Educational Problem Solving
Abstract
This article introduces the educational solutions
module of the world's most recent personal and professional problem
solving site, describing competitive offerings, the customer profile,
problem-oriented solutions, target markets, product offerings, and
usability features. It concludes that the module is a major contribution
to the information superhighway.
Introduction
The aim of this article is to introduce to the
world the educational solutions module of the world's most recent
personal and professional problem solving site. The article is addressed
to those readers who may have an educational problem bogging them
and who may therefore be looking for a way out of their predicament.
The reader may be a parent, child, or student.
It is a common fact of life that we all have problems
and that we are often frustrated or we tend to lash out because
of our inability to find accessible and reliable information about
our problems. This specialist site fills this need - as our pragmatic
friend for solving our educational problems.
To be of the greatest use to people a problem solving
site must combine pragmatic discussions of their personal or professional
problem with merchant products that provide more detailed information.
Typically, the web site will provide free information in the form
of news, articles, and advice, which direct the visitor on what
to do to solve her problems. Complementing this, the web site will
also provide merchant products which discuss in detail how the visitor
can go about resolving her problem. This means that the most effective,
visitor-oriented problem-solving site will be an information-packed
commercial site - and so is the world's most recent personal and
professional problem solving site and its specialist sites.
The approach that we have adopted below is to describe
competitive offerings, the customer profile, problem-oriented solutions,
target markets, product offerings, and usability features.
Competitive Offerings
The following are the top educational sites on
the Internet, along with their offerings.
US Department of Education. It defines the US education
policy and provides information on financial aid, educational research
and statistics, grants and contracts, and teaching and learning
resources.
Educational Testing Service. It provides a range
of test resources.
FunBrain.com. It provides educational games for
K-8 kids.
PrimaryGames.com. It provides fun learning tools
and games for kids.
GEM. It provides educational resources such as
lesson plans and other teaching and learning resources.
Education World. It provides advice on lesson plans,
professional development, and technology integration.
NASA Education Enterprise. It provides educational
materials and information relating to space exploration.
Spartacus Educational. It is a British online encyclopedia
that focuses on historical topics.
Department for Education and Skills. It is a UK
government department site that offers information and advice on
various educational and skills topics.
Times Educational Supplement. It offers teaching
news, teaching & educational resources, and active forums to
help UK teachers.
All these sites are useful in the domains that they cover. Their
main limitations are as follows:
1. They tend to cover only a very
narrow segment of the educational market.
2. They do not take as their starting point the
daily educational needs of the typical family.
3. They lack a problem focus; i.e., they do not
formulate the typical learning and educational problems that pupils,
students, and parents face on a daily basis.
4. As a result of the preceding point, the solutions
offered are not as incisive (i.e. as problem-centred) as they could
be.
5. They do not offer merchant products that deepen
the visitor's understanding of her problem and of the consequent
solutions.
The educational solutions module of the world's
most recent personal and professional problem solving site addresses
these problems by targeting a multiplicity of market segments, adopting
a customer profile that fits the typical education-pursuing family,
considering the specific needs or problems that this family may
face, offering incisive (problem-centred) solutions to the various
problems, and offering a range of merchant products that deepen
the visitor's appreciation of her problems and of the solutions
that are applicable to them.
Customer Profile
The customer profile or target visitor characteristics
of the educational solutions module is the same as for all specialist
sites of the world's most recent personal and professional problem
solving site. The site has been designed to meet the needs of visitors
who have an educational problem bogging them. It is designed for
both males and females, even though it is often convenient to refer
to just one sex when writing.
This visitor uses search engines to research information
about her personal or professional problem, with the intention of
finding solutions to it. The visitor is serious about solving her
problem and is therefore willing to buy products that help her to
achieve her mission, provided that she can find reliable and honest
information about relevant products so that she can make an informed
decision about which ones to acquire. This information will help
her to apply her finances economically, and hence avoid wasting
money.
The visitor will want a money-back guarantee so
that if a product does not live up to expectations or if she were
misled into buying a product she can get a refund. Such a guarantee
absolves her of purchase risks.
The visitor is intelligent (without necessarily
being a genius), educated (without necessarily being a PhD), computer
literate (without necessarily being a computer guru), and money-minded
(without necessarily being a freebie hunter or an unemployed person).
This of course does not mean that freebie hunters or unemployed
persons cannot gain a thing from the site. To the contrary, there
is a great deal of free information on the site. Just that it is
hard to see how anyone can gain the full benefits of the site without
buying products.
The visitor wants high quality information products
(usually in digital form) and wants to pay the cheapest price for
these (without paying so much emphasis on price that she compromises
quality). The visitor also wants free bonus offers that are attached
to the purchased goods.
The visitor is self-reliant and can cope on her
own by reading, digesting, and applying advice about her problem
until she solves it or discovers that she needs help from a professional,
at which point her acquired knowledge will help her to reduce her
consulting fees. As a result of the knowledge gained, the visitor
will be able to assess consultants in order to avoid incompetent
or fraudulent ones.
Problem-Centred Solutions
Our free solutions are organised in the form of
pragmatic articles that are written by top experts. Each article
addresses a specific daily problem, but does not go into detail.
It explains the problem and tells the visitor what she must do to
solve her problem. However, it does not tell the visitor how she
must solve it - this is too much for an article. To find out about
the how, the visitor must buy a product (usually an e-book or e-book
set) that goes into greater depth.
The set of educational articles that we have chosen,
to provide initial solution to a visitor's problem are as follows:
Signs of a Gifted Child - Informs parents on how
to identify whether or not their children are gifted.
