Analysis of Educational Website - Article Example

Analysis of Educational Website Introduction Since antiquity, education remained a major component of human societies; however, until few decades ago, it existed in the society in its traditional and conventional form that involved one-to-one interaction of teachers with their students in classrooms. Since few years, educators and scholars have witnessed rapid advancements in the field of information and technology that has altered almost every sector of the society in a rapid manner, and so the education sector as well. In such advancements, internet has now become one of the most popular platforms for students, teachers, businesspersons, and individuals from every sector to acquire education and information within few clicks and minutes. In other words, availability of information has now become an easy process that used to be a troublesome process in the past. For this purpose, in order to recognize the contribution of internet in the field of education, the paper will specifically identify an educational website, and will carry out its analysis to evaluate the extent of internet in terms of facilitating people from different and diverse backgrounds regardless of their cast, color, and creed. In particular, the researcher chose the Google search engine (2010) to carry out its research for locating an efficient educational website, and within few minutes and with few clicks, it was the official website of “the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies” (SE, 2010) to make an impression that inclined the research to select this website for the analysis. Home Page (SE, 2010) of the selected website gives a simple and soothing look with the picture of a tree that somehow indicates the motive of the institution to provide educational resources to individuals, and tree seemed the best possible picture to illustrate such motive of the institution. Unlike other educational websites, this website (SE, 2010) has a more corporate look with no jumping animations that show the formal educational perspective of the institution. In addition, home page of the institution welcomes visitors with different categories to cater education-seeking individuals effectively. In this regard, whole website is in the division of three categories: Educators, Families, and Students (SE, 2010). Before going in detail to analyze the three divisions, the website enables the visitor to acquire some brief information about the institution itself through the ‘About Us’ page (SE, 2010). ‘About Us’ page begins with brief paragraph about the institution and specifically, its mission and objectives in simple language. For instance, the page says, “The mission of the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies is to increase the Smithsonian Institution’s impact as a national educational organization” (SE, 2010). This clearly indicates the objective of institution in clear and simple words. Besides one-liner mission, the institution has endeavored to indicate the reason of launching the website while describing some of the other achievements, such as publishing and circulation of an interactive educational journal for teachers associated with junior and middle schools namely, “Smithsonian in Your Classroom” (SE, 2010). Analysis has pointed out that the institution is enjoying collaboration with state education authorities as well that shows the authenticity and integrity of the institution. In addition to introduction of its achievements, programs, and efforts, the ‘About Us’ page has mailing address of the institution along with basic details, such as phone numbers, fax, and email address that can be helpful for education seekers. Lastly, this page has introduced whole team of the website that consists of executive director, director of publications, senior media designer, and IT specialist (SE, 2010). One of the significant attributes of Smithsonian website (SE, 2010) is easy access to all the links unlike other websites that take time to load due to heavy animations. However, this website is very fast, has visible links and simple pages that enable the visitors to locate and acquire the required information in quick and effective manner. Analysis of the website continued with next page, ‘News’ that allows the visitors to remain updated with happenings in the institution; however, the last news on this page dates back to April 2009 that doubts the updating process of the website, or it is possible that there would have been no news after April 2009 (SE, 2010). Still, this is a value-added page for the visitors to get extra information about the institution. Now the analysis will focus on major divisions of the Smithsonian website (SE, 2010). The first division is for the educators with the slogan of “Prepare, Plan, Teach” (SE, 2010), which indicates the notion of creating different page for the educators. In this regard, clarity of the objectives is one of the other qualities of this website, as it has published them effectively. Besides objectives, the educators’ page facilitates teachers with different services, such as lesson plans, resource library, and access to materials based on different state standards (SE, 2010) that is an extraordinary option of the website, not available in other educational websites, identified during the website search. In particular, the lesson plan section has archives of huge number of lesson plans that are available in pdf format for the educators to use and implement them in their classrooms. Although various educational websites offer lesson plans, however, the significant attribute about this website is categorization of huge number of lesson plans in different areas of study, such as “Art & Design, Science & Technology, History & Culture, and Language Arts” (SE, 2010). Besides this categorization, the website allows the educators to find lessons plans according to their specific requirements of topics, grades, and subjects (SE, 2010). In grades, the website is currently offering lessons plans for educators teaching from pre-nursery to 12 grade, as well as lesson plans for educating general audience that is another noteworthy difference of this website from others. All the lesson plans available on this website are free of cost and anyone regardless of any nationality or religion can download the lesson plans without filling out any form or subscribing for any letter that usually is a practice on majority of the websites. However, Smithsonian Institute (SE, 2010) has been efficient in fulfilling its objectives by offering everything free of