Evaluation of Student Facing Web-Based Services: Final Integrated Report (CORE Education)

Alignment of Services

How do these services align with the New Zealand Curriculum and effective teaching?

Essential learning areas: Some of the essential learning areas of the New Zealand curriculum provide the organisational contexts within which both Studyit and WickED operate. Studyit provides information and interactive forums for NCEA sciences (biology, chemistry and physics) as well as mathematics and English. In WickED resources are organised under key areas of science, English, and mathematics.

The AnyQuestions service operates under a quite different organisational context - a virtual library. Once students enter the website and log in they can virtually approach their librarian or subject specialist teacher (within operating hours!) as they would in a face-to-face situation. The analysed transcripts revealed that there is a heavy emphasis on questions relating to essential learning areas. A total 94% of all transcripts related to the essential learning areas of the New Zealand curriculum suggesting a strong link with in-school work. There was a particular emphasis on social studies and science as well as technology and language/s. (CORE, 2006a).

Essential skills: One of the important links these services maintain to the curriculum is with the essential skills. Transcript analysis of the student and operator interactions on AnyQuestions clearly indicated students using and developing communication, information, problem solving and social skills. Operators could be clearly identified providing guidance to students in these same skill areas.

Transcript analysis of interactions in Studyit indicated students were using a very wide set of essential skills including communicating their written queries, showing the full range of numeracy skills in the mathematics and physics areas of the forums, solving problems, and applying self management skills. Also strongly evident in transcripts were illustrations where students were developing understandings about and applying work and study skills and also social and co-operative skills. In fact the level of social skill development in Studyit and maturity displayed by these older teen students is of considerable interest.

While illustrations of student use of, and teacher and operator guidance of students in various essential skills areas were made explicit in AnyQuestions and Studyit these were much less obvious in WickED. If students are developing essential skills from their interactions with WickED themes, interactives and other support areas, these were not visible to, or observable by, the researchers. (CORE 2007c)

Effective teaching: Effective teaching practices were observed in both the AnyQuestions and the Studyit services.

The explicit intention of the AnyQuestions service is educative, that is to assist students to construct an inquiry and to guide them through the process of locating appropriate answers to their questions using a variety of search methods. The rationale behind using the interactive screen sharing software is so that students can be visually guided through an effective search strategy by an expert, rather than simply be given the answer.  The librarians could be seen to be helping students sort out through a process of clarifying and negotiation what information they required and then begin searching alongside the students. Librarians were able to talk through with students the process of interpreting homework questions, and choosing search directions, and by using co-browsing, show students how to choose and use good key words, use different search engines, and how to gather and sort suitable information from suitable internet sites, a process that many students do not find easy (Coogan, 2006, p. 27). The NNR report (p.45) shows the level of student satisfaction with learning specific information literacy skills from the AnyQuestions operators with 89% of students happy they had learned how to use good search words, 86% happy they had learned how to better search for information independently, and 82% happy because they had found out about new sites, search engines and other sources of information.  An analysis of the transcripts in the CORE report shows that 67% of interactions with AnyQuestions librarians involved students in the second stage investigating, finding out, and researching phase of the inquiry process. (CORE, 2006c p.15). Librarians could be seen supporting students in a just in time role, helping with immediate student learning goals and guiding students and supporting in ways that could provide transfer of learning into other contents or situations.

Studyit also invites student inquiries relating to the specific essential learning areas, science, mathematics and English, and specifically for senior secondary NCEA students. Teacher mentors on the site could also be seen to be supporting students through the inquiry process. What is immediately observable and notable about Studyit is the level and depth of discourse in the forum areas. Studyit transcripts analysed using SOLO taxonomy as a measure (CORE, 2007b) found that as many as forty-two percent of interactions were occurring at deeper levels of cognitive operation.

