The history professor doesn't want to teach what a website is, she wants to teach why you might want a website; in this case to present information in a databas

The history professor doesn't want to teach what a website is, she wants to teach why you might want a website; in this case to present information in a database. Therefore, how you make that website is completely irrelevant; the website is not the end here, it is a means. You, on the other hand, are asking why she isn't teaching what a website is. So yes, you're seeing computers as the end to a means while the history professor is asking how computers could be a means to an end.