Unlock the Path to Your Future withThe Web of Ed
Helping students explore fields of study and careers, for students of all ages.
What is the Web of Ed?
The Web of Ed helps students navigate the limitless possibilities within education. Our goal is to provide an easily accessible way for students to learn about the dozens of fields of study they may pursue in school, while also providing tools to help them develop skills and habits to thrive as individuals. Whether you're a graduate student or just starting high school, The Web of Ed can help you explore your interests and develop a plan to achieve your goals.
The interactive explorer
Welcome to The Web of Ed
The Web of Ed is an innovative resource for students who want to explore the many different fields of education, whether you're preparing for college or just exploring your interests. The bigger circles provide summaries of each subject — click one and its story appears below, along with real careers, typical pay, and what the work is actually like. The smaller circles bring you deeper, opening a whole new web. Click any circle to begin your journey!
Exploring
Academia
Five minutes
Not sure where to start?
Answer twelve quick questions about how you like to work, think, and spend your time. You'll get a personalized web of fields worth exploring — plus real careers that fit — and you can jump straight into any of them.
Already know what you're looking for?
Our Mission
Our mission at The Web of Ed is to help teenagers navigate the educational landscape with confidence and ease. Through a personalized approach, we aim to empower each student to set meaningful goals, work through academic challenges, and develop lifelong skills and habits for success. We believe that every student has the potential to thrive in their academic pursuits, and we are committed to helping them reach their full potential.
Contact
Let's find your path
Questions about the Web, our services, or where to start? Send a note and we'll get back to you within a day or two.
Our story
How The Web of Ed was born
It started with a question that kept coming up in a high school classroom: "What can I even do with this?"
Students would ask it about chemistry, about a history unit, about a book they'd been assigned. It was rarely rebellion. It was usually something closer to fog. They could see the assignment in front of them, but they couldn't see where any of it led — and nobody had ever shown them the map.
The honest answer was that the map existed, but it lived in scattered pieces: a counselor's file cabinet, a college brochure, an uncle who happened to be an electrician, a website built for adults who already knew what they were looking for. Students who had those connections found their way. Students who didn't were told to figure it out.
Why a web?
Because that's what knowledge actually looks like. Not a list. Not a ranked set of "top careers." A web, where biology touches medicine touches emergency response touches the fire department, and where a student who likes taking things apart can follow a thread from physics to robotics to the shop floor without ever being told they took a wrong turn.
Every circle opens into another web. You can go as deep as your curiosity takes you, and you can't get lost, because every path leads somewhere real.
What we believe
That a four-year degree is one good path among many, and that welders, paramedics, ranchers, and machinists deserve the same careful presentation as doctors and engineers. That students make better decisions when they can see the whole landscape instead of the corner of it they happened to be shown. And that curiosity, given something worth exploring, does most of the work on its own.
Keep going
Where to explore next
The Web of Ed helps you find a direction. These are the tools that help you act on it — real occupation data, Colorado programs, and the agencies that support students after high school. Every link opens in a new tab.
Made by The Web of Ed
Present What You Found
A fill-in speech script built around your interest quiz results — it opens with what your quiz matched you with, then walks through the field and career you explored from there. Sentence starters flow right into your own answers, so once it's filled in, you can read it straight through out loud. Take the quiz first, then come back and fill this out. Type right into the PDF, or print it and fill it out by hand.
Explore careers
Start here to research real occupations, what they pay, and what the day-to-day work involves.
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O*NET OnLine (opens in a new tab)
The U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database — tasks, skills, wages, and outlook for nearly every job. Listed by CDE as a career exploration resource.
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Colorado Career & Technical Education (opens in a new tab)
Colorado's CTE programs of study and how they connect to your ICAP.
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Career Conversation Starters (opens in a new tab)
CDE's prompts for talking through career ideas with a parent, teacher, or counselor.
Plan after high school
Your ICAP is Colorado's official plan for life after graduation. These help you build it.
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Individual Career & Academic Plan (ICAP) (opens in a new tab)
Every Colorado student has an ICAP. This explains what it is and what goes in it.
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Virtual College Campus Tours (opens in a new tab)
Walk a campus online before you ever visit. Listed by CDE.
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Think College (opens in a new tab)
College options for students with intellectual disabilities — searchable by state. Listed by CDE.