Teacher mentors were aware of different pedagogical approaches being applied in Studyit and several mentioned that approaches were completely different from those used in the classroom. They enjoyed working with students in co-constructing knowledge where they could concentrate on knowledge building rather than issues of management; and support and improve the quality of collaborative thinking for students through both explicit pedagogical processes (that is the way interactions in the forums are structured and encouraged) and through setting tasks for students to try.

Effective teaching could be observed in the forums with examples of reciprocal teaching, cooperation, negotiation, hints, feedback and prompting for questions and elaborations.

Effective teaching through task setting could also be observed with setting instructions, suggestion of domain specific formats of task representation particularly evident in many of the mathematics and physics problem transcripts, re-tailoring tasks so that students can co-perform them in slightly different ways, and modelling of strategies that scaffolded student‘s domain knowledge construction, as well as developing understanding and acquiring skills.

Effective teaching practices of the sort where students could interact with experts, moderators or peers were not visible in WickED. Moderated forum spaces existed,  but talk or chat on the site was very limited. Only 3% of students aged 7-10 and 8% of students aged 11-12 had talked or chatted with other students. Only 5% of students had ‘published’ schoolwork to the WickED site. (NNR, 2006c, p. 35). The nature of interaction on the WickED site is different to both AnyQuestions and Studyit. Interaction occurs between the student and the resources, some of which are static and others that are manipulable and include multiple-pathway-interactives and mini-games. These tend to be interactives that are playable within a short timeframe and are good for providing motivation to practice particular focussed skills or they treat only one subject for example the Hangi interactive, in a small way. (Prensky 2005, CORE 2007c). Nevertheless there is a rapidly growing body of literature available on the impact on learning and the effectiveness of games for teaching a range of skills and knowledge and improving attitudes towards learning especially for those of the student body who are not being reached by traditional methods of instruction. (Metiri Group 2005 in Coogan, 2006).

Challenges and opportunities for alignment with curriculum and effective teaching?

A number of challenges and opportunities exist for each of these services to improve alignment with curriculum and effective teaching practices although these vary from service to service. For each of these services there is considerable value in making strong links with classroom programmes, for schools and classrooms undoubtedly provide the larger context within which these services operate.

The positioning of the AnyQuestions service within the educative process is an important one given that from the student perspective the internet is now the most important learning resource they use both at school and at home. The use of search engines by 95% of students as their primary online method of sourcing information (NNR, 2006a, makes AnyQuestions role in helping students make best use of search tools, better understand search methods and their own searching techniques, as well as introducing resources to students which may not have been optimized for search, quite a critical one.

A key challenge is the modelling (or lack of) effective teaching in schools, which tends to focus on the right answer, as opposed to using an appropriate process that will allow students to independently find an answer. This creates patterns of behaviour and expectation out of school that were frequently observed in the

AnyQuestions transcripts. It may also account for the sites appeal to those who feel confident about their schoolwork and are self aware enough to use the service.
AnyQuestions aligns well with current essential learning areas and essential skills given the information literacy based purpose, and the learner centred nature of the service. The greater number of inquiries for help by students (73%) related directly to their schoolwork and predominantly to the social studies, science, and English essential learning areas (NNR 2006a, p.38 & 39). However one of the challenges facing the AnyQuestions service appeared to be a lack of awareness by many students, teachers and other adults (parents) that the primary function of the service was assist students to construct better inquiries and to develop and improve information literacy skills within the context of their own personal inquiries. 71% of teachers and 80% of other adult respondents in the NNR survey positioned AnyQuestions as primarily a study/assignment help desk and only half the adults in both groups positioned the service as one for improving students overall skills in information literacy. Students too appeared to want to receive a direct answer to their question and this was noticed by both the NNR and CORE researchers. The NNR report on AnyQuestions noted that it seemed to take students several visits before they understood the purpose of the librarian support.

