The Web Page project is described on the EAPS 760 World Wide Web homepage as an *exercise...to describe a *state of the art* scenario about New York school districts and/or individual school buildings with operating web sites, especially those that use the internet now and may ultimately provide *Report Card* performance information to the electronically connected audience.* (Wiles, webpagedist, 1) Hints for approaching the project and directions for accessing Web 66, a listing of school web pages (which is a project of the College of Education, University of Minnesota) are contained on the homepage. In addition, seven specific questions are given, as well as five general educational policy questions. The goals were to (1) prepare a group presentation for class and (2) write individual papers based on the group*s efforts.
Method
Students in EAPS 760 were divided into three groups by the instructor, based first (I assume) on location: the Oswego cohort formed one group, and the Albany cohort formed two. There were six members of *Albany Group A,* the group which was assigned the districts with web pages report, and it seemed as if having internet access was the determining factor to membership in this group.
The groups initially met during the second half of class to discuss how to approach the projects. I was designated *temporary group leader,* a role I continued throughout the assignment. Each group member selected a question from the seven specific ones on the homepage, and we agreed to share number four, the remaining question. Initially, we spent time surfing the internet, going to the schools listed on Web 66, and offering each other suggestions for how to gather the needed information. About two weeks before the due date, I sent an electronic mail message to all group members to *tickle* them about the approaching deadline. At the class immediately prior to our presentation, we met to discuss in which order each member would report to the class, and what type of print-outs we should make. Cheryl and I suggested (not for the first time) that we use the five general educational policy questions on the homepage as a way of formatting our presentation, but we were unable to achieve consensus. We did agree that I would make an outline for use as a hand-out, and Cheryl would print, in color, several web pages.
The Questions
The outline served two purposes: it summarized the *Districts with Web Sites* questions from the homepage, and it gave the order of the presentations. We followed the order of the questions as they appeared on the EAPS 760 homepage. We used the following as the outline for our presentation:
Introduction: Gina Giuliano
Question One: Ron Shaffer
To what extent are New York State Education Department
annual reporting on academic performance and school
organization, and data on sociological or census profiles
incorporated in school site or district web pages?
Question Two: Cheryl Thomas
The Web 66 site seems the very best in listing schools with
web pages but can you find other sources and lists?
Question Three: Yong Zhang
Will use of the web for community relations and performance
reporting reinforce the intra-district networking between local
building sites and between individual schools and the central
office?
Question Four: Covered in Introduction and
Shared by Group
Why does any particular district or school choose a certain
server?
Question Five: Connie Spohn
Could we develop policy that would discuss state to national
meanings of performance for this educational system? Do
webbed schools have more in common with one another than
their nonwebbed counterparts? What about comparative
(international) perspectives?
Question Six: Gina Giuliano
Will use of the web for community relations and performance
reporting make the state*s present reliance on K-12 district
jurisdiction less important for describing *New York: The
State of Learning?* What about secondary *theme* schools
in New York City and secondary schools throughout the rest
of the state?
Question Seven: April Wojtkiewicz
Can the particular set of 82 web page districts be explained
by high Regents secondary performance, high suspension
rates, high wealth capacity, census descriptions or the
social and ethnic character of the district? If the conventional
descriptors do not work, what measures might explain the
world wide web connection?
The five general educational policy questions from the homepage are:
- How do New York districts and schools in web operation cluster statewide? Are most on Long Island, in remote areas, only in rich suburbs, big cities?
- What seems to be the intended audience(s) for the web page? Is the tone of the web page more *board and central office* or more *local school and classroom?*
- Is academic performance, especially secondary Regents performance, emphasized within the web page message?
- is the server for the district or school found in a BOCES, RIC (regionalinformation center), postsecondary organization, non-profit organization or private industry?
