Project
ECOLE is an automated curriculum designed by Virginia Computer Institute.
Project ECOLE consists of several different
components. It links the National Standards and Virginia
Standards of Learning to activities, lesson plans, and projects designed to teach
the Standards. It also has Resource Guides, Cool Links to the
Internet, Picture Art, Photographs and Rubrics for teachers to use with the SOL topics,
and an automated testing component for students.
Benefits
Unique to
Project ECOLE is its structural linkage of content and technology to bring
learning and education to schools and communities around the world.
Our project will demonstrate that a school system with limited resources,
wealth and specialists can use educational technologies to produce outstanding
results. ECOLE will enable deprived school districts to “compete” and
function on the same level with those more fortunate.
All students will benefit from SOL-driven technology by broadening their
scope of learning. Without standards, education is driven by curricular whim,
administrative fiat or stale tradition. With well-conceived standards arrayed
through technology, classroom learning can be infinitely enriched and education
can (and will) occur anywhere. Standards form the basis of ECOLE, but teachers
drive the system. We think that is as it should be.
While our immediate
task is to design and develop a system of curriculum
reform, we believe this project has the potential to radically transform
classroom learning and build active learning communities locally and even
internationally. It is not far-fetched to say that technology may well define
the future education of our population. If public education is once again to
become a truly representative and democratic institution, Project ECOLE can make
a major contribution since it makes all
students learners and leaves no one out.
Political leaders from Presidents Bush and Clinton to governors and
mayors have indicated the need for standards to advance educational performance
and educational reform. The debate, we think, should focus not on whether
standards should exist but on how they can be equitably and imaginatively
implemented. Project ECOLE, working through existing state standards and
sparking a new kind of learning through technology, has already proven to be a
tested, effective means to reinvigorate an entire school system. It could well
be the first step on the road to the “connected community” integrating
school, home, work and the body politic.