| Backgrounder |
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| The Planner Project |
| The Ontario Curriculum Unit Planner is an interactive, electronic
software-based tool on CD-ROM designed to help teachers implement
the Ontario curriculum. The French language version is the Planificateur
d’unités d’apprentissage. The Planner contains
all Ontario curriculum expectations for Kindergarten to Grade 12,
teaching companions, tools to create and organize resources, ways
to analyse instructional practice, and online help to use the electronic
application effectively.
The Ministry of Education has developed and evaluated the Planner
in cooperation with Ontario teachers. Field test versions of the
Planner were provided to every publicly-funded school board in Ontario.
Boards were then provided with training. Feedback was gathered from
teachers through the training sessions, an online survey, and subject
association meetings.
An important function of the Planner is to support the interaction
among teachers through the sharing of units and profiles in a consistent
way throughout Ontario. This interaction is made possible by the
two main parts of the Planner project: |
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- a common CD-ROM that allows teachers to install the Planner
application on their personal and school computers and to create
units and profiles in a consistent format;
- a website to allow download of units and profiles, sharing of
ideas, Planner training, and technical support.
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| The Planner CD-ROM |
| The Planner CD-ROM gathers and coordinates a significant number
of resources and features. Users can: |
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- search a database of all curriculum expectations by grade, subject,
course, and keyword;
- use versatile templates to create units, course outlines, programs
and profiles, handouts, rubrics, and resource lists;
- add expectations, strategies, and resources to units and their
activities;
- consult, copy, and bookmark Teacher Companions for teaching/learning
and assessment strategies, special education, and ESL/ELD;
- create and edit their own rubrics and access the assessment
rubrics for tasks in provincial exemplars;
- organize units into elementary programs or secondary profiles
for a course, term, or year;
- analyse the expectations, strategies, and resources for a unit
or program/profile;
- import sample units/profiles easily from the CD-ROM and the
Web;
- export/import units, programs, and profiles for adapting and
sharing;
- preview and publish professional-looking results;
- get user-friendly help and Web-based support.
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| The Planner Website |
| The Planner website gathers and coordinates a significant number
of resources and features. You can: |
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- search index of units and profiles;
- download units and profiles – such as the Ministry-sponsored
units and profiles developed in conjunction with Board consortia
– in PDF and Planner formats;
- access support documents from ministry-sponsored unit projects;
- consult guides and companions from the Planner CD-ROM that help
design and assess an effective unit;
- access relevant curriculum links from provincial, national,
and international sources;
- register as a Planner user, read and submit FAQs, and get technical
support;
- learn to use the Planner effectively from training slides and
resource documents for individual and team use.
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| Getting the Planner |
| Copies of the official version of the Planner are provided
free of charge to every publicly-funded school board in Ontario through
the Ontario Educational Software Service board representative as well
as to every student attending a faculty of education. While licensing
agreements prevent free distribution to other interested parties,
a run-time version Planner is available at a cost-recovery price.
For more details, please click here. |
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| Getting Started |
| A good way to get started using the Planner is to view
and print the Quick Reference: Getting Started which explains that: |
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- New users must create a login and password using the Add Author
button.
- The Main Menu contains four sections – Library, Authoring,
Program/Profile, and Help, each with particular features and tools
- The Planner is designed to highlight a particular model of the
planning process(initial assessment, sequential subtasks, and
culminating task or summative assessment) but can accommodate
other ways to develop learning tasks.
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| Get the Backgrounder pdf. version for handy reference
here. |
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