While effective teaching practices are evident within the AnyQuestions operation the support that can be given enhance effective inquiry-based teaching practices beyond the service is also considerable.  A further suggestion is to better position the service as a support service for teachers and students who are undertaking inquiry-based teaching and learning approaches within their classrooms. The role of the service in supporting students with the investigating, finding out and researching stage of the inquiry process was evident in both the NNR (p.42) and CORE (p.15) reports and for many teachers could become an integral pedagogical support and resource for their classroom inquiry models.

In Studyit, opportunities exists for improving curriculum alignment perhaps by gradually extending the essential learning areas that are offered by this service, as only the sciences, mathematics and English are currently offered. The challenges in broadening the number of essential learning areas however involve careful consideration of a number of factors. The first of these would involve understanding the intricacies of practice that is occurring on the site and care that the ways specific domain task structures are handled are safe-guarded. The second is in maintaining the carefully established community of practice and sub communities that exist around the service. The student users appear to have identified with the processes and practices that exist on the site. The site developers have already extended and established the English NCEA area with apparent success. NNR report (2006b) indicated that the English area is the second most popular area after mathematics but that students were more likely to engage in the maths and science forums. Any extension with intent to align more closely with a broader range of essential learning areas may need to be established with care and community of practice built slowly based on the successes of the service to date.

Further opportunities exist for the Studyit service to extend its reach by increasing awareness of the existence of the service to teachers and encourage teachers to recommend the service to their students. Teachers are the primary recommenders of the service to their students and there is much to gain by having teachers introduce the functions and intentions of the service to students at school.

Connections and alignment to curriculum for students in WickED are tenuous. Much less use of the resource is made from home compared to school use that is classrooms, computer labs, or school libraries. Identifying how it is being used to support teaching was difficult because of the limited data available but the site does appear to be one where teachers choose resources or interactives that support curriculum and then refer students to play with them. Although the WickED service provides engaging interactive resources that would cover topics within most of the essential learning areas what students gain from the service in the way essential skills is more difficult to ascertain from the research. The NNR report (2006c) suggests the games and quizzes which are popular with younger users provide opportunities for young students to develop thinking skills and that other areas of content such as Topic (previously ‘Themes’) can provide students with resources to support their efforts to explore ideas independently, to discover meaning in ideas and to explore below the surface of ideas.

There are several challenges that exist for the WickED service within the area of resource provision.

1. Aside from the ‘Interactive Games’ and the ‘Maths Stuff’ very little use is made of most other areas of the site (NNR 2006c, p39).
2. There is a noticeable lack of longer-term use of the site by students and teachers.
   

Opportunities exist for the WickED service to extend young peoples’ interest in a greater range of curricular topics and skills by considering  a variety of options that will lead to an expansion of the sophistication of the gaming platforms (NNR 2006c, p.39: CORE 2007c p.18). While the current ‘mini games’ and interactives have a place as motivational aids to assist in the practice of skills they also do not lead learners to the deeper learning, creative thinking, collaboration or the challenging interactions of more complex games. The establishment of more complex, educationally-based interactives could include multiplayer games, interclass or regionally-based team games, and problem–based projects and competitions that would also encourage greater communication with peers on the site in order to establish a core group that is committed to the service and will stay for the longer term.

The interactives are listed as links under a general heading such as language games and are presented much like online versions of the commercial software packages of the past. Similarly to the previously available commercial softwares, WickED service relies heavily on classroom teachers to establish curriculum connections and to contextualise the resources available to ensure curriculum alignment.

How are these services aligning with the practices of schools and other providers, and what are the challenges and opportunities for alignment?

These services generally appear to be aligning well with the practices of schools although this is occurring in different ways and to varying extents depending on goals and purposes and targeted user groups. These services are not intended to replace what is happening in schools but rather to support and contribute to student learning by supplementing, supporting, reinforcing, and developing further student skills and knowledge. It is also clear that impacts of the services appear to be greater where the link between classroom and online service is explicitly made by teachers for students both in and out of school.

Several aspects of alignment are considered here. These include integration into class practice, and alignment to school practices by adding educational value to independent work and homework.

