(San Antonio, TX, 6/14/02) - Cognitive Systems Technologies,
Inc. (CST), a San Antonio, Texas-based corporation with additional
offices in Dallas, TX, and Davis, CA, has signed a contract
with the Richardson (TX) Independent School District to install
Curriculum Planner, CST's flagship curriculum management and
online delivery system.
Richardson ISD, with 35,000 students, joins Plano ISD (49,000
students), and Garland ISD (53,000 students), as larger users
of Curriculum Planner, which allows a school district to maintain
a live and online reservior of all the best curriculum materials,
all interrelated with assessments, objectives, state standards,
and skills.
"By working closely with mentor teachers we have captured
in an easy-to-use online system, the process of how a teacher
looks for and uses various elements of the curriculum, so that
all a district's best-practices can be available online district-wide",
notes Steve Brown, Ph.D., president of CST.
Garland ISD, in the Dallas Metroplex, has been using Curriculum
Planner for a year. Dr. Butch Sloan, Secondary Mathematics Coordinator
at Garland ISD reports that "After working with over 100
math teachers in my district who are using the Curriculum Planner
to access the district scope and sequence of activities, I would
suggest that this application holds the greatest promise for
supporting real change in the classroom and thereby improving
our results with students. Curriculum Planner allows us to bring
the best resources and the most extensive planning to every
classroom in the district. It also provides a vehicle for monitoring
instruction to the extent never before possible."
Plano ISD, adjacent to Garland ISD, has been using the product
widely. Plano's Executive Director of Curriculum, Dr. Jim Wussow,
coordinated the use of Curriculum Planner with a 4-year middle
school curriculum development project. "Curriculum Planner",
Dr. Wussow notes, "is a natural for us, largely because it's
been designed by teachers from a teacher's point of view. It
approaches curriculum from the logical entry points and allows
teachers to easily see meaningful correlations and connections
without getting cumbersome. It is the curriculum delivery tool
for our teachers. They love it and use it daily."
Additional optional features of Curriculum Planner include a
teacher calendar, allowing online activities to be linked to
instructional days visually, teacher calendar sharing with parents
and students who have home Internet access, and inter-group
and inter-district curriculum sharing.
The curriculum sharing feature holds tremendous promise, according
to Dr. Brown of CST. "With our August version release, Curriculum
Planner will set the stage for a quantum leap in how curriculum
can and will be delivered in the future. The wheel is being
re-invented in thousands of school districts nationwide. By
allowing for cross-school and cross-district curriculum sharing,
Curriculum Planner can allow the best curriculum elements at
any district to be available to other participating districts".
For more information, contact CST (www.cogni.com) at 800-756-1747.
