Counting the hits

We are a little more than half through the month of February and it has been rewarding to see the number of hits on the Web site increase.

I started this particular counter on the FSPA Web site in February 2007 and we had 646 page hits with 69 return visitors.  A year later (and not at the end of February yet) we have more than 1,000 page hits and more than 200 return visitors.  Then there's the more than 600 unique visitors, but I don't trust that count as much. You have a lot of computers that reboot in labs in schools all over the state.

But the numbers speak for themselves. It is certainly worth the effort to keep the site as updated as possible.  

How Quickly Things Change

It has been almost a year since the last post.  We've been busy!  The 2008 convention looks very good. It has truly been a joy to plan and work with the people who are energetic about the theme. One of our students at West Shore High designed the cover and it looks great.  Our vice president, Mark, and his students worked on the pre-convention booklet and did a great job.

Funny to read the posts from last year. The convention booklet is in the mail now -- almost one year from the time last year.  I think because of the the time it takes to get information solidified from everyone around the state that it just takes quite a bit of time to get this booklet together.  

It has been impressive to see the numbers of people come to the FSPA Web site to get information.  I'll post some of the graphical stats here for viewing in a bit. 

Collecting Video for on-the-go

Usually my students uncover the newest or most useful technology tidbits and then reveal them to the class in their blogs. This time, I am going to share with anyone who's reading this from FSPA a very cool app that I use a lot.

I would think our broadcast people would be most interested. But then again, if our students are as into "YouTube" as the stats show us, then perhaps any and all would enjoy this. It's located at http://vixy.net/ and essentially allows you to go get and convert the video of your choice from YouTube. The video is converted to a format of your choosing and then you can decide what you want to do with it. That's different than simply marking a video as a favorite.

Mostly I use http://vixy.net/ to convert video to take with me on my iPod. I am always interested in learning-on-the-go and have found there are great tutorials, short instruction, and good start-up musicians who I enjoy watching when I am caught waiting.

Hope there are a few out there who'd enjoy this.

The First FSPA Blog

As one who has studied the history of our organization, I might be tempted to think this is an historic moment. Wow -- FSPA has a blog. But as one who works with technology and digital multimedia I know this is such a transient moment. Software and the Web change so fast. Will we one day have a YouTube section with all of our winning videos posted? If so, would it remain as an archive? Who knows.

The main purpose of this blog is to keep all of our advisers and students of media in our Florida schools informed about what is happening with FSPA. I can type and post information faster here than anywhere else. And if you subscribe to the postings, you'll know whenever there is news. Whether it be a deadline for the student journalist of the year competition, or a reminder to send in your convention registration, we'll post reminders here. Of course you will also be able to find this information at our officcial Web site http://www.jou.ufl.edu/fspa but here we will be able to update from almost anywhere, anytime, and quickly.

It would also be great if we could generate discussion around the state within our blog. Let's get talking about what we need to do about honors credit for our Journalism courses. Let's talk and follow with action about strategies to support our new advisers in the schools.

I look forward to our dialogues...

FSPA Executive Director
Dr. Judy L Robinson