Alignment with class practice: AnyQuestions appears to be well aligned to classroom practice and in some cases was observed to be well incorporated into the classroom activity structures particularly by some teachers who are involved in teaching using an inquiry approach. The service is well positioned to provide a valuable service for students and for teachers by promoting good learning behaviours and complementing and supporting class work in assisting to construct better student inquiries and modelling the locating and evaluating of information from a wide range of online sources that are often new to students. The AnyQuestions librarians have access to a wider range of safe resources and databases than teachers may have been able to sort and organise for their inquiry units.  AnyQuestions is available during afternoon school hours. Nearly one third (31%) of students in the NNR (2006a) report indicated that they had used the service from their classroom during school time at some stage and use of AnyQuestions in the school library during school time was indicated by 14% of students. Small numbers of students in the NNR report (2006a) also indicated they were using the AnyQuestions site from their school classroom and library during lunchtimes and after school. There is considerable opportunity for the AnyQuestions service to expand its availability for schools and teachers that is currently constrained only by the resources available to staff it.

Studyit is a service that does not focus on integration into classroom practice but rather on support and reinforcement of learning for students that has been initiated in the classroom. Where there is evidence of a particularly close fit is from the students who state that the service helps them to ‘keep up’ with their schoolwork better, and if they are stuck they will ask a teacher but it is usually a Studyit mentor.  Teachers play an important role as recommenders of the site to students and there is a role for teachers in introducing the site and how it can be used to support student independent study. Some teachers had introduced students to Studyit in their timetabled computer lab time.

The WickED service was originally designed to provide online activity support for teachers and students in the four ‘Digitally Boosted After School Support Centres’ established in 2001 as a part of the DigiOps  programme. Themes and interactives were designed to be used as fun, standalone activities for students and also to be used by teachers with their students although the extent of serious use of these areas within the classroom activity structure was difficult to ascertain. Limited data suggests that they were popular with students, and this may have led to a tendency to use the interactives as time-fillers for early finishers or for rewards for students. Several teachers found it hard to find ways of using the content in their teaching even after they had attended workshops specifically designed to introduce the resource to them.

Both teachers and students found locating specific resources on WickED difficult. Several indicated a preference to find what they wanted using a search engine to target specific information over a much broader base than that offered by WickED. Some teachers felt constrained by the limited extent of resources and links on a topic and felt that a broader range of links to resources on a topic needed to be made.  Several teachers indicated they had difficulty incorporating the website content into their inquiry units. Some teachers indicated that they would like to have prior information about planned themes and programmes being developed so that they could prepare to include new WickED themes. Some teachers were encouraging their students to make use of WickED. Nearly one third of 11 – 12 year old students indicated they used WickED because their teacher had told them to, although this was much lower for other age groups. Nearly a quarter of 13+ aged students used WickED to help them answer school questions although again this was much lower for other age groups. (NNR 2006c p.35)

A major challenge for the WickED service is the question of ownership of content, that is who decides what that content is and how it is presented. Teachers felt the need to have the content more closely aligned to what they were doing in classrooms and have better connections with the developers to effect that. Teachers also saw the need to better tie resources to curriculum levels and essential learning areas within the site. It is interesting that students also desired greater ownership over, and creation and control of content and presentation. 

Alignment to school practices by adding value to independent study and home work: All three sites offer alignment to school practices by offering support for students studying independently.

For students using AnyQuestions the service is the same whether it is accessed as part of their classroom activities or utilised as a support service for student’s independent study. All interaction with a reference librarian is user driven and utilises a problem-based approach. Both aspects are strong motivators for use. Seventy percent of students indicated they accessed the service most frequently from home and their predominant use of the site was to source answers to homework questions (73%). Thirty percent of users also indicated they used the service to get ideas for a homework question or project (NNR 2006a). What is worth noting is this service is offered to the public in general and that students form only two thirds of the user base.

