a8

Educational forums at a glance

Site Genre: Pattern Group a

magnify image Figure A8.1 Phillips Academy’s Web site provides resources that bring together parents, teachers, and alumni mentors to support student education.

Background

Educational sites promote learning by providing schools, universities, and online institutions with a way to publicize using NEWS MOSAICS (A2), to build COMMUNITY CONFERENCES (A3) for student development, to deliver online learning and research tools, and to offer courses online. This pattern describes the keys to making these types of sites succeed.

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PROBLEM

Bringing together students, parents, mentors, alumni, and educators is essential to educational sites. If no forum among these groups is created, the students’ education suffers, and so does the institution.

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SOLUTION

magnify image FigureA8.4 An educational forum is a secure area where students, parents, teachers, and mentors can share concerns, present ideas, and codevelop and share activities.

Provide news and information for students, potential students, former students, parents, mentors, and teachers. Help coordinate offline activities by supplying class schedules, reading lists, exam schedules, and contact and office hour information for teachers and administrators. As a part of student registration, gather parent and student e-mail and phone information for direct updates. Optionally publish curricula and research for site visitors from other schools and universities. To create a forum for online students, parents, teachers, mentor support of student development, create a secure area on the site that provides the following:Direct communication between parents and teachers, students and teachers and students and mentors, Public communication between students in the same class and the teacher, Parent-teacher conferences, Online writing, exhibits, experiments, exercises, projects, and other activities, Online course material, Online examinations

Other Patterns to Consider

Basic Educational Forums To address the needs of the different audiences using the site, use a HOMEPAGE PORTAL (C1) with MULTIPLE WAYS TO NAVIGATE (B1) to the class information, teacher backgrounds and contact information, department information, and school background. Provide news on the homepage and CATEGORY PAGES (B8), each with CONTENT MODULES (D2) containing stories about accomplishments, events, and plans. If you create an online student application and registration system, use a PROCESS FUNNEL (H1) to facilitate a smooth process. Update entire classes, the entire school, and alumni with E-MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS (E2) to school announcements and weekly schedules. As an option, use CONTENT MODULES (D2) to publish class curricula and research on the site.Advanced Educational ForumsTo create a forum for online student-parent-teacher-mentor support of student development, create a secure area using SECURE CONNECTIONS (E6) and have people create non-anonymous accounts using SIGN-IN/NEW ACCOUNT (H2). Once a person has signed in, show PERSONALIZED CONTENT (D4) on the homepage for each visitor, with class news and links. Within the class information for students, provide a directory of teacher contact information, and e-mail addresses for student-student and student-mentor communication. Within the class information for parents and mentors, provide only the teacher and mentee contact information. For each class, create a MESSAGE BOARD (D5) for student-parent-teacher-mentor parent discussions, as well as a separate message board for teacher-parent discussions. Provide students with Web publishing tools and a directory to upload class projects. Publish course materials online and keep the material engaging by using the STIMULATING ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT (A9) pattern. To conduct online examinations, bring students into a PROCESS FUNNEL (H1) to complete questions dynamically generated in CONTENT MODULES (D2). Alternatively, link to an existing courseware system, such as WebCT or Blackboard, for online exams, grading, and course management.

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