- Do the web page creators seem to be aware of the Bill Gates *futures* type of CD-ROM perspective in communicating what an electronically connected globe of schooling might mean? (all questions from Wiles, webpagedist, 1-4)
The Answers
I will start with a little more information about the method I used to arrive at the conclusions. At first, I read the *Districts with Web Sites* link on the EAPS 760 homepage, and spent some time accessing Web 66 and calling up a variety of school web sites. I looked at some sites in other states, and at many sites in New York State. I discovered right away that there seemed to be no easy generalizations which could be drawn about the different schools and that some web sites were impossible to access. *Those who write about this globe-spanning network are destined to labor forever behind the technological wave. Simply put, the Internet is changing so rapidly, with so many new databases, services, addresses, and projects, that it can*t be neatly encapsulated in any one set of commands or maxims. The more you use the Internet, the more you will realize that each day is itself a learning process.* (Gilster, 2)
I decided to go through the entire New York State listing on Web 66 and try to draw some conclusions about the population of schools with web pages. Using my own judgment (i.e., an internal table of authority), I grouped the schools by geographical location: whether the location is urban, rural, suburban or village; whether the location is upstate or downstate; whether the downstate schools are in New York City or thesuburbs. Then, I compared the total number of schools on the web with the total number of schools in New York State.
Finally, I divided the schools by whether they are public or private. Although none of this was done scientifically, I have fairly thorough knowledge of the communities in the state, enough to be confident that my estimates were accurate.
At the class right before the presentation, after our group met for the last time to organize the report, I sensed a little panic among some of the members about how we were going to handle question four. To me, it seemed as if it was not possible to do any of the questions without addressing number four as well, so sharing it was the natural choice. However, in order to quiet the group*s fears, I promised to say something about it when I was giving the introduction. So, I categorized the seventeen schools listed under question four on the EAPS homepage by whether the server they are using for their web site is owned by the school, a higher education institution, private industry, BOCES, or a non-profit organization.
In addressing my question, number six, there were twenty-two New York metropolitan area secondary theme schools listed on the EAPS 760 homepage. I was unable to access five of those twenty-two (Bushwick High School, Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, Sinnott Magnet School for Health and Health Careers, Stuyvesant High School, Dr. Sun Yat Sen). Most often, the problem is with the technical design of the homepage (or with its address), but sometimes problems are generated by the Local Area Network I am using, and at other times it is traffic on the World WideWeb, so I tried several times just to be certain, and was told each time *access denied.* I grouped the schools in my question by whether they are public or private, and by the type of server used by the school. Then I made bar charts so that I could easily compare them to the general population.
Now, for some of the answers to the questions posed on the EAPS 760 homepage. (See Figures I, II, III, IV, V, and VI) I counted 244 schools with web sites on Web 66; this number could be deceiving, if not completely wrong, because it includes elementary schools, secondary schools and school districts, so there is some room for duplication, especially among the public schools. I found it to be a close enough estimate for my purposes, however. This is about fifteen percent of the total number of schools in New York State (I decided to compromise and use 1500 as the total number of schools in New York State, and so begged the question of whether to use districts, elementary or secondary schools...not to mention those complicated junior-senior high schools.)
In my analysis, about half of the schools with web sites are located upstate, and half downstate; most of the schools are in urban and suburban areas; about seventeen percent of the schools are non-public schools; and a variety of different types of servers are used, including those owned by the school itself, or by a higher education institution, private industry, BOCES, or a non-profit organization. For the server question only, I did not try to categorize the entire listing of schools with web sites, but focused instead on *sample* of seventeen listed in question four. Most common owners of servers utilized by these schools are non-profit organizations. The choice of server seems todepend on many factors, including who is responsible for the web page, where the school is located, and how the homepage effort is being funded.
