A little help?

I am amazed at how quickly many of you teachers & authors get new materials ready for new challenges. I've been reading Lucy Calkins' updated curriculum for writing this summer to prepare for the Common Core State Standards. How in the world did she get that curriculum written, tested, revised, samples gathered, teachers trained to assist in her research, students to observe & confer with, and have it all published in time for the new season?  I am very thankful for her leadership gifts and her willingness to share them with our profession!

As I pore over the many templates and charts she has produced, I'm wondering once again, why is it so necessary to "lock" everything up? As an immersion teacher, I know from the "get-go" that I will have to revise, translate & adapt any charts or templates that I find in the curriculum. I would think that by now publishers would also be aware of the many immersion and bilingual programs that are out there, so why not just unlock these templates & chart samples so we can download them and start editing them for our classrooms? Being a digital immigrant, I do not always relish having to copy the idea, but start from scratch to make the worksheets. I know my traditional peers will be able to just download, print & voila! have a template ready to go for day 1.

So I went to option #2: See if my school's technology allows me to change PDFs to Word documents so that I can quickly & easily edit the templates & be ready to go "in a jiff!"  Alas, we teachers do not have that privilege. It was purchased for a few administrators, but not for teachers. If I would like I could purchase it myself for the school's price of $60, then I could have access to these helps. It was also recommended that I put it on a more public computer so that other teachers could take advantage of my purchase as well. I'm all about sharing, but in a day and age where both technological savvy and immersion education are highly valued, (not to mention you'll be evaluated on these during the school year) why would you not make this available to your staff?

What did I do? I bought the program for my personal laptop for $20. And now I begin the process of editing, adapting, and printing templates and charts that will be totally in line with the curriculum, and totally usable for my immersion classroom! Win-win! But really, publishers & administrators, let's start planning better so that all of our teachers will be able to start the new school year with all the materials they need, in the language they need them!

~Sheryl René