Essential Parenting Lessons for Enriching Your
Child's Education - Teaches parents how to enhance their child's
education.
Using Positive Affirmations to Be a Better Student
- Teaches students how to use positive affirmations to improve their
performance.
They Are Just Afraid of Writing - Teaches writing
skills to students
How Can Parents Encourage Their Children to Read?
- Shows parents how they can improve their children's reading skills.
Test Preparation Tutoring - Discusses the topic
of tutoring students to prepare for tests or exams.
Test Taking Strategies - Discusses various strategies
for taking and passing tests or exams
Playing and Winning the Scholarship Game - Describes
how to win scholarships.
How to Get a Scholarship to a UK University - Describes
how to win scholarships to a UK university.
Saving Money for College - Instructs students on
how they can save money in preparation for college.
Student Loans: When Your Educational Dreams Can't
Compete with the Cost - Explains to students the benefits of a student
loan.
Education Loans Can Fund a Higher Degree to Boost
Your Career - Also explains to students the benefits of a student
loan.
The Secret to US Department of Education Loans
- Teaches students how to get a US DoE loan to finance their higher
education.
Student Loan Consolidation - Save Money, Pay Less,
Spend More - Explains to graduates how to make use of loan consolidation
to reduce their student loan repayments.
Higher Education: Finding the Right College for
You - Explains to students how to find the right college or university
for their higher education studies.
Mobile Learning - An Alternative Worth Considering
- Explains the concept of mobile learning and its place in education.
Online Degrees - Is Online Education Right for
You? - Analyses the merits of online learning as compared to traditional
learning.
An Online College Education Overview - Reviews
the whole concept of online learning.
Finding the Right Quotation for Your Paper or Speech
Online - Shows writers and speakers how to find the right quotation
to use in their writings or speeches.
Collaboration: An Important Leadership Development
Skill - Explores the useful concept of collaboration and its role
in leadership development.
At the end of each article is a list of merchant
products that supplement the article's content. A link is also included
for accessing the educational product catalogue.
Target Markets and Product Offerings
Now let us turn to the target markets and their
associated product offerings. We have positioned the segments to
address the various needs of a visitor over a period of time, and
at any given time a customer may belong to one or more of the market
segments. There are three general classes of products offered: ClickBank
products, Google products, and eBay products. Google and eBay products
are presented on each page of the site. ClickBank products are grouped
into product categories that match the target markets. These categories
and their markets are as follows.
Children and Parenting. This consists of visitors
who want parenting solutions for improving their children's upbringing.
Their needs are met through the Children and Parenting section of
the educational product catalogue.
Difficult Admissions. This consists of visitors
who want to learn how to get admission into top universities. Their
needs are met through the Difficult Admissions section of the educational
product catalogue.
Esoteric Needs. This consists of visitors with
unusual needs. Their needs are met through the Esoteric Needs section
of the educational product catalogue.
Financial Aid. This consists of visitors looking
for scholarships, grants, or loans. Their needs are met through
the Financial Aid section of the educational product catalogue.
Leadership Skills. This consists of visitors looking
to develop their leadership skills. Their needs are met through
the Leadership Skills section of the educational product catalogue.
Learning. This consists of visitors who want to
improve their learning ability. Their needs are met through the
Learning section of the educational product catalogue.
Mental Speed. This consists of visitors who want
to explode their mental speed. Their needs are met through the Mental
Speed section of the educational product catalogue.
Positive Affirmations. This consists of visitors
who want to transform their negative dispositions into a positive
mindset in order to improve their performance. Their needs are met
through the Positive Affirmations section of the educational product
catalogue.
Speaking. This consists of visitors looking to
improve their speaking skills. Their needs are met through the Speaking
section of the educational product catalogue.
Tests and Exams. This consists of visitors looking
to master exam technique. Their needs are met through the Tests
and Exams section of the educational product catalogue.
Writing. This consists of visitors looking to improve
their writing skills. Their needs are met through the Writing section
of the educational product catalogue.
Usability Considerations
Usability has been enhanced to make it easy for
the visitor to find solutions to her problem, by following these
steps:
1. The first thing the visitor
sees are a set of articles whose titles represent the specific problem
area they address. The articles are accessed from the Educational
Problem Solving menu of the navigation bar to the left of the screen
or from the Educational Problem Solving main page. By scanning these
articles the visitor can identify whether or not her problem is
covered. If not the visitor can check the educational product catalogue
through the Product Catalogues menu of the same navigation bar,
to see whether a product exists that answers her query. If she finds
nothing she knows that her problem is not addressed. She can proceed
to the Related Sites pages, which are accessible from the left navigation
bar.
2. If the visitor finds an article
that addresses her problem then she can begin to explore that; at
the end of the article she will find products that discuss her problem
more deeply. She can also access the educational product catalogue
through an article page.
Conclusion
This article has introduced the educational solutions
module of the world's most recent personal and professional problem
solving site. The article has examined competitive offerings, the
target customer profile, problem-oriented solutions, target markets,
product offerings, and usability considerations. It concludes that
the module is a major contribution to the information superhighway.
* * *
A A Agbormbai is the editor
and webmaster of Personal and Professional Problem Solving - a web
site that fills a vacuum on the Web. He has a PhD from Imperial
College London and enjoys an interdisciplinary upbringing having
worked or studied in aerospace engineering, information systems
development, and management. The educational solutions module is
one of many specialist sites of Personal and Professional Problem
Solving.
Educational solutions module
- [http://www.triplacc.com/educational/education.html]
Educational product catalogue
- [http://www.triplacc.com/products/educational-pc.html]
World’s most recent
personal and professional problem solving site - [http://www.triplacc.com/]
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