ideas of the week:
@Primarypete_ has written an excellent blog, explaining how he’s very successfully using zondle in his classroom!
Secondary/middle/high topic of the week:
Review your ‘German Greetings and Polite Phrases’ whilst playing Crystal Canon! Thanks to Frau Mahler for this superb topic!
Did you know…
You can create your very own zondle! Make your own personal zondle avatar, to represent you on zondle! Choose colours, clothes and bizarre hair!!
Zondle Connect of the week:
‘Is it a noun? Is it a verb?’ (created by jejal) in Penalty Shootout, embedded into the ‘Student Vocabulary Study Room - roots, prefixes, suffixes’ page on Mr Tedesco’s - English Class blog by apprentice zondle power user joetedesco!
Other stuff:
A balanced view of games-based learning in the Huffington Post. An easy and informative read.
Please don’t hesitate to let us know how we can make zondle better for you!
Doug and Ben
Zondle - Some Great New Functionality for Games Based Learning
You may remember that tutor2u recently announced it had invested in Zondle.com, a provider of free games-based online learning. We caught up with the Zondle team and it’s fair to say that we’re even more excited than ever about how Zondle is progressing and growing.
Doug, the ace developer at Zondle has been been hard at work adding new features, including one suggested by a tutor2u blogger (Gareth Williams!). I have described these upgrades further below and also used the excellent Zondle video guides which show you the new features in action.
If you have a moment, please do go over to the Zondle site. Its a terrific platform to enable you (and your students) to create and share lesson activities. Zondle topics and quizzes are ideal for revision too. Best of all, Zondle is free!
Here is the link:
read more...»tutor2u scoops Marketing Prize and 4th place in Smarta 100
tutor2u, the provider of online resources for teachers and students, wowed the judges of this year’s Smarta 100 with its innovative marketing strategies and canny use of social media to scoop the Special Award for Marketing.
tutor2u topped a shortlist including hair salon Charlotte Murray, Gower Cottage Brownies, games developer Neon Play, and natural gum makers Peppersmith in this year’s Smarta 100 Awards. Over 500 companies were nominated in the awards with the final shortlist of 100 coming together for a star-studded awards evening at the O2 Arena in London.
The O2 Smarta 100Special Awards were decided by a judging panel consisting of King of Shaves founder Will King, Bebo founder Michael Birch, PR guru Lynne Franks, TV’s Sarah Beeny, creator of MySingleFriend.com and Tepilo.com, Smarta’s Shaa Wasmund and O2’s Simon Devonshire.
read more...»How Should Exams be Run? A New Investigation
An important announcement from the House of Common Select Committee on Education yesterday which I know will be of interest to many colleagues and departments. Details below if you wish to get involved.
read more...»A personal request from Geoff and Jim at tutor2u
As you may have heard, the hard-working team at tutor2u were sent some good news – we’ve been shortlisted for The O2 Smarta 100 ‘Business of the Year’ award.
Almost as soon as the news broke, an amazing, switched-on flashmob of tutor2u supporters raced over to the Award Voting page and left some lovely messages about us – we’re still gobsmacked by how supportive these messages are. They mean the world to us - every one of them.
Will tutor2u beat the other 99 candidates to win the title in 2011? It’s down to you, because it all boils down to a public vote. Like X-Factor. But luckily without Louis.
Please vote for tutor2u by clicking here.
You just need to register first but it’s simple and quick, and you don’t need to sign up for the organiser’s email newsletters. You can leave a comment too – the judges will read them all and they might make the difference! We’re loving reading what you have to say about tutor2u and our team - please do take a few seconds to sign the guest book!
Now, some of you may be thinking - how can we really get behind tutor2u in the voting process? The answer is - help spread the word! We’re up against some very impressive and effective PR agencies who currently top the leaderboard. your help in encouraging people to vote for tutor2u really will make the difference.
1. Ask your friends, family, fellow students, everyone in the staff room, the Headmaster, the dinner ladies, any visiting Ofsted Inspectors etc to vote. Send a text; email them; post a tweet.
2. To become our special hero, please update your Facebook status with this link http://www.smarta.com/smarta100/2011-winners/tutor2u
Thank you so much for supporting us. We find out on 21st September so we’ll let you know how we go.
And many thanks for your continued support…
Geoff and Jim
Introducing Give It A Go!
We’re thinking ahead to school year 2011/12 right now and we’ve got a new resource for you which we hope will support your teaching in the months ahead.
Give It A Go! is our new teacher resource blog - and this one is a little different. It is designed to provide support for the whole school in terms of ideas, approaches and resources which can be used across the curriculum and shared between departments. The focus of the blog is on creative teaching - ways to engage students, encourage participation and make learning memorable.
The Give It A Go Blog is now up and running with an initial selection of ideas - come over and take a look.
http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/giveitago/
You can keep up-to-date with the latest Give It A Go resources by following the blog on Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/t2uGiveItAGo) or by opting to receive the email digest whenever new materials are made available to download or try. To receive this digest, please follow this link:
http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=tutor2u/giveitago&loc=en_US
We hope that you find the teaching ideas on the new blog useful. Please let your colleagues know about it - particularly in other deparments who you think might like to try some new approaches to creative teaching and learning.
TBBLE on the road to Scotland and Northern Ireland!
TBBLE 2011/12 - our most popular Business Teacher CPD event - is now coming to Scotland and Northern Ireland!
In additon to the London (4 October 2011) and Manchester (13 October 2011) dates, we’re bringing the course to Belfast on 16 January 2012 and Glasgow on 23 January 2012.
(probably) The Best Business Lesson Ever (“TBBLE”) 2011 follows the same format as the sell-out course in 2010. The aim is simple - to pack as many new business teaching ideas into one day. Starters, main lesson activities, plenaries and more - all into one CPD day, with four presenters battling to win the best approval rating of the delegates! This course is suitable for every business teacher.
The London and Manchester events are now both more than 50% full, so please do get in touch with the office asap to organise some places for yourself and/or your business teaching colleagues.
To make a provisional booking, please use the form below, or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)in the tutor2u office
Book places on TBBLE 2011/12: Glasgow | Belfast | Birmingham | London
Best wishes
Jim
tutor2u enjoys record visitor growth for 2011
tutor2u has recorded record visitor statistics for the year ended 31 July 2011. In the 12 months to July 2011, the main tutor2u website (www.tutor2u.net) received 18.4 million visits, a 65.3% increase over the previous year.
The number of visitors referred by tutor2u’s daily blog digest system increased by 45.6% in the year. Over 14,000 teachers now receive a daily update of new teaching and study resources as they are added to the 12 subject blogs maintained by tutor2u.
Social media also played a key role in the website traffic growth. tutor2u’s Facebook page added 19,500 fans during the year resulting in a 368% increase in visitors directly from Facebook. Visitors from Twitter also increased, by 167% compared with 2009/10.
An increasing number of visitors found tutor2u using their mobile devices. Visits from the Facebook app, for example, grew by 4,755% Almost 100,000 visits came from iPad users (a 3,171% rise) and 175,000 iPhone users logged into the blogs during the year (a fourfold increase).
tutor2u’s 18.4 million visitors came from a total of 232 countries/territories. The top countries were UK (7.4m), USA (2.6m), India (1.5m), Malaysia (0.6m) and Australia (0.5m).