cost. Nevertheless, registration would have been an imperative tool of keeping a database of educators that benefit from the services of the institute that would have been beneficial for the institute as well in improving their services more effectively and appropriately. Another interesting attribute of this website is its efforts for the promotion of museum-related objects and subjects. For instance, every page of the website has a picture, painting, portrait, etc with its details that is an efficient way of providing education on the spot to the visitors. Moreover, besides providing details of the picture or painting, the website also indicates utilization of the particular picture or painting in the lesson plan that is available in the database, which allows the visitor to use them in the perfect manner. In addition to the lesson plans, Resource Library (SE, 2010) is another significant section of this extraordinary website that offers an easy access to huge number of websites, lessons, essays, news, pictures, paintings, speeches, dictionaries, etc based on specific requirements. In brief, educators have to enter only a keyword, and there comes a huge list of resources relevant to the entered keyword. Once again, the websites allows the educators to acquire limited results by selection options of grades, subjects, as well as museums. Analysis has indicated that this website will be playing an influential and contributive role in enhancing the standards of education in the United States, as well as globally through its reach to thousands of educators in different parts of the world. Second division of the website focuses on families with slogan of “connect, relate, appeal” (SE, 2010) that indicates institution’s endorsement to the contemporary notion of education system that creates a triangular relationship of teachers, students, and parents. Visit is the foremost page (SE, 2010) for the families that is a way of institution to promote off-class learning of students with their families. In this way, visit page encourages families to visit museums in their localities; however, the page does not limit to the museums and facilitates families by informing them about other things that they can do while planning a trip to the museum that somehow reduces the uninteresting aspect that museums usually bring with them. Another interesting feature in the family division is the availability of activity sheets of students for downloading that enables the families, and especially parents to know about the activities that their children perform at schools, so this indirectly encourages families to indulge in education-related discussions at homes. Lastly, the most important division of this website is for students with the slogan of “explore, discover, and learn” (SE, 2010). This division is more interactive and livelier as compared with other divisions of the website. Like educators, the website offers students to explore different websites, activities, games, etc of the Smithsonian Institute interactively. For instance, the page says, “Create online art, make a viewfinder, or learn about George Washington by looking at his portrait—these sites will bring out the artist in you!” (SE, 2010). In another example, “Track buffalo, make a light bulb, or learn all about anatomy on our science and nature sites” (SE, 2010) that relates to the exploration of science and technology. As examples indicate, team of the website has put enormous efforts to use motivational language terms that may incline students to click the links and explore new pages and learn new things about human life. Besides language, there has been an increased usage of colorful pictures to attract students towards the process of education interactively. ‘Idea Labs’ (SE, 2010) is another interactive page of the website is a kind of database of resources; however, keeping in view the level of students, there are no options of searching through keywords, and everything is on the plate ready with pictured links. For instance, an interactive resource is “Mr. President” (SE, 2010) that says, “Visit Mr. President to learn the facts about each of our nation’s presidents. It’s a great place for browsing, research, or homework help” (SE, 2010). In this way, the website has done an extraordinary work of promoting educational resources to the educators, families, and the students in simple, formal, and interactive manner. Conclusively, the website is a recommendation for all the individuals interested in seeking education, teaching, or learning interactive methodologies to deal with the students. Finally, the paper has discussed some of the significant aspects of the official website of the Smithsonian Institute (SE, 2010). It is an expectation that the paper will be beneficial for students, teachers, and professionals in better understanding of the topic. Works Cited Google. Google – Search Engine, 2010. Retrieved on February 10, 2010: http://www.google.com SE. “About Us.” Smithsonian Education. Retrieved on February 10, 2010: http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/tools/about.html SE. “Educators: Prepare, Plan, Teach.” Smithsonian Education. Retrieved on February 10, 2010: http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/index.html SE. “Explore by Topic.” Smithsonian Education. Retrieved on February 10, 2010: http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/students/explore_by_topic/explore_by_topic.html SE. “Families: Connect, Relate, Appeal.” Smithsonian Education. Retrieved on February 10, 2010: http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/families/index.html SE. “History & Culture.” Smithsonian Education. Retrieved on February 10, 2010: http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/history_culture.html SE. “Home Page.” Smithsonian Education, 2010. Retrieved on February 10, 2010: http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/index.html SE. “Idea Labs.” Smithsonian Education. Retrieved on February 10, 2010: http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/students/idealabs/idealabs.html SE. “News.” Smithsonian Education. Retrieved on February 10, 2010: http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/tools/news.html SE. “Resource Library.” Smithsonian Education. Retrieved on February 10, 2010: http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/resource_library/resource_library.asp SE. “Students: A Place for Kids to Explore, Discover, & Learn.” Smithsonian Education. Retrieved on February 10, 2010: http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/students/index.html Read More