EDC's Center for Children and Technology has redesigned its Web site, expanding the amount of research data and rich materials it captures online and providing new sortable databases to ease reader selection of research materials.

Part of an initiative to strengthen its dissemination efforts, the new Web site reflects CCT's desire to make its research more accessible to those within the education community from practitioners and administrators to researchers and policymakers.

To facilitate the transformation, CCT hired QSolutions, a Web development company based in New York, to work on a new look and structure in collaboration with internal staff.

The new Web site emphasizes four major themes that reflect significant areas of interest within CCT. These themes are: Access & Equity, Inquiry & Design, Online Communities, and School & Technology. To help depict these themes, CCT hired Illustrator Nicholas Blechman to create animated illustrations that play on aspects of the research areas. In addition to organization by theme, the site offers readers more narrowly defined topical views into CCT's research work.

Besides housing a database of research reports, the site also includes sections for other publications, such as speeches and presentations delivered by staff, administrator resources developed for school and after school supervisors, classroom resources designed for teachers, and policy briefs that address issues or encapsulate research work for policymakers.

The new Web site represents the first step in an ongoing effort at CCT to reach more teachers and administrators with findings and tools of its research work.