 In September of 2000, Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum, sought a grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (AVD) to support the extension of its educational activities by creating an Online Learning Center. As they were developing their grant proposal, Plimoth educators spoke with AVD staff who suggested they look at an online learning environment developed at Harvard Graduate School of Education with funding from AVD. Plimoth liked the way this website, called Education with New Technologies, supported and reflected the use of a specific research-based educational model known as Teaching for Understanding (TfU). Plimoth crafted a grant proposal that included TfU as a guiding framework for the development of their Online Learning Center. Their plan was to convene a group of "technologically proficient" educators from university, museum and public school settings to develop this product. According to the proposal, this group would begin their collaboration and product development as learners in an online course called Teaching to Standards with New Technologies which utilized the TfU framework and was taught by the director of the Education with New Technologies website.
In February 2001, after Plimoth received funding from AVD, a study group of four museum educators from Plimoth and five elementary school educators from the Boston area began the 14-week online course. The course aimed to help groups of educators learn how to design curriculum that incorporated new technologies to improve learners' understanding of important curriculum standards. Participants in the course made use of resources in the Education with New Technologies website as they collaborated to develop their curriculum. Enrolled educators were assigned to a study group of 8-10 participants, each of which was facilitated by a WIDE World coach. The coach for this group, MaryBeth Kinkead, was not only experienced in providing support for this particular online course, but she was also a former elementary teacher who had taken her students to Plimoth Plantation and made use of a range of new technologies in her classroom.
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