New York Districts With Web Sites: the State of the Arts

     It is safe to say that the Internet has proved to be a very useful tool for K-12 education though there is still no sufficient empirical studies to verify the benefits. It seems that the benefits are self-evident. But to what extent that school districts in New York have utilized the new technology? What we can learn from those who have their own web pages? What the incorporation of the Internet means to school management in the 1990s? Our group project is to provide a "state of the art" scenario about New York school districts and individual school buildings with operating web sites. This paper, as part of the scenario, provide my observation and analysis on the school district's homepages listed by the Web 66.

1. How are the districts' pages used?

     There are 74 school district homepages so far that listed by Web 66 (up to Nov. 6, 1996). About 10 of them can not be accessed and there are three pages are listed twice. So there are about 61 district homepages are currently accessable. There are 161 individual school sites that are listed by Web66, some of them have been linked to their district homepage, some have not. Thus although there are about half of the district homepages have their individual school buildings as sublinks, only a limited number of them could be called electronically connected. For example, some district's homepage have a high school sublink, but actually the sublink is dead-ended, in most cases it simply gives basic information of the high school and thus cannot be regarded as an independent web site.

     Looking at those viewable district homepages, we can roughly divide them into three types in light of their perceived functions:

     As a Billboard. This kind of pages usually provide basic information about the districts, such as the mission statement, board of education, brief introduction to the schools, and email addresses of some teachers and administrators, or students and teacher's works. Its function is very simple. For example, the Bay Shore Union Free School District Homepage is one of the kind. The content of the page is very simple: Board of Education, mission statement, and Bay Shore School points of pride. It contains only one sub link which offers basic information of one school, which is the bottom of the page. It simply lacks any attractiveness. I think neither the students of the districts nor the parents would be interested in viewing it. This kind of pages are the worst among all the homepages. Unfortunately, we don't lack of such pages among New York school districts.

     As a springboard. Some districts' pages function as a springboard to the internet, which provide selected links of the internet for students, or/and teachers and administrators, and parents. The Fredonia Central School District Homepage is a typical one. It serves as a internet gateway which provides exclusively guidance to the Internet, especially college oriented information, such as financial aid, and college and university pages. The Hancock Central School District Homepage and Syosset Central School District Homepage are other examples that serves as springboard to the internet.

     As a comprehensive learning center. This is the most advanced homepage which have multiple functions. Take Oriskany Central School District Homepage as an example. On the first level, the page contains 14 parts: community history; local information, which contains several sublinks, one of them is a very good local homepage (Rome labs); points of interests; elementary school information; middle school information; guidance, which is the course description; art; media center, which serves as the gateway to the Internet; computer, which is itself a homepage that provide computer related links such as Microsoft, IBM, Apple, etc.; clubs, which contains various student and teacher or combined clubs in the district; sports; music; schedules; and finally, calendar. Another example is the Putnam Valley Central School District Homepage. Of the many functions it provides, I am very interested in its special project, which a staff member provides one recommended site each week. The best way for transfering knowledge is to teach kids how to obtain knowledge. The effort Putnum School District has made can help student avoid the waste of time and money when they surf the net.

     The most exciting pages in this group, in my opinion, is the Sachem School District Homepage (http://www.sachem.k12.ny.us/). Sachem is the largest suburban school district in the state of New York, with over 14,500 students attending annually. The Sachem world wide web site is one of the most comprehensive K-12 sites. They claimed that they have revolutionized the way they interact with each other. Although originally the web site was designed for students to access their homework assignments through the Internet, it functions just like a comprehensive learning center. According to the record, since Feb. 1, 1996, this page has been hit 2.1 million times, as compared to the fact that the CNN has been hit 6 million times so far (according to news from News Radio 590 WROW) as well as the fact that some school district sites have been visited a miserable hundreds of times during a similar period of time.

     There are also other functions that only a very few school district homepages have. For example, the Gilbertsville Mount Upton Central School District provides parents and students with real-time chat (I cannot join in because it needs Java device). It must be very useful to give parents a convenient way to discuss their children's education among themselves, or with teachers and administrators. I wonder how it really works. I also wonder why there are not many districts employ such a good communication technology.

     The fact that those homepages function differently reflects different attitudes of the district administration toward the use of Internet in K-12 education. Although factors such as technology sophistication and finance might play a role in the development of these homepages, we can feel that some districts are fully realized the opportunities the Internet has brought about to the school education, such as Sachem, while others have not taken advantages of it though they created their own pages on the net.

