Scholastic Inc. certainly didn’t take the summer off.
Just in time for fall -- Scholastic’s busiest time of the year when its main teacher, parent and student web site logs more than 2.5 million unique monthly visitors -- the company has completed an extensive redesign.
In July, in time for back-to-school planning for teachers, Scholastic redesigned the teacher section of Scholastic.com. All redesigned sections feature larger images and expedited site search. Scholastic, No. 41 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, also reworked major sections of content to make it easier for its more than 1 million registered teachers to download lesson plans and other materials.
Teaching materials, including lesson plans and unit plans, are now organized by grade and subject matter. For an annual fee of $34.95, teachers also can access Printables, an online library of more than 10,000 items such as student practice pages, awards, flash cards and learning games from more than 600 different sources. Subscribers have options to customize content, make and label digital files, and search by different combinations such as by quick find, grade or subject, and keyword. Since the Printables’ microsite went live in mid-October, Scholastic has signed up about 8,000 subscribers. “With this new redesign and the Printables program we are continuing to marry commerce and content,” says eScholastic president Seth Radwell. “Grade school teachers are our historical sweet spot and they are using the web even more to plan their lessons.”
It took Scholastic about 12 months to design and implement its latest site makeover. The second phase, which features more interactive content and tools for students and parents, went live in early October. On the parents section of Scholastic.com parents now can access a wider variety of content for improving homework and study skills, volunteering in the classroom, home schooling, and other topics. A new Homework for Kids microsite also features interactive games, content on subjects such as writing a better book report and growing their vocabulary. “The site redesign gives teachers, parents and students what they want most: deeper content, more ways to use that content and faster search,” Radwell says.
The newly redesigned web site, in conjunction with other programs, helped Scholastic.com achieve web sales of $372 million in fiscal 2007, an increase of 24% over e-commerce revenue of $299 million in fiscal 2006.
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