Studyit is primarily intended as a support service for independent use, supporting NCEA students in personal study. As with AnyQuestions all interaction is user driven and for the greater part utilises a problem-based approach. On a 5 point Likert scale measuring levels of students satisfaction with aspects of Studyit, the relevance of subject information to what students do at schools was rated as ‘satisfied’ (mean score 3.99) along with relevance of information to NCEA assessments (mean score 4.09) and how well Studyit fits with personal study efforts (mean score 4.00). There were high levels of home use of Studyit with 88% of students having accessed the service from home this was largely after school and in the weekends.

WickED is also providing support for younger students with independent study. On a 5 point Likert scale that measured levels of student satisfaction with aspects of WickED, students rated being able to work independently as between neutral and satisfied, (mean score 3.76), along with help to improve learning (mean score 3.46), and help with schoolwork (mean score 3.41). A large number of 7 – 12 year old users (87.1%) indicated they had accessed WickED from home. Unlike AnyQuestions and Studyit the interactions on the site are not user driven and are not problem based. Motivations for use of the service are for fun, and enjoyment of existing school-related activities. These motivations may not be a pressing as seeking help for problems and finding solutions that may be more encouraging of site revisitation and reuse.

Challenges and opportunities for alignment of these services with the practices of schools and other providers

An opportunity provided by each of these services is the ability to connect students to other providers beyond teachers and schools; a sense that online services can offer effective education outside the classroom and by other professional groups. With AnyQuestions there’s a strong intention to advance the position of libraries as key resources to support student learning. With each of the other services - Studyit and WickED a third party is attempting to provide educational support for schools that is widening the educative experience of students.

A challenge for all three services is to increase awareness of teachers about the supporting role these services can provide students when they are working independently and in need of help. It is not clear to what extent any of these sites have been previously promoted to schools and individual teachers through the normal educational avenues or to students through more fun advertising approaches such as for example stickers for class and school-library computers and bookmarks and so on. In Studyit several mentor teachers commented that the service ‘didn’t seem to be out there’ – that students didn’t really seem to know about the service. There is also a challenge to engage more students who are less confident in Studyit.

A primary role for teachers is to introduce these services and recommend them to their students. While this clearly happens, teachers could quite easily incorporating AnyQuestions into their classroom activity structures especially where students were in the initial planning and research stages of carrying out inquiry programmes or individual projects. In the case of AnyQuestions, few student survey respondents reported having visited AnyQuestions actively as part of a school lesson (NNR 2006a). Schools could also be encouraged to be more actively involved by making links available on school intranets, use of posters, signage and stickers around library computers and encouraging more information spread to teachers.

The NNR reports indicate that a large number of respondents to their online surveys were in fact first time users. This was 29.3% of AnyQuestions users; 60% of respondents in WickED, and 30.4% of respondents in Studyit. (See Table 3 page 16.) Keeping these users hooked into returning to the activities available on the site is a challenge for all services.

All three services offered a range of specific services that were may need further promotion.

• In WickED for example only ‘interactive games’ and ‘maths stuff’ appeared to be used by students. There is relatively little use of themes indicating a need to promote use of the themes with teachers and advertising a programme of development so that teachers could plan for themes incorporation into class activities was suggested by teacher users as a way of increasing usage. The WickED forums found under ‘homework talk’ were also poorly supported. The challenge for WickED exists in accurately identifying and focussing more closely on the needs of students and teachers within the niche group of users.
• In AnyQuestions only ¼ of students had used either the FAQs or DIY Answers options on the site. Additional marketing of these sections to students would help to alleviate pressure on the online chat portion of the site, and would encourage more self study activities (NNR 2006a, p.33)
• In Studyit students appeared to be making use of a good cross section of the site functions. It is interesting that although the forums area in this service is very well patronised by users only 34% of students contributed to or browsed the forums. The value of the forums to students and the role these can play in learning needs further promotion.
• Expert teachers in Studyit had also encountered challenges in the process of supporting students where this appeared to conflict with information given to students by the class teacher. One expert teacher felt you really needed to know more about some aspects NCEA, than classroom teachers, at times.
• When students have the opportunity to gather ideas and resources from a large variety of sources there are challenges for classroom teachers in assessing the work as students own unless teachers can assess the process  of student thinking and learning rather than the published product.

