Analyzing QuiaWeb (1998) through the Circuit of Culture

Introduction

 In the late 1990s, the integration of the Internet in everyday life and especially in education was still in its very early stages. However, gradually, innovators in education began to see the vast untapped potential the internet holds as a resource for teachers and students. Beginning in 1998, the groundwork for the internet as an integral tool in education was established with the creation of the webpage QuiaWeb. QuiaWeb was founded by Paul Mishkin as the first interactive educational resource featuring customizable study materials, flashcards, and games. Rebranded as IXL in 2007, this webpage has become the backbone of online education resources. This creation marked a pivotal moment in the history of the educational landscape, as the introduction of adaptive learning and personalized education through online platforms initiated the shift from traditional instruction to the highly online and personalized approach commonly used today. As educators and students embraced the innovative features offered by QuiaWeb, and later rebranded as IXL, education entered a digital revolution that fundamentally changed how materials were created, shared, and used. The emergence of QuiaWeb in 1998 set the stage for this digital revolution and was the start of the growing realization of the potential of the Internet to revolutionize the educational experience. 

Today IXL offers content coverage from Pre-K all the way until high school graduation. With a curriculum tightly tied to Common Core standards it follows the same curriculum as most American schools and all state standards. They boast specifically tailored paths for each individual student through their personalized guidance algorithms that provide students with instant feedback; this is through a state-of-the-art assessment suite, including a real-time diagnostic and universal scanner. This assessment suite works in conjunction with the Common Core curriculum to give real-time feedback and the next steps to bridge any gaps in students’ learning. In addition to curriculum-based learning, IXL provides videos, games, and other tools for students looking to learn independently. IXL also provides in-class activities to create collaborative opportunities for students and to make learning more engaging. IXL’s beginnings, however, were much more humble. The main difference between today’s IXL and QuiaWeb (1998) is the actual producers of the content. In 1998 the internet was just emerging, and QuiaWeb did not have anywhere close to as much access to technology as IXL does today. In 1998 the main selling point of using the internet for education was the availability of an interactive interface. This was achieved by allowing any user access to IXL-produced content as well as content made by the users themselves. This follows a similar model to sites around today like Quizlet that provide the tools to create games and study sets and use the site as a database for all the content created by users. While today most of the content is produced by IXL and run through their analytics, back at its inception, the content was widely created by the users of QuiaWeb themselves. 

IXL Learning home page in 2023. https://www.ixl.com/?partner=google&campaign=71585968&adGroup=127340411978&gclid=Cj0KCQiA4NWrBhD-ARIsAFCKwWs5qjPucxLpw9iU4MOScyUqrrcwSw2uaH_EOyLFunxEyx5fVN-0zYwaAkttEALw_wcB 

QuiaWeb original  homepage when it was created in 1998. Accessed through the Wayback Machine https://web.archive.org/web/20040802233359/http://www.quia.com/web 

Production

In the context of the Circuit of Culture, production is the aspect of a website that involves the content, design, and functionality that a webpage offers. The choices made during the production process have a direct impact on how users interact with and experience the website. Moreover, production is an essential pillar of the circuit of culture as it lays the base for all other aspects of culture; setting the stage for the interpretation and reception of the website across a broader cultural context. In the 1990s the internet was still in its early stages of use and was just emerging as a practical application in everyday life. With only 3.6% of people online in 1998, no one had realized yet the potential of the application of the Internet in the classroom. Consequently, the production of QuiaWeb was the first of its kind and was the trailblazer for interactive education through the Internet. QuiaWeb.com was produced by Paul Mishkin. Paul Mishkin graduated from Harvard University with a computer science degree, he later used this background as a software engineer to build and launch the initial version of QuiaWeb in 1998. The website is interacted with through thousands of various links that take the user to their intended topic of study, whether that may be the “instructor zone” for a teacher looking to create a new lesson or a study set on ancient Egypt for an interested student looking to do some personal research. The site functions fairly simply off these links. When a user enters the website, it is with one of two basic intentions: to create content or browse previously created content. The original QuiaWeb webpage uses a variety of content creation tools to give users the ability to produce their own content like quizzes, assessments, or games. These creations are then stored within the website and organized by topic and activity type. All users of QuiaWeb are then privy to these creations and can use these resources for their study. In this way, QuiaWeb gives users the tools to produce within the website and doubles as a database for all this created content. 

Here is an example of how users access user produced content: Explore -> Top 50 -> Title/Author/Activity type/Description. All these resources are created by users and this is the general format that QuiaWeb follows to organized the thousands of individual pieces of content that it stores (Homepage -> general category -> list of content)

