a history of curriculum services canada

1995
It was unclear exactly how these goals were to be achieved. How would these new initiatives
affect and/or interact with existing ones? Stakeholders at all levels needed to understand how
changes would be implemented, who would have input into the development of implementation
processes, and how these processes would affect them. They wondered where the new teacher
and student materials necessary to support these curriculum changes would come from - and
when. 12
Meanwhile in March, OCC hosted a meeting of the OTF Curriculum Forum as part of the
feedback process on the Transition Years Catalogue. They learned that, despite their
considerable efforts, very few teachers had actually seen a copy, though those who had were
pleased to see their input reflected in the final version. After examining the catalogue, Forum
members reiterated strongly the need to include only the best materials in future versions. They
also questioned how teacher-developed materials might be incorporated and whether a reward
could be established for excellence. Many suggestions were made for ways to bring the
catalogue into better focus and for ways to expand its usefulness.
The Forum also expressed interest in an online catalogue that teachers with computers could
access from home. With most schools not yet “online” and many without even a single
computer, the issue of equality of access was troubling. On 2 March, Premier Bob Rae
announced a major initiative, "To Prepare Ontario Schools for the Information Age." As part of
this program, the Education Network of Ontario (ENO) would receive $5 million from the
Ministry of Economic Development and Trade “to expand system capacity and access.” (This
funding was part of a $15 million jump-start through Ontario Network Infrastructure Program
(ONIP) 13 and was in addition to $4.25 million already committed by MET to ENO). Shortly
thereafter, MET issued an Information Technology announcement that would result in increased
hardware and software purchases for schools around the province. While all of this support was
positive, the problem of how to ensure equality of access remained.
As March ended, the Work Group learned that the ONeducation CD-ROM would be ready for
distribution in late April and that FileMaker Pro diskette versions of the catalogue could be ready
by the end of June. This would provide all MAC users, as well as PC users, with electronic
access. The online version, however, was less certain. Problems at ENO led OCC to consider
having a “front end” or user interface created for their STAR database (still in development at
ONTERIS/OISE). This would make it possible to access the catalogue from the ENO site and/or
have another server host a dedicated “OCC site.” In the meantime, the Work Group contracted
for a newsletter-style colour insert to serve as the first print catalogue update.
Providing the catalogue in multiple formats was in line with the results of the survey initiated in
June 1994 (published 31 March 1995 as Ontario Curriculum Clearinghouse Curriculum
Resource Materials Survey 1994/95). School boards, teacher federations, subject/special interest
associations, faculties of education, consortia, and Ontario government ministries were asked
five specific questions and also invited to provide comments and suggestions. The five questions
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