The Story of NHEON.og

Phase I:
Fall 1997 - Summer 1998

The concept of the NH Educators Online site was first explored in fall 1997 and developed more fully in the spring of 1998 by a steering committee composed of teachers, librarians, technology coordinators, and representatives from NHDOE and NHPTV. The team created a white paper to describe the concept of the site, which was then presented to the NH Statewide Educational Technology Council. The Council reacted favorably and encouraged the team to make the site a reality. The original team that conceptualized this site included:

• Cathy Higgins, Educational Technology Consultant, NH Department of Education
• Dan Hudkins, Technology Director, Sunapee School District
• Jack Iacopino, Science teacher, Sunapee Middle School
• Jean Newcombe, Library Media Specialist, Fairgrounds Junior High, Nashua
• Kathi Mitchell, Fifth Grade Teacher, Kimball School, Concord
• Marilyn Soraghan, Fifth Grade Teacher, Bicentennial Elementary School, Nashua
• Nancy Keane, Library Media Specialist, Rundlett Junior High School, Concord
• Sean Kelleher, NHPTV Knowledge Network
• Susan Janosz, Curriculum Specialist, Manchester School District

Note: The positions listed were current at the time of the initial team development.

Phase II:
Spring 1999 - Summer 1999

After several months of dialogue within the Department about the intent of the site and its future possibilities for serving the needs of the NH educational community, the site creation work began. Early in Phase II, the Concord School District took a proactive role in collaborating with the NH Department of Education to create the NHEON site. The actual development of the site was done in stages, with participation from some of the original team (Cathy Higgins, Dan Hudkins, Nancy Keane, Kathi Mitchell), plus some new educators and web developers:
From school districts: Mark Denoncour (District Technology Coordinator, Concord) and Chris MacLeod (High School English Teacher, Concord)
From eyeon interactive: Roddy Richards, Michelle Carter, Alyssa Howe, David Blado, Nick Clark
Through the generosity of The Destek Group, Inc, hosting for the NHEON site was provided from 1999 to 2001 at no cost to the project. Without their dedication and invaluable assistance, the site would not likely have succeeded past this phase of development. Additional assistance was offered during this phase of the project from Nick Donohue (who understood the vision and was fully supportive of the project), Carolyn Horn and Linda Pederson (who assisted us in the inclusion of the NH Guidelines for World Languages), and Anne Dearborn, Gary Guzouskas, Ed Hendry, Tim Kurtz, Christy Hammer, Helen Schotanus, Linda Stimson, Virginia Irwin, Judy Fillion, Tondy Higginbotham, Joanne Baker, and Chrys Bouvier.

Phase III:
Fall 1999 - Spring 2001

NHEON has been online since the summer of 1999 with site improvements ongoing. Again, the Concord School District took on the task of collaborating with the NH Department of Education to ensure continued progress. Mark Denoncour has acted as project manager and as Concord's liaison to the NH Department of Education. Cathy Higgins has filled a comparable role for the NH Department of Education. For the highly technical aspects of the site, the services of Roddy Richards of Netstat.net have been coordinated by Concord.
Presentations have been made to various educational groups to increase awareness about and use of the site and to assist newcomers to become more familiar with the sites' unique features. Districts receiving funds through the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund in rounds 4 and 5 were required to submit a minimum of two lesson contributions to the curriculum library. This served two purposes: contributors learned about NHEON as a resource sharing mechanism, and contributors became acquainted with the curriculum frameworks area of the site.
A team of reviewers, coordinated by Mark Denoncour, assisted with content addition and review of contributions to the curriculum library. The reviewers have included:

• Dan Hudkins, Technology Director, Sunapee School District
• Jack Iacopino, Science teacher, Sunapee Middle School
• Kathi Mitchell, Fifth Grade Teacher, Kimball School, Concord
• Margo Burns, World Language Teacher, St Paul's School, Concord
• Mark Denoncour, Fifth Grade Teacher, Beaver Meadow School, Concord
• Nancy Keane, Library Media Specialist, Rundlett Junior High School, Concord
• Susan Janosz, Curriculum Specialist, Manchester School District
• Steve Rothenberg, Technology Director and former Fifth Grade Teacher, Concord

The addition of an online survey in Spring 2001 presented an alternative means of gathering visitor feedback on ways to further improve the site.

