RESCUED CURRICULUM!
Trove of Technology-based Lesson Plans Recovered
(ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies, etc.)

A while back a friend told me about the Internet Archive, a not-for-profit with the website: http://www.archive.org/about/about.php

This site offers an extremely valuable resource called the Wayback Machine and is found at: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

The Internet Archive has been saving websites on its own servers for years and consequently, important websites that may seem to have disappeared, or that may have been deliberately scuttled, can be located once again.

Back in the late '90’s and early 2000's when I was the director of (the New York City Board of Education’s) Office of Instructional Technology (OIT), my staff and I went to great pains to provide curriculum to support the city’s 80,000 teachers in integrating technology into their subject classes. A number of comprehensive documents came out of this effort and were posted on our website. Over the course of the several years that we made them available, they were downloaded many thousands of times by New York City teachers (and many others, some from as far away as Thailand) Some time in 2004, the current administration decided to 86 these gems, despite the expense incurred in creating them and their popularity with teachers and administrators hungry for such items. Why? Who knows? - to many it seems there has been a general effort to obscure the efforts of all who came, worked hard, and produced items of value before the current crop of ‘education leaders’ arrived. I recently discovered, however, that some of this mother lode is still available through the Wayback Machine. Below are some links I came across recently and the goodies available on the other end of the download. It seems to me that there are good teachers out there who can get value out of these, and I sincerely hope they do! (these pages haven't been lubricated in a long time and you may need to try more than once to get them to download).

OIT General Website: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http:/www.nycenet.edu/oit

December 17, 2001 archive of the site:

NYC (NYC Educator Created) Standards for Technology-based Instruction
Chapter I: Overview (22 K)Chapter II: Literacy, Mathematics and Science Performance Standards Connections (381 K)Chapter III: Learning Environments (13 K)

*June 3, 2001 archive of the site: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http:/www.nycenet.edu/oit (this one seems to have a good sampling of what was there originally, still intact enough to download)

Tech Integration Curriculum Guides
Language Arts:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010613041655/www.nycenet.edu/oit/laguide.pdf

Mathematics: http://web.archive.org/web/20010613043129/www.nycenet.edu/oit/mathguide.pdf

EXEMPLARY PROJECTS
Smart Projects ...a catalog of wonderful things to do with kids and computers
(unfortunately, this full version doesn't download. However the sections listed below, do):
http://web.archive.org/web/20010610232919/www.nycenet.edu/oit/projects.htm

Art: http://web.archive.org/web/20010613040834/www.nycenet.edu/oit/SmartProjects-Art.pdf
Interdisciplinary Projects: http://web.archive.org/web/20010613034119/www.nycenet.edu/oit/SmartProjects-Interdis.pdf
Language Arts Projects: http://web.archive.org/web/20030518041646/www.nycenet.edu/oit/SmartProjects-LA.pdf
Mathematics Projects: http://web.archive.org/web/20010613033649/www.nycenet.edu/oit/SmartProjects-Math.pdf
Science Projects: http://web.archive.org/web/20010613042322/www.nycenet.edu/oit/SmartProjects-Science.pdf

December 11, 2002 archive of the site:

Instructional Resources for Language Arts Teachers by Teresa E. Bader and Anna Mendez
http://web.archive.org/web/20030330200520/www.nycenet.edu/oit/laresources/index.htm

Please explore the many other versions of the archives. Many still carry the downloadable items that OIT worked hard to produce and share with colleagues.