When looking at my question, number six, which focuses on the secondary theme schools in the New York metropolitan area, some things are similar to the general population of schools with web sites and a few things are different. (See Figures VII and IIX) First, the differences: in this group of schools, about half are private and half are public. Private industry is the most popular server used by these schools, and there was no school among this group which was using a BOCES server. Similarities are in the organization and targeting of the web pages. Some are information oriented, some are alumni/fundraising/marketing oriented, I did not notice any that emphasized secondary Regents performance. (One note is at independent schools throughout the state and at the public theme schools which I looked at, the marketing element is more evident than it is at public *non-theme* schools statewide.) Sometimes students and a faculty mentor are the originators of the web site; sometimes it is administration and/or a consultant; other times it is an alumni (or other) group. Generally, and in this order of priority, the web sites contain a logo/photo/slogan of the school; a remarkably unremarkable message (apart from the extreme enthusiasm for the web page effort) from the principal or head of the school; the school calendar; an alumni section; a student section, which often contains student web pages, e-mail addresses, the student newspaper, information on clubs, and links to other interesting sites; an academic section which describes programs but rarely lists hard data; a technical description of the computers at the school, often with policies for their use; a PTA section; and especially at the independent schools, a section for athletics, tuition, admissions, and placement after graduation. Most sites are graphical and visually pleasing, but a few are simple text (which is must less strenuous for the ordinary desktop machine to access). In general, the private schools seem to be focused on marketing, which includes impressive descriptions of facilities and more detail than public schools usually give about the success of graduates and academic programs. Among the theme schools, the web sites of the public schools differ less from those of the private schools, than what I noticed is the case among public and independent schools* web pages in general.
The Process
Group exercises are among my least favorite activities. Decision making theory states that *groups invariably outperform individuals.* (Nutt, 215) In my experience, I do not think this is always true, but I will admit that if the group components are strong, then the group work is very good. A few weak links, and all is lost. *In particular, a group does the following things:
- provides a summation of the contributions of individual members;
- rejects erroneous information, ideas, and suggestions by permitting the best-informed and most confident members to sway others;
- heightens the interest of group members in the task;
- creates a large pool of information;
- innovates, creating ideas that would not be thought of by members acting alone;
- improves the quality of results.* (Nutt, 215)
In this case, the enormity of the task of surfing the World Wide Web argues for using a group approach. Interestingly (and happily), we came to similar conclusions by working independently, for the most part.
The date and time for the presentation of Albany Group A arrived on Thursday, November 7, 1996. Everyone was prepared, which was terrific, especially considering how little progress had been made in the previous weeks. I handed out paper copies of the charts and outline I made (and had sent via electonic mail earlier in the week), and Cheryl distributed the color prints. We had all determined that the best web site from a New York State school is Putnam Valley*s, which also happens to be the only school we could find which contains performance information. I was not feeling well, which should not be an issue, except that I am both considerably less sharp and less pleasant when I am ill. Our presentation starts, and although I am not a nervous speaker and I was prepared, I was not at all satisfied with my introduction because I felt lousy and I know I was scattered. Then, it was going fine, but early on, during Cheryl*s component (question two), there were technical problems. The screen from Phoenix froze and there was interference from the original site in Oswego. I felt bad for Cheryl, who had worked hard, but the situation was hilarious to me as we limped along. I was happy to be laughing and knew that I was really on the mend. April was sick too, and she was also laughing. Actually, everyone in the class was laughing. How could that be a bad thing? We finally agreed to move ahead with only audio from Oswego (actually Phoenix). The rest of our presentation went fine, much better than I expected, in fact.
We independently arrived at the same conclusions: there are no easy generalizations to make about schools with web sites; for example, districts with high socio-economic status do not necessarily have web sites while those with low socio-economic status do not, or, urban districts are not necessarily more likely to have a web site than rural ones. Performance, especially secondary regents performance and hard data in general, rarely or never appear on the web page. Some are central office driven, others are student centered. A motivated teacher and some motivated students seem to be the factors which are most responsible for getting a web site up and running for a particular school. Marketing is as common a reason for having the web page as any other, and the server selected by the school is chosen for a variety of reasons, including the school*s location, and the preference of the person responsible for the web site. Electronic mail and the world wide web are supposed to be great equalizers -- it does not matter how old you are, or what gender you are, what you look like, whether or not you have a physical disability or what is your ethnicity. I have always thought that how many resources you have does matter, though, and unfortunately, because you must have a machine, software and the ability to pay the telephone charges in order to be among the *equals.* If we could not find many commonalties with which to group schools on the web, however, and our assumptions were not necessarily true, maybe the cost of those resources is currently low enough, so that you can be in a skyscraper or a tenement, in a sheet rock track house or on top of a mountain...
