Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Preparations....

I spent a good part of my day working with a team of teachers and administrators on revising our current Kindergarten curriculum. We are working hard to meet the deadline of rolling it out in August. The biggest hurdle is not so much the content, but the delivery method. We are moving from a papers-in-HUGE-binders format, to a DVD-online version. We ran into issues because no one could really lay a hand on the original files which meant nearly all the documents had to be retyped and or scanned. (not fun!)
We looked at State Standards, the District Roadmap, academic vocabulary and other areas to be sure everything is in sync. It's a lot of work, and we are really trying to get it done to the best of our abilities. Teachers will need to understand that it's a work in progress. Balancing what we know is developmentally appropriate with expectations from the State and others is rather challenging!
It seems we will have only the first part of this ready to roll out in August, with the rest to follow later.
I am excited at the prospect of the final project, which, when I think about it, will never REALLY reach a final step. The use of online resources, tools and websites, will keep it a living, breathing document...which is great. It will keep us all alert and in touch with the changes as they occur.

Or I am thinking it SHOULD!

For some, this new format will mean small steps toward easing into the idea of integrating technology....for others it will be a huge leap! We have to do what we can to ensure that we're all on board. I imagine it won't be easy, it's hard to let go of things within our comfort zone, but the time has come....we need to embrace what is out there and share what we find with our students. We can't keep using the excuses..."I don't know how...." or "My students don't have access outside of class"...or "We can never get to the computer lab"....and other such reasons to keep ourselves from moving forward.

It is our jobs as educators to share the tools with the students, let them explore the tools, work with them, make mistakes and learn from the mistakes as well as the successes. This means teachers will need to take the time to become familiar with what the tools are, how they work and where the power lies within them. FEAR is not an option.

There will be in-service and support provided, we won't leave teachers out there on their own to try to make sense of it all....but they will have to TRY!

Thinking out loud......I can only hope all goes well. ;-)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm really excited about pioneering electronic curriculum in our district. So what that we only have two weeks to have it up and running!
JULIE

Cindy said...

Julie,
Yes...time is a factor, we'll give them what we have in two weeks. In the end, they'll be VERY impressed. ;-)
(How's that for positive thinking?) ;-)

Anonymous said...

I know it is weeks later, but let me just say that people have told me at least 3 times in the last week that they think that this electronic version of the curriculum is the best thing ever...especially ELL teachers..so I think we were successful..even if it isn't done in the real sense of DONE.
Kate