• General challenges for the alignment of these services with the practice of schools and other providers also relate to access both for students using the services at home and at school.
  
  
  • For students accessing AnyQuestions from home, access to broadband offers more successful opportunities for co-browsing than a dialup access yet two thirds of students did not, at the time of the NNR research, have access to broadband.
  • Given the percentage of students accessing AnyQuestions from home (refer to Table 3, p12 earlier in this report) there may be some benefits in altering or extending the hours of operation to be more encompassing of students homework hours.
  • Access to these services can be restrictive from schools as well. In the case of AnyQuestions there can be waiting period to access an operator on a bust day. Students often do not have enough time in a class period available to wait for san operator and then proceed with the inquiry process.
  • Access to computers can be frustrating at school for many students and teachers who may have to book computer rooms, or who may need a data projector to share interesting online resources with theiur classes.
    

• Opportunities for the alignment of these services with the practice of schools and other providers include
  
  
  • Support for interaction between and amongst knowledgeable experts and participants while allowing for spatial and temporal independence.
  • Enabling personalised learning opportunities.
  • Provide relevant feedback for individual students based on their immediate needs.
  • Support for class programmes with topic or themes based resource (as with themes in WickED) as well as skills (for example setting up an inquiry, or improving speed with times tables in an interactive.
    

How are these services supporting the organisational objectives of the various project partners?

Services are supporting various educational objectives on behalf of supporting project partners.

AnyQuestions is a collaborative pilot project between libraries, the government and those in the information and education sectors. Staffing for the project is funded by: The National Library of New Zealand, Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Manukau, North Shore, Waitakere and Wellington City Libraries, Rodney District Libraries and the Ministry of Education. Other participants include: the School Library Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (SLANZA) and Horowhenua Library Trust.

The project’s aim is to develop an online reference service for all New Zealand school students where they are only one click away from a trained librarian. Project partners have joined forces in recognition of the need to provide a consistent and holistic approach for children across the country involving the use an agreed information literacy approach to help school students identify the information they need and help guide them through quality resources. AnyQuestions focuses on supporting the New Zealand curriculum, and is accessible from any Internet connected computer anywhere.

The use of skilled reference librarians in this way may have potential to broaden their reach to people in rural communities, and those in urban communities who experience difficulties in getting to a library. Although the service is advertised as a free service to New Zealand school students it is interesting that one third of the users of this site who responded to the NNR survey (2006a) are adults and that of those who indicated they are students some 12% are 16 years and older. There were even a small number of respondents under ten years of age. This is a service that is accessible to a wide range of people and interests and indicates the service is fulfilling a greater community need than for the compulsory schooling sector alone. The service strongly favours the learning needs and queries of New Zealanders and one that needs serious consideration for further building and development.

Studyit is part of the range of support services for the introduction of the New Zealand National Certificate of Educational Assessment (NCEA) by the New Zealand Ministry of Education through the Digital Opportunities initiative funding. Under the Te Kete Ipurangi (TKI) Joint Venture partnership, CWA New Media and Multi Serve Education Trust  are responsible for the upkeep and updating of the site. Studyit was initially designed as an NCEA revision resource for Science and Mathematics students only. However, demand was such that in 2005 English was added to the site with the support of Ministry of Education Digital Opportunities funding. The service provides senior secondary students with a forum to seek help, ask questions and have work critiqued by New Zealand-registered, specialist science and maths teachers and also provides an open forum to discuss other related topics such as study techniques, sitting exams, and dealing with stress. This emerging and increasingly well used service is an effective partnership between Ministry, the TKI joint venture partnership, and students and teachers and one that needs serious consideration for further building.

