Site Evaluation: The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum
The site that I chose to explore for this assignment is the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum (Boston MA). I visited the site on Saturday February 13th. The part of the site that drew my attention when I first opened it up was the education and public programs. As I click on that section there was a drop down with a tab for students. When I was in high school I did a paper on John F Kennedy by looking up information in encyclopedias and I wanted to see how the kids today could get information to do similar paper.
When I first went to the students tab the site informed me that it was written at an 8th grade level for students to be able to understand and it provided a glossary of terms to help them. I first looked at the Kennedy family tree. I have heard about this family my entire life living in Massachusetts but I would not have been able to name all the kids nor did I realize how many of them have died. Under the biography of John F Kennedy I learned that his mother kept a card for each of her children and wrote things on it like when they went to the doctors and shoe sizes at different ages. President Kennedy only received average grades. While he was at Harvard his entire family except himself and his brother Joe, also at Harvard, moved to England where his father was the United States Ambassador to England.
The next part of the education tab that I explored was the essay contest for high school students. Students can win up to $13,500.00. They need to write an essay about an elected official who has demonstrated political courage. This relates back to President Kennedy’s book entitled “Profiles in Courage” which I had not heard about before. Caroline Kennedy presents the award at the John F Kennedy Library in May of each year. I had heard about her giving out an award each year but did not know the circumstances behide it.
The last tab that I explored was Materials, Resources, and Activities for Students. There was a photo gallery that I look at and my favorite picture was of President Kennedy in Billings, Montana in 1963. There was a crowd of people greeting him and a child was held up by the crowd to shake hand with the President. Here is a link to that picture. President Kennedy in Billings, Montana.
thought that the Activities for students was the part of the site that I found to be not what I expected. The site up till now seemed to be on target as leading you to information that you wanted to find out about. The activity part I felt was going to be something fun for students to do as it came under the heading of student. This activity which I found more difficult to find let you into a day in the life of a President and asked you questions that you could answer. I felt this would be more helpful under the teacher section as it could be used as a lesson plan maybe after a visit to the museum.
The design of the site I felt was eye catching but could use some work. When you first go onto the site you see the President with landmarks be hide him with three tabs, one to the left and two to the right. I would have balanced it off and had two on each side. When you go into the tabs the navigation space is located on the left margin and makes it easy to know where you are at all times. On the main page there is a search tab highlighted in red on the bottom of the page which is easy to find. I enjoyed spending the afternoon learning more information about John F Kennedy.