THE TECHNOLOGY TO SET EDUCATION FREE

In order to fully understand the context and relevance of this article, one must first understand what an Educational Framework is and what fluid, individualized planners look like. For more information on these two topics, please see the following articles:

“What is an Educational Framework?”
“The Power of Planners”

If the technology to support Educational Frameworks and their accompanying planners existed, education could move at lightning speed, and with absolute fluidity. I imagine teachers logging in to their school’s site to find their unique framework front and center – the framework that displays how each staff member is connected to the other. From there, they could not only access their own planners (unit planners, lesson planners, etc.), but also any other staff member’s planners.

As for the actual planning templates, every column, every row, and every box could be moved and shifted as needed, like interchangeable puzzle pieces. If a teacher needed information from another teacher’s planners, they could search for their planners, select rows, columns, or boxes from them and simply integrate the information into their own planners, saving the need to copy and paste. The potential for the rows and columns to continue would be infinite, and a new planner would only be started when a teacher deemed it necessary. Any changes made to an individual’s planner would appear in the form of an alert on the school’s framework page so all staff would be informed that new information was available, much the same as Facebook Messenger, or WhatsApp.

Each box on a planning template could function in one of two ways – drop-down menu, and manual input. The information for the drop-down menus would come from the data base of curriculums that a school chose to input and work with. Manual input would be used for things such as lesson ideas, materials required, etc. Boxes would have the ability to change colours and include automatic formatting for information placed inside them; information within each box could be moved around as needed.

With a system such as this in place, no two teacher planners would be identical, yet everyone would be working towards the same goal – supporting the school’s Educational Framework. From year to year, planning templates could easily shift and adapt in order to meet changing needs. Teachers would not be bogged down with copy and pasting, formatting issues, having to redesign and create their own templates using outdated programs such as Microsoft Word, or stuck using a cookie-cutter planner from a school-purchased program. Information could be shared and accessed with ease, in real time. Simply put, education would be free to move as it should – no lags, no delays.

Further Reading

The Tool Successful Companies Use That Schools Need
A Vision vs. an Educational Framework
Educational Frameworks: The Link Between Curriculum Frameworks and Curriculum Mapping
How to Use Planners to Change Mindset

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