WickED was started in 2003 by CWA New Media and was initially designed as a supporting website for teachers and students in the ‘Digitally Boosted After School Support Centres’ which no longer exist. The primary purpose of WickED has changed since the initial conception of the service so that this project is gradually ‘morphing’ into an online resource with a quite different shape. Although the service has been extended to appeal to a broader student and teacher user-base, it would appear that the original intention to provide engaging activities of a highly interactive and visual nature remains as a primary objective.  WickED is a partnership between Ministry, and the TKI joint venture partnership.

What are challenges and opportunities for alignment for supporting the organisational objectives of the various project partners?

Table 6 below lists the services and the supporter and partners involved in the project.

Table 6: Lists the project partners for each of the services 

AnyQuestions: Challenges and opportunities
Challenges

• Operational issues include the number of librarians that can simultaneously operate the system and the 2 – 6 pm operating hours of the service are limitations. A challenge for school-based use of the service can be the wait time for students to connect with an operator.
• Technological issues include the need for users to ideally have broad connectivity to maintain the smooth functionality of the synchronous interactions. The number of interrupted sessions was quite high at 64%
• The service complements each school’s library by providing another channel for their students to find information. Challenges exist to encourage schools and teachers to use and publicise the service to their students as well as to raise students’ awareness about planning inquiries, effective use of search engines, and search techniques for finding appropriate information.
  

Opportunities

• AnyQuestions is a traditional service provided by librarians that has been translated into a web environment with some success. It is also part of the larger commitment by national and local libraries to making national and public library collections more widely available to school aged children through the web.
• Widen the reach of national and city libraries as essential services for students and their communities who are located in areas that cannot support such services particularly suburban and rural areas.
  

Studyit: Challenges and opportunities

• The service complements curriculum particularly in senior sciences, mathematics and English by providing another channel for students to help with solving problems or finding out about NCEA subjects and assessment criteria. Challenges exist in encouraging schools and teachers to use and publicise the service to their students as well as to raise students’ awareness about how the forums can be effectively used to support their learning.
• Challenges exist for the extension of the service into other subject areas and how the development of new services may be funded. At any one time the service has a high level of guest users that browse the site compared to the number of members that are logged in. Many students are happy to purchase paper resources that will help them especially with external assessment. Whether this is a service the remains free to users is a foreseeable challenge.
  

WickED: Challenges and opportunities

• A considerable challenge for this service is to aim for closer alignment so as to better meet the learning needs of young students and assist young students meet the demands placed on them by teachers and schools. Most student use of the WickED environment is from school, which is a different situation from either AnyQuestions or Studyit, where most student use is from home. Both AnyQuestions and Studyit have student support systems built into the instructional design of the environment so as to support students learning independently from home. WickED does not. It was initially designed as a activity site for the study centre environment where students were to be supported in their learning by study centre teachers. There may be challenges in better aligning wickED service for students’ home use, should it be develop for this purpose.
• The service is already set up to whet the interests of younger students. However the service does not hold the interest of these young people for long and site revisiting numbers are low. A further challenge for the service to develop means of holding younger students interests and encourage return visits. There is an opportunity available in matching younger student expectations of online websites where they can personalise the site and take greater ownership of the site content while still providing quality educational content that more closely meets learning needs. Meeting the expectations held by young people of online websites which are raised by commercial sites such as Bebo and this is also both a challenge and an opportunity.
• A further challenge is the need to deepen the educative content particularly of the interactives that are available and are such a popular feature of the site. The challenge is to design or develop interactive activities that encourage multiple players or participants in task based, or problem based activities, that are closely aligned to curriculum.
• A challenge to WickED is the stretching of services to be inclusive of both teachers and students may be placing the service in a position where it is hard to achieve everything for everyone. Extending and providing more sophisticated services for one or other group may need to be considered.