2. How the pages are constructed?

     Corresponding to the perceived functions of the homepage, their structures vary from flat or two level, closed system to multi-layered, hierarchical, open systems. Generally speaking, the more the homepages intend to function, the more varied audience they intend to serve, the more sophisticated the structure is.

     Closed systems. About half of the accessable district pages are closed systems which provide no links to the individual school buildings. Usually, these pages are simple, with less than three levels of structure, and their sub-levels are dead-ended. You can go nowhere from what they provided. The Catholic Schools of Brome County is an example of flat structured, closed system. All the materials are presented from top to the bottom without any sublinks. Elmira City School District Homepage and Elwood Public Schools Homepage are other examples which have only two levels in structure. The second level is the school level without any further links. Although many of those closed systems are newly constructed, there is no sign showing that they will change the closed system to an open one.

     Open systems. Those homepages are advanced, sophisticated systems which not only provide linkes to the individual school buildings but also includes many other categorized links to the local and Internet links. Most of the sublinks are also lead to other links. For example, some district's homepages have four levels internally: district level, school level, department level, and course level. The external links could be found in each of the four level. This kind of homepage usually has multiple functions, as we mentioned above: it is a billboard in the sense that it provide general information's about the districts, schools, community, etc.; it is a springboard to the internet by providing useful links; it provides searching engines; it is a conference by providing chatrooms for their clienteles. Unfortunately, we don't have much many of such good pages. Further more, not all open systems are as comprehensive as Putnam Valley and Oriscany's. For example, the Greece Central School District Page is an open system but rather simple. Although it offers recommended internet links there is not much other things to see. Roughly one fifth of the total pages can be called comprehensive, open systems.

     Most individual school building pages are sublinks of their district's homepage, thus they are usually simpler. The more sophisticated school pages are high school ones while the elementary school pages seem to be rare and not attractive. I guess the reason is because most of the school pages are created or maintained by students while the district homepages are created or maintained by staff members or technology teams.

3. Who are the intended audience?

     The intended audience of the homepages seems to be mixed. Some are exclusively for students, like Hasting-on-Hudson Union Free School District page which is really course study oriented. Some are designed for students, parents, teachers and administrators. Generally speaking, the relatively more advanced homepages are those whose audience are combined. For Example, Orange County Public Schools homepage presents the resources specifically into three categories: teacher's, student's and parent's, indicating that they have three group of people as audience.

4. Beyond the pages.

     To my surprise, the academic performance has not been emphasized within most of the web page message, even those whose intended audiences are the students and parents. More often we see some pages provides community information, activities, even lunch menu. But we cannot find much information about secondary Regent performance. There are not many pages that have library links either. It seems to me that many homepages have not been used as an active tool in K-12 teaching and learning practice.

     There is another thing need to point out is that the homepage itself might not reflect the actual situation of the district's incorporation of modern technology in K-12 education. For example, Albion Central School is "one of the most advanced computer networks for school districts in New York State". Each of its three school buildings are interconnected with fiber optics forming a district-wide area network. The buildings have a local area network that allows the sharing of software, CD ROMs and related resources. But the district's homepage has nothing impressive. Is it because they have already had multiple resources thus the homepage is not an important tool for them?

     Another observation is while most of the school districts and buildings present themselves as a single system on the web, school districts in Brome-Tioga County present themselves as subsystems within the Brome-Tioga County Schools Homepage. The Brome-Tioga page is an impressive one but all its school district pages are designed with a similar pattern, which can at best be said as mediocre.

     Judging from the current situation of those school district web sites, it will be difficult to monitor the development of these pages because there are so many of them and the difference are so big. However, the state Department of Education may play a more active role in linking all the pages together, perhaps using its homepage as the headquarters of all district web sites.

Summary

     By and large, the New York school district web pages demonstrate different technological sophistication, different understanding of the impact of technology on learning, as well as different attitudes of school administration among the districts toward the using of information superhighway in school education. There is also a question of cost beyond the pages. Some districts have a technology team, while others have only one person, still some rely on their students in creating and maintaining the web pages. Nevertheless, the creation of web pages is the first step in the attempt to link districts and schools within New York State, US, or internationally. Looking at those good homepages such as Putnam Valley, Sachem, Syracuse City, one can easily find out that they are not simply some good web sites students can use in their learning, they are at the same time symbols that the community are proud of, places where students, parents, teachers and administrators can hang on. They can add much to the school culture. I think the cultural function of school district web sites deserve further attention and exploration. In a word, although the using of Internet in K-12 schooling is both effective and efficient and the development seems to be rapid, more efforts are still needed to make administrators involved in integrating it into educational practice.