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Career Guide for People with Disabilities (opens in a new tab)
Job searching, disclosure, and accommodations. Listed by CDE.
Get support in Colorado
Adult agencies that help with training, jobs, and independent living. Eligibility varies — start early.
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Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) (opens in a new tab)
Colorado DVR helps people with disabilities prepare for, find, and keep a job.
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Colorado Workforce Centers (opens in a new tab)
Free job search help, training programs, and career counseling in every region.
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School to Work Alliance Program (SWAP) (opens in a new tab)
A joint CDE and DVR program supporting students with disabilities into employment.
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Colorado Office of Employment First (opens in a new tab)
Resources built around the expectation that competitive, integrated employment is possible.
Live independently
Skills and programs for the parts of adult life that happen outside of work.
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Colorado ABLE Accounts (opens in a new tab)
Savings accounts that don't jeopardize benefits eligibility.
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The 411 on Disability Disclosure (opens in a new tab)
A workbook on deciding whether, when, and how to disclose a disability.
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Age of Majority: A Parent's Guide (opens in a new tab)
What changes legally when a student turns 18, and how to prepare.
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PACER Center (opens in a new tab)
Independent and community living resources for youth with disabilities.
For families and educators
Background on how transition planning works in Colorado.
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CDE School to Adult Life (opens in a new tab)
The Colorado Department of Education page these resources are drawn from.
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Colorado Secondary Transition Toolkit (opens in a new tab)
CDE's full framework for transition planning, ages 15–21.
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Colorado Sequencing of Services (opens in a new tab)
Which agencies do what, and when, across a student's transition.
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National Technical Assistance Center on Transition (opens in a new tab)
Evidence-based transition and employment practices.
Sources & methods
Where the material on this site comes from, and how to verify it.
Resource directory
- Colorado Department of Education, Office of Special Education. School to Adult Life: Transition Resources. The resource links above are adapted from this page. ed.cde.state.co.us (opens in a new tab)
- Colorado Department of Education. Individual Career and Academic Plan (ICAP). ed.cde.state.co.us (opens in a new tab)
- Colorado Department of Education. Colorado Secondary Transition Framework: Pathways to Possibilities Toolkit.
Standards this site works toward
- Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 2004, secondary transition requirements, 34 C.F.R. §300.320(b); State Performance Plan Indicator 13.
- Colorado ICAP statute and rules, C.R.S. §22-2-136 and 1 CCR 301-81.
- Colorado HB21-1110, Colorado Laws for Persons with Disabilities, C.R.S. §24-85-103 — technology accessibility standards for public entities (WCAG 2.1 Level AA).
- U.S. Department of Justice. Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities. Final rule under ADA Title II, 2024.
- Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), 20 U.S.C. §1232g; 34 C.F.R. Part 99.
Career and wage information
- Pay ranges shown throughout this site are approximate national estimates compiled for orientation only. They are not drawn from a single dataset and should not be used for planning, negotiation, or advising without verification.
- For authoritative, current figures, use the sources linked on every career: U.S. Department of Labor, O*NET OnLine and My Next Move; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook; CareerOneStop; and the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment's labor market information.
How the field descriptions were written
- The descriptions of academic disciplines and fields of study on this site are original summaries written for The Web of Ed. They are not excerpted, quoted, or adapted from any single publication, and they are intended as plain-language introductions to help a student decide what to look into further — not as research sources to be cited in student work.
- Students writing papers or presentations should cite the primary and authoritative sources linked above rather than citing this site.
- Educators who find an inaccuracy are encouraged to report it so it can be corrected.
External links were last reviewed in August 2026. Outside organizations update their sites independently; if a link no longer works, please let us know.
Resource list adapted from the Colorado Department of Education's School to Adult Life page. The Web of Ed is not affiliated with CDE and does not control the content of external sites.
For Educators
Bringing The Web of Ed Into Your Work with Students
Whether you're a classroom teacher, a school counselor, or a case manager building transition plans, here's how The Web of Ed fits into what you're already doing — plus a few resources worth having on hand.
A few ways to bring it in
There's no one right way to use this with students. A few starting points:
Start with the quiz
The 12-question interest quiz works well as a low-stakes opener — in an advisory period, a first counseling session, or the start of a transition-planning conversation. No prep required, and it only takes about five minutes.
