a history of curriculum services canada

and offline learning resources such as the Internet, videos, audio tapes, course handouts,
newspapers, books, and CD-ROMs. (The Software Assessor was eventually developed within
this new system, giving OCC a new tool for evaluating commercial CD-ROMs.) This software
package had the advantage of technological sophistication, allowing for the possibility of
consistency in accessing quality materials across the province. Its user compatibility, including
program availability in both English and French, made it an obvious choice for OCC. It would
mean, however, that OCC would also have to invest in a much more powerful Internet server to
accommodate this software package. A presentation of this joint venture to officials in the
Curriculum Branch of the Ministry was set for the end of March.
In the meantime, the Ministry extended an invitation to OCC to make a presentation to The
People’s Education Press of China on March 2. Chinese education officials were interested in
improving their standards in the 30 provinces across China and were looking for exemplary
models to help them with their own vision of change.
OCC reviews of learning materials in the private sector and not-for-profit organizations included
training materials developed by the Royal Bank for use in high school classrooms, substance
abuse prevention materials for Renascent House, “heart smart” education for the Heart and
Stroke Foundation, and elementary Science CD-ROM for Flying Rhino, a division of Disney.
Also in March, the Council of Ontario Directors of Education (CODE) was invited to become a
member of OCC, filling the OTF vacancy, with the position of one directorship accepted by the
end of the month. Another change was the resignation of Ayman Antoun, who was being
relocated to New York by IBM, and his replacement in the person of John Kutcy, also of IBM.
At the Annual Meeting in June several structural changes in OCC were implemented. These
included dissolving the Curriculum and Business Boards and establishing instead 1) an
Education Advisory Committee, to advise the board on educational matters or to research and
make recommendations to the board on issues identified; and 2) a Business Advisory
Committee. Both boards would meet twice yearly.
Also presented was a new vision of OCC, which showed it divided into four corporations, as
follows: 1) Canadian Curriculum Services Corporation (CCSC) (a new corporation); 2) Ontario
Curriculum Corporation (OCC re-named only); 3) The Curriculum Foundation (TCF); and 4)
pdstore.com. All new titles were agreed upon in the meeting as working titles only, until further
legal consultation could be undertaken. The main purpose of the reorganization was to develop
an umbrella Canadian organization that could compete internationally, as well as nationally and
locally. While TCF would be the charitable arm of the corporation, supporting learning resource
development initiatives, pdstore.com would represent the e-commerce arm, offering a one-stop
source for curriculum resources, and OCC would function as it always had, but with CCSC now
responsible for the overall management and philosophy, operating systems, guidelines, and bylaws.
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