Education School's Web site reaches out

The new School of Education Web site is prepared to handle any type of visitor – current students, former students who are now teachers or students as young as middle school who may never even attend IU.\nThe School of Education has long been at the forefront of IU’s Web sites, since it became one the first schools to have a functioning Web site in 1992. The site’s redesign has been in the works for nearly a year.\n“(The site) had an immense amount of material. It needed organization,” said the School of Education’s Director of Communications and Media Relations Chuck Carney. \nThe Web site aims to be a portal updating users of the latest news in the School of Education. \n“We work very hard to keep our Web site up to date and make it a user-friendly source of important information for students and prospective students, faculty and staff, scholars throughout the world, alumni and the general public,” said Gerardo Gonzalez, dean of the School of Education. \nThe new site, launched at the beginning of the school year, holds multimedia material, including text, photos, sound clips and videos. Recently, a video of an expert discussing Indiana students’ improved math scores was placed on the Web site to help educate viewers about the tests.\n“The more we could show on our Web site, the more we could get things out,” Carney said. \nBesides being an outlet for the school itself, the new Web site holds a link to the Center for Research and P-16 Collaboration Web site, which encourages collaboration from pre-school through college. A new feature called a Career Information System is also available. Matt Dever, an information specialist at IU’s P-16 Center, hopes teachers throughout the state will use the new program in their classrooms with students as young as middle-school age.\nCIS is a career exploration tool designed to help students begin thinking about their futures in education and career choices after high school. The program allows students to begin looking at job possibilities, then access videos to see what certain jobs are like and what education is needed for the field. \n“Leading in the appropriate use of technology for educational purposes is a strategic goal and priority for the School of Education,” Gonzalez said. “And having a Web site that’s dynamic, informative and easy to navigate is an important component of that strategic priority.”