Running head: WEBSITE EVALUATION 1

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1 Running head: WEBSITE EVALUATION 1 Website Evaluation Keith George University of Alabama Interactive Multimedia Processes AIL 605 Dr. M. Rice March 21, 2014

2 WEBSITE EVALUATION 2 Website Evaluation Introduction The evaluation of educational websites presents a complex problem it involves the aspects of good web design as well as effective delivery of educational content. The ability to deliver this content in an attractive and engaging way has eluded many designers, leaving the 21 st Century student with a wide array of educational websites that across the continuum of very bad to very good. Effective Web Design Management The Center for Digital Education (CDE) conducts an annual competition to highlight the best in educational web design. The Digital Education Achievement Awards focus on four criteria to judge submissions- Innovation, Features, Functionality, and Performance Expectations ("About the Awards," n.d.). These criteria align well with the Educational Website Review Guidelines (Bitter & Pierson, 2001, p. 141). Bitter and Pierson s (2001) User Interface and Design along with Ease of Use, Navigation and Accessibility would be included in the Center for Digital Education s Functionality. The CDE s Features criteria would include Bitter and Pierson s Content while the Innovation from CDE would fall under Audience Appeal and Suitability. Documentation and Credibility from Bitter and Pierson would be covered by Performance Expectations in the CDE s criteria. While there are hundreds of additional web design guides and criteria (See Lynch & Horton, 2005; Schrock, 2002; Howells, 2011) the criteria used are all very similar. Using the Center for Digital Education s guidelines as the basis, the purpose of this paper was to examine two different interactive websites in order to identify examples of both good and

The ability to deliver this content in an attractive and engaging way has eluded many designers, leaving the 21 st Century student with a wide array of educational websites that across the continuum

3 WEBSITE EVALUATION 3 bad web design in educational sites. To include an aspect of fairness an attempt was made to select examples from the same content area, in this case Social Studies. As the selections were made, the author also elected to select sites with similar educational goals. The sites selected were The Webrangers site ( by the United States National Park Service and Scholastic s Interactive Tour of Ellis Island ( immigration/tour/). Both sites have as at least a secondary purpose of increasing students interest in history. Evaluation of The Webrangers The Webrangers site is an educational program of the U.S. National Park Service. It is an online club that students can join and participants in a variety of activities. Innovation This site contains many interactive features that likely were, at the time of their development, very innovative. Most menus and selection tools are interactive spinners or mouseover animations. If you browse all of the activities, there are dozens of interactive games and activities. However, all of these games and activities were created with either Flash or Shockwave making the entire site useless to the growing ios tablet community of students. Features The content of the site overall is very educational with links to related information and a teachers guide that covers most activities. However, the learning objects themselves often seem contrived just to create a related game. For instance, a game included that is related to the

gov/webrangers/) by the United States National Park Service and Scholastic s Interactive Tour of Ellis Island (http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/ immigration/tour/).

4 WEBSITE EVALUATION 4 salmon in Cascades National Park is simply a fish in a stream that, by using the arrows keys, must dodge other fish, rocks, and the occasional fisherman s net. There is little educational value to the game. Functionality The same game is an example of another issue with the Webrangers site. The simplicity of the game would not likely hold the interest of most students today. While it is easy to play and seems to work well on a computer there are no on screen controls and, as it is Flash-based it would not even display on an ios device such as an ipad. Performance Expectations While cost information is not available on this project, one can surmise that the project was quite expensive to implement when first released. There is no copyright date on the site or on the Teacher Resource Guide but based upon the standards included in the Teachers Guide the site was likely developed between 1997 and Even though this is nothing more than an educated guess, the site is obviously dated. The welcome page to the site states, We have recently updated this site to make it even more fun. These updates appear to be limited to the tracking of student progress through the earning of badges. All other aspects of the site use technologies that are not normally employed in new releases. Overall Evaluation The Webrangers site is a very valuable idea and has great potential to become a beneficial interactive educational site for kids. While some improvements appear to have been

The simplicity of the game would not likely hold the interest of most students today.

5 WEBSITE EVALUATION 5 made recently, the collection of learning objects is in need of a refresh, both in the technology used to create them and in their educational value. Currently, very few of the learning objects would score higher than a two or three on the Learning Object Review Instrument or LORI (Leacock & Nesbit, 2007). The site has great potential but is in need of an overhaul. Evaluation of Interactive Tour of Ellis Island Scholastic s Interactive Tour of Ellis Island is a well designed site that seeks to educate students about the role of Ellis Island played in the history of immigration in the United States. Innovation The technologies used in this site are not the latest and greatest however, the included features work well and provide a level of interactivity that will keep students engaged. By using standard formatted multimedia objects, Scholastic has ensured compatibility across a wide array of devices. Features In many respects, an educational website designer must always remember the mantra It s all about the content. The team at Scholastic has certainly followed this path. The site is beautiful even though it doesn t try to utilize high-end techniques. The graphics are very well designed and the site combines text, video, graphics and sounds in a way that looks great but also does not require the inclusion of technologies that limit accessibility. This makes the site accessible from a wide variety of devices and ensures that is will remain accessible for many incarnations of future technologies.

The site has great potential but is in need of an overhaul.

6 WEBSITE EVALUATION 6 Functionality The Interactive Tour of Ellis Island site worked exceptionally well during the review period. The site loaded quickly and all elements of the learning object worked flawlessly. Again, by using reliable standard formats in creative ways the designers created a site that looks great because of the high quality graphics but incorporates a variety of multimedia elements. The multimedia elements are embedded into the graphics giving the appearance of a more complex site without the inconsistent performance that other methods must accept. The site was easy to navigate and since each different type of multimedia element was in its own tab, switching back and forth was easy and seamless. Performance Expectations The designers of this site may have invested heavily in graphic design but this will provide long-term returns as the graphics provide the visual appeal rather than the learning objects themselves. By placing the learning objects in containers in the graphics, the designers have allowed for the objects to be updated independently of the entire site. Over the life of the site, this will certainly reduce costs and provide design flexibility for updates. Overall Evaluation The Interactive Tour of Ellis Island is a wonderful educational site for students primarily because even though the designers created a beautiful site, they followed the mantra of content first. The design allows for the content to be the focus of the learning objects. The focus is on the educational aspects rather than the design.

Again, by using reliable standard formats in creative ways the designers created a site that looks great because of the high quality graphics but incorporates a variety of multimedia elements.

7 WEBSITE EVALUATION 7 References About the Digital Education Achievement and Best of the Web Awards. (n.d.). Retrieved from Education-Achievement-and-Best-of-the-Web-Awards.html Bitter, G., & Pierson, M. (2001). Using technology in the classroom (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Howells, L. (2011, December 16). A Guide to heuristic website reviews [Blog post]. Retrieved from Leacock, T. L., & Nesbit, J. C. (2007). A framework for evaluating the quality of moultimedia learning resources. Educational Technology & Society, 10(2), Lynch, P., & Horton, S. (2005). Web Style Guide. Retrieved March 18, 2014, from Schrock, K. (2002). The ABC s of website evaluation. Retrieved from

Howells, L. (2011, December 16). A Guide to heuristic website reviews [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2011/12/16/guide-heuristic-websitereviews/ Leacock, T. L., & Nesbit, J.

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