With a half million visitors in the average month, MNet's Web site is the public face of our organization. As in past years, we've seen some parts of the site increase in traffic while others remain consistently popular.
The biggest change over the last year has been the readership of this blog, which climbed consistently over 2008 to more than triple the previous year's average. Like many educational sites we tend to lose some traffic in the summer months but the blog beat that trend, continuing to climb through July and August.
Another popular destination was our section on stereotyping of women in the media, which was consistently in the top five pages visited. We recently updated this section with new statistics, references and examples, so it's not surprising that it's remained a draw. Of course, our Teacher's Index and Lesson Library, the gateway to our hundreds of free lesson plans and resources, were also popular throughout the year.
Our educational games page is always one of our top-rated sections, and this year was no different: the addition of Passport to the Internet and Co-Co's Adversmarts: An Interactive Unit on Food Marketing on the Web increased traffic to those pages by over fifty percent by the end of 2008. Our games Privacy Playground: The First Adventure of the Three CyberPigs, Cybersense and Nonsense: The Second Adventure of the Three Cyberpigs and Jo Cool or Jo Fool: Interactive Module and Quiz on Critical Thinking for the Internetremained popular, with each one ranking in the top ten nearly every month of 2008.
The comprehensive teacher's guides for our educational games were our top downloads for 2008. Also popular was our research report, Young Canadians in a Wired World, which remains an invaluable resource on Canadian youth and the Internet. Our most frequently downloaded lesson was "The Price of Happiness," which shows students in Grades 8 to 12 how advertising presents images of men and women. Other popular materials were the handout "Deconstructing Web Pages" and "Gender Messages in Alcohol Advertising," showing that gender and body image, online authentication and tobacco and alcohol advertising remain hot topics.
Thanks to all our readers and visitors and keep watching for new lessons, games and resources in the coming year!