Case Study
Online Education Platform
Making New York State's digital archives available for teachers
to generate interactive lessons for their students? We did that.
"Web Instinct was the perfect partner for the development of our online teacher resource. They guided us through an unfamiliar process with relative ease, exceeding our arguably high expectations."
Jordan Jace, New York State Archives Partnership Trust
Highlights
Our team received thousands of historical records from the archives in raw form - both photos and data. We collated this information and imported it into the website's database for quick and easy access.
Teachers can create an account and generate their own lessons from these resources, including dynamic scales and interactive maps.
Teachers provide students with a URL to their custom lessons. Student then answer the questions and interact with the archives right online. A PDF is generated with their answers that they can then turn in for grading.
This website was designed to be ADA (508) compliant from the start. Each interactive element provides complete and equal access for those with related impairments.
File storage integration with Amazon Web Service\s Simple Storage Service (S3) cloud-based hosting.
Challenge.
The New York State Archives Partnership Trust saw the potential to enable teachers to utilize thousands of historical documents from the New York State Archives to teach history to their students.
The goal was two-fold. First, allow educators to browse and view these documents, filtering by categories like topic, region, historical era, document type (e.g. map or photo) to quickly and easily discover material that could support their teaching.
Secondly, teachers can browse pre-made lessons which expertly utilize these documents and to create their own! Once made, lessons can be shared with other teachers and students complete these lessons digitally through easily shareable URLs, making integration into each teacher's syllabus seamless and simplified.
Solved.
Working with a trusted and experienced design partner, our team go to work on four key stages of the process.
First, we worked with the New York State Archives to collect metadata and supporting image files for thousands of primary source documents. We parsed this data into the database, storing files at Amazon S3 for safekeeping and expandability. The client has the ability to add additional primary sources directly through the admin area.
Second, we provided a beautiful, easy-to-use interface for the public to browse this information. Quick and easy filtering allow educators to find precisely those historical documents that related to their specific lessons.
Third, the system provides a method for teachers to generate their lessons right on the site! There are 5 types of lessons to select from, including dynamic maps and interactive scales, allowing the teacher to elicit from their students a more comprehensive understanding of each topic and document.
Finally, these lessons can be completed by the students right online using an easy-to-share URL. Each submission generates a PDF that the student can turn in to the teacher for grading.