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/]
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?
expert=Adolf_Agbormbai
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/490041
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