Educational Web Portal's Use in the Study of Environmental Sciences - Essay Example

While environmental science has gained a lot of attention of people in general and the educationalists in particular in the advanced economies, it remains a relatively neglected area of education in the third world countries primarily because there are several issues of much greater importance like poverty, hunger, violence, and terrorism that need to be solved before the people can pay attention towards the environment. Reduced emphasis of the government and the people in power on environmental sciences as an area of research and education restrains people’s access to the potential sources of information related to environmental sciences in the third world countries.

In such circumstances, there is dire need of an online network that encapsulates all the required information about environmental sciences and one that is constantly upgraded and updated to make the latest findings and knowledge generated from the ongoing research and surveys in the advanced countries accessible to the interested learners in the third world countries. An educational web portal is a very effective tool to inculcate knowledge about the environmental science. People can connect with one another to form a learning community using the educational web portals. . Educational web portals host research, lesson plans, and online course work, provides parents with a means to access the grades, monitor student outcomes, and satisfy the reporting standards established by the state.

Educational web portals develop a common gateway to all the services and data that people need to share knowledge and jointly work on the environmental science projects. Educational web portals can be developed using such basic technologies as Windows Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. Rapid availability of these technologies and expertise in their use extends the investment’s value in the Microsoft technologies. Educational web portals help the people achieve different kinds of goals and tasks that include but are not limited to the development of online communities for collaboration among the learners, administrators and the subject experts.

“Portals, when properly designed, increase both effectiveness and efficiency of an institution…[and] can be used as an effective communication tool” (Popovic et al., 2005, p. 322). People can use the educational web portals to improve the sharing of best practices in the industry among the members of the community. Users of the educational web portals can access the institution’s resources whenever required. The online document libraries available on the educational web portals are constantly updated with latest research findings and important documents like conference proceedings.

When educational web portals are implemented in schools, it provides several kinds of services including lunch ordering, and online class registration. Educational web portals use dashboards to display updated performance data of the students. Students can share information with the community members, school