Consumption

The consumption of a webpage encompasses a multitude of various societal, technological, and cultural elements. The consumption aspect involves how users actively engage with the website. The user experience is impacted in many distinct ways such as subscriptions, accessibility of the page, and quality/quantity of the content provided. This consumption element depicts the incentives and constraints that influence user engagement within a broader cultural context. Finally, the feedback loop created by users and their interactions contributes to the consumption aspect and provides an ongoing and dynamic process of an ever-evolving webpage. In relation to QuiaWeb, user experience can be seen throughout the home page. All users are required to log in when they enter the page which is a form of subscription. While this can be viewed as a slight hassle initially for users, a subscription ultimately helps each user as the website analyzes tendencies in individual users and uses this information to program similar content for future browsing, ultimately making user interaction with the site slightly easier with subscriptions. Overall, the webpage is fairly easy to use. The page is meant to be catered toward students k-12, therefore, it has to be navigable for even the youngest demographic of learners. QuiaWeb achieves this with a user-friendly design, tailored for all students, ensuring navigability through a straightforward layout with boxed content accessible through hyperlinks. Concerning available content, QuiaWeb offers a huge selection of quizzes, flashcards, or study guides with over 3 million activities available. Finally, QuiaWeb offers interactive resources based on user feedback directly on the homepage. With a frequently asked questions (FAQ) category it is clear that user feedback is important to QuiaWeb and they attempt to get ahead of the 8 ball by understanding common user questions and providing concise and accurate answers to these questions. Additionally, QuiaWeb provides a space for honest user reviews. Both FAQ and user Reviews are common ways that websites utilize user feedback of their consumption to constantly evolve a website to be the best possible user experience, QuiaWeb is no different and uses both strategies to effectively gauge user consumption. 

FAQ and User Review blocks on the QuiaWeb homepage in 1998. Both these are extremely easily accessible and aid in convincing users. It can also be noted that QuiaWeb is intentional with its use of User Reviews. While they rotate the review depicted on the home screen occasionally, it is always a review from either an educator or a parent talking about the value QuiaWeb holds within an education setting. While this review specifically focuses on the “easy to use” aspects of the webpage, all the reviews displayed follow the same basic format. Teacher -> Subject -> Age group used -> what they like. Emphasizing that QuiaWeb is meant to be consumed in the classroom

Representation

Representation within the Circuit of Culture plays a pivotal role in determining the cultural meanings associated with media. Representation consists of the visual and textual elements within a webpage that display the purpose of the site. Deliberate decisions made about the layout, color scheme, and multimedia elements help convey a website’s purpose. Historically, the early webpages like neocities sites, were often chaotic homepages with bright, flashy images. While this was most likely used to garner more interest in the site by the user, this chaotic feel can sometimes overwhelm or distract the user and lead to much less of the page’s overall content being understood. In an educational setting, this could be detrimental as a distracted or stressed student learns far less. Therefore, QuiaWeb utilizes a simple and highly navigable interface that holds all necessary learning content while maintaining a non-overwhelming feel. This is partly achieved by the use of color within the site. QuiaWeb uses a warm and inviting color scheme of pastel reds, blues, yellows, and greens. Pastel colors have a soft and soothing look that is often associated with peace and calm. When Paul Mishkin created QuiaWeb he likely chose pastel colors in an aim to prevent the common stress that education through a foreign tool could evoke. With QuiaWeb being the first internet-using education tool, it was essential for the sight to seem welcoming and simple. Any other approach could cause the users to become overwhelmed and lead to QuiaWeb losing the market for online education altogether. 

Identity

The concept of identity investigates how individuals establish their sense of self through online interactions. With the Circuit of Culture, how web pages contribute to the construction of this identity, is vitally important in understanding the role of a website in a general sense of culture. One common way that many websites establish identity is through a login system where users must sign into individual accounts to further interact with the site. QuiaWeb uses a similar login format where all users must create an identity within the site in order to create or access QuiaWeb content. Users can customize their accounts to create a unique identity within their account. Additionally, QuiaWeb uses analytics to monitor each account and its activity. As QuiaWeb gathers more detail, it can understand individual users’ tendencies and cater the site more and more toward these tendencies. After being rebranded, this is what separated IXL from QuiaWeb. IXL leaned heavily into the analytic and diagnostic properties of the site and began to market itself as a program that constantly adapts to best be used by each user differently. While QuiaWeb did not have as advanced technology, it laid a foundation for the site to evolve into what it is today. 

There is a strong emphasis on identity across the homepage with around ⅓ of the homepage dedicated to users’ identity within the site. While the login page is a clear-cut tool for identity, QuiaWeb also has an Educator and Student zone. These zones are an indication of the identity of users that QuiaWeb wants to attract. QuiaWeb is an educational resource and directly markets itself to educators and students. 

Regulation

The regulation of a web page represents the intersection between societal norms, legal frameworks, and ethical considerations within an online space. This component of the Circuit of Culture acknowledges the broader regulatory context that governs the production and consumption of content on web pages. As creators design web content, they have to be conscientious and operate within a framework of rules and guidelines to be socially acceptable. Regulation emphasizes the need for content to align with the cultural landscape and regulation represents the interconnectedness between digital and physical worlds. Since QuiaWeb is intended to be used in a classroom setting, that comes with several social norms that the site has to follow. The site must be school-appropriate and host accurate content at all times. This can be tricky for sites like QuiaWeb because much of its content is created by users. To combat this, QuiaWeb has a Terms of Service that all users must sign when creating an account. The very first bullet point of the Terms of Service expressly states that users may not “upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically, or otherwise objectionable” (IXL Terms of Service). Since QuiaWeb wants to be used in the classroom, it must be classroom-appropriate. To communicate this with its users, the terms of service directly state what is and is not acceptable. Additionally, QuiaWeb is governed by state and federal laws regarding student privacy and safety. Since QuiaWeb is a database that holds student information, it is regulated by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”), and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”), along with any similar state laws depending on location of use. Overall, the social and legal bonds that regulate QuiaWeb have helped the site remain appropriate and a viable tool in classrooms across the United States. 

References:

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