Bibliography
Collins, Stephen E. SCHOOLS @web66.coled.umn.edu. World Wide Web homepage. http://web66.coled.umn.edu/schools/us/NewYork/html.
Gilster, Paul. The Internet Navigator. New York, New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2nd edition, 1994.
Nutt, Paul C. Making Tough Decisions: Tactics for Improving Managerial Decision Making. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1989.
Wiiles, David. DKW42@csc.albany.edu. *Districts with Web Sites.* World Wide Web homepage. http://www.albany.edu/~dkw42/webpagedist.html.
And the following New York schools with World Wide Web homepages (names of authors unknown):
Albany, http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~walkerre/pipelink/ahs/ashhome.html.
Brighton, http://www.roccplex.com/bhs
Bronx High School of Science, http://bxscience.edu/
Brooklyn Technical, http://www.dd.chalmers.sc/~iko/bths
Bushwick, http://www.electric-pages.com/bushwick/
Colton Pierrepont, http://www.cpcs.k-12.ny.us
Dalton, http://www.nltl.columbia.edu
Day School, http://www.lynxcom.com/day/welcome/html
Dwight, http://www.ingress.com/~dwight/
Edward Murrow, http://www.inch.com/~murrowhs
Eastchester, http://www.westnet.com/~rickd
East Islip, http://www.sricboces.org/e.islip/
Fayetteville-Manlius, http://www.fmhs.cnric.org/
Glens Falls City, http://www.global1.net/gfms
High School of Telecommunications and Technology, http://www.pages.prodigy.com/hstat
Holy Cross, http://www.panix.com/~hchs
Horseheads, http://csc.sctboces.org/
Hunter College High, http://heimdalll/hchs/hunter.cuny.edu/
Lansing, http://www.cusm.com/hatter/lhs/
Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, http://www.earthcom.net/~ckwan/mcsm.html
Mark Twain, http://users.aol.com/mtwain239/MarkTwain239.html
Murray Bergtraum, http://www.cpmnet.comumbia.edu/dept/physio/schools/ms88hp.html
Niskayuna, http://bcsd@wizvac.net/nisk_hs/index.html
Northport-East Northport, http://wwwli.net.~enptmac/homepage
Packer, http://www.packer.edu
Peru, http://bio444.beaumont.plattsburgh.edu/k-12/PeruSchool.html#Jrsrhigh
Pittsford, http://www.monroe.edu/pittsford/
Putnam Valley, http://putwest.boces.org/es.html
Regis, http://www.wlu.edu/~jtravers/regis.htm
Riverdale, http://www.riverdale.edu
Saint Ann*s, http://www.galt.cs.nyu.edu/students/m-mr5696/saintanns.html
St. Mary*s, http://www.li.net/~stmarya/stm/marys.html
Samuel Gompers, http://www.abest.com/~ebsys/gompers/gompers.html
Saratoga Springs, http://ns1.crisny.org/saratogasprings/schools/saratoga/index.html
Sun Yat Sen, http://cwis.nyu.edu/docs/providers/rich/education/c_c/beacon_home.htm
Townsend, http://nweb.netaxis.com/~tiffen/
Uniondale, http://www.classroom.net/classweb/union
Walton, http://www.mhrcc.org/tri-valley/walton.html
Williamsville, http://gonzo.north.williamsville.k-12.ny.us/