Let them explore independently
The interactive web is built for self-directed use. Point a student to a subject they're curious about, or let them start from their quiz results, and step back — every path leads somewhere real.
Assign the presentation script
Once a student has explored a field and a career, the fillable script on the Resources page turns that into a short speech — a low-stakes way to practice presenting, or a piece of writing for a portfolio.
Come back to it more than once
Interests shift. A student's web from freshman year won't look the same sophomore or junior year — treat it as something to revisit over time, not a one-time assignment.
Made by The Web of Ed
Helping Students Find Direction
A short, research-based model for how students move from curiosity to a genuine sense of direction — framed as a positive feedback loop with identity at its center. Five phases (interest, experience, growth, reflection, purpose), each grounded in real research, with a dedicated page for each and full citations.
Good to know
- Free to use, with no accounts, logins, or student data collected — nothing for a privacy review to flag.
- Built toward WCAG 2.1 Level AA, with full keyboard navigation and screen reader support.
- Works on any device with a browser — nothing to install, nothing to configure.
- Every career page links out to O*NET, My Next Move, and other primary sources, so students get in the habit of verifying what they find rather than trusting any one site — including this one.
Resources for educators
Background on secondary transition planning in Colorado, and a tool for finding formal transition assessments to pair with the interest quiz here.
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CDE School to Adult Life (opens in a new tab)
The Colorado Department of Education's hub for secondary transition resources — the same page this site's own resource list on the Resources page is adapted from.
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Colorado Secondary Transition Toolkit (opens in a new tab)
CDE's full framework for transition planning, ages 15–21, including the Pathways to Possibilities toolkit.
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Secondary Transition Assessment Finder (2025) (opens in a new tab)
A reference for locating age-appropriate transition assessments by category — useful alongside the interest quiz here, which functions as one such assessment.
Share with your team
A one-page overview
Want to introduce this to a colleague, a counselor, or an administrator? A one-page snapshot covers what it is, what students get out of it, and a few numbers worth knowing.
Have a question about using this with your students or caseload? Get in touch.
Accessibility
Accessibility statement
The Web of Ed is built to be usable by everyone, including students who navigate by keyboard or use a screen reader. We are working toward conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA — the standard required of Colorado public entities under HB21-1110 and of state and local governments under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
What we have done
- Every circle in the interactive web can be reached and activated with the keyboard.
- The entire web can also be navigated without the visual diagram: the panel beneath it lists every subject and field as a plain text button, so no information is available only through the graphic.
- Panel updates are announced to screen readers as you move through the web.
- A skip link lets keyboard users jump straight past the navigation.
- The animated background is decorative, is hidden from assistive technology, and stops entirely for visitors who have "reduce motion" enabled in their system settings.
- Text and background colors are chosen for high contrast, and the site works at increased zoom and text size.
Known limitations
- The site has not yet completed a formal third-party accessibility audit. We welcome reports of anything that does not work for you.
- Links to outside organizations open websites we do not control and cannot guarantee for accessibility.
Tell us about a problem
If any part of this site is difficult or impossible for you to use, we want to fix it. You can reach us two ways, and we aim to respond within five school days:
- Web form: our contact page
Please tell us the page, what you were trying to do, and the assistive technology you were using if any. If you need information from this site in another format, ask and we will provide it.
Privacy
Student privacy
The Web of Ed is designed so that students can use it without creating an account or handing over any personal information.
What we collect
Nothing. There are no student accounts, no logins, and no student records. Everything on this site — including the interest quiz — runs entirely inside your own browser.
- Quiz answers are never transmitted anywhere. They exist only in the browser tab while you take it, and disappear when you close it.
- The name field on the results page is there so a printed copy is labeled. It is never sent to us or stored.
- We do not use advertising trackers or sell data, because we have no data to sell.
Why that matters for schools
Because no student education record is created or transmitted, use of this site does not involve disclosure of personally identifiable information under FERPA. If a student prints their quiz results and a school places that printout in an ICAP portfolio or IEP file, the resulting record belongs to the school and is governed by the district's own records policies — not by us.
Outside links
This site links to career and agency websites we do not operate. Those sites have their own privacy practices, and we encourage families and educators to review them.
Questions? Contact us.