Phase IV:
Summer 2001 - Summer 2007

With the awarding of a TLCF statewide initiative project to Fall Mountain Regional School District in February 2001, a new phase of the NHEON site was opened. Acting as TLCF project manager, Dorothy Grazier began dialogue with the NHEON management team of Cathy Higgins, Mark Denoncour and Roddy Richards to extend the coordination efforts in ways that would include the resources of the Marco Polo Program. Marco Polo workshops for NH educators began in summer 2001 and will be ongoing. These sessions will introduce educators to the rich content provided through the Marco Polo program and the NH specific resources provided through the NHEON site. Another aspect of this program is the alignment of Marco Polo lessons to the NH frameworks during the 2001-02 academic year.With the addition of the Arts frameworks and the addition of Marco Polo content, the following review team was established for Phase IV:

• Carol Castellano, Arts Teacher, Dover School District
• Donna Broers, Arts Teacher, Winnisquam School District
• Jack Iacopino, Science teacher, Sunapee Middle School
• Kathi Mitchell, Fifth Grade Teacher, Kimball School, Concord
• Kim Severance, Arts Teacher, Freedom Elementary School
• Lucy Johnson, Arts Teacher, Fall Mountain Regional School District
• Margo Burns, World Language Teacher, St Paul's School, Concord
• Nancy Keane, Library Media Specialist, Rundlett Junior High School, Concord
• Susan Janosz, Curriculum Specialist, Manchester School District

Note: The positions listed were current at the time of the Phase IV review team.
Also during Phase IV, the NHEON site got a facelift, with menu items changed, added, and repositioned.

Phase V:
Summer 2007 - Fall 2011

The recent updating of all of the NH Curriculum Frameworks meant that the NHEON curriculum database also needed updating, so in the summer of 2007 the NHEON site got another facelift. The datbase was recreated with the new curriculum standards numbering, the main menu was streamlined to focus on the most used areas of the site, and work continued to expand and refine the site.
In 2006, the Department of Education was awarded an e-Learning for Educators subgrant, as part of a larger Ready to Teach grant awarded to Alabama Public Television. The Office of Educational Technology managed the grant, which established the OPEN NH program for the delivery of high quality professional development online. A new online learning consultant was hired in May, 2006 to coordinate the grant and oversee the project. NHEON.org became the hosting site for the OPEN NH website.
As interest in online learning increased, Governor John Lynch requested that NH create and maintain an online learning website. The Office of Educational Technology was asked to incorporate web pages dedicated to online learning in New Hampshire, and include it under the NHEON umbrella.

Phase VI:
Fall 2011 - Summer 2014

In the Fall of 2011, the Educational Technology Consultant left the Department of Education. The e-Learning for Educators Coordinator took on the responsibilities of the state educational technology director, along with the online learning responsiblities. In the previous year, the state adopted the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics to replace the NH Frameworks. The curriculum database on NHEON was no longer valid and necessary, as online content aligned to standards became more widespread. NHEON.org again needed to be refreshed to meet the needs of our NH educators.
A bold, clean, look was developed for NHEON.org, and the supporting OPEN NH and Online Learning websites were refreshed at the same time to coordinate with the new look of NHEON. With limited available time, the updating of NHEON.org became challenging. Pages were updated as time permitted and new content becames necessary asresources changed. Some aspects of NHEON.org had to remain in their older version, with some links broken. Work continued to keep the site and information as current and relevant as time permitted

Phase VII:
Fall 2014 - 2019

With the adoption of the new Minimum Standards for School Approval in 2014 and the modernization of the e-rate requirements, refresh projects for the ICT Literacy and the Technology Planning Toolkits were accomplished. Other pages were refresh as time permitted. NHEON remained a vital and thriving site. The OPEN NH project celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2016. The Office of Educational Technology was lost in the Department reorganization in 2019. The work will continue under the name New Hampshire Educational Technology (#NHEdTech). The NH e-Learning for Educators Project, including OPEN NH, was shuttered on June 30, 2019. The OPEN NH website was removed from NHEON at project end.

Phase VIII:
2020 and Beyond

In 2019 the COVID-19 Global Pandemic hit. NHEdTech was reorganized again to be the sole consultant for the Federal Title IV-A program. It was clear as the new decade opened that NHEON.org would have to be totally rebuilt in order to stay fresh and meet the needs of New Hampshire schools and districts. The ICT Literacy program was renamed to Digital Literacy and the ICT Literacy Program Standards (Ed 306.42) had to be refreshed as well to reflect the name change as well as changes in available tools and resources. Likewise, technology planning was more often thought of as digital learning planning. These changes required updates to the ICT Literacy and Technology Planning toolkits. Plans for the NHEON rebuild included those updates along with a simplification of the site layout and menu system. The rebuild occurred over the summer and fall of 2020.  Launch of the new upgraded site began in June 2021. The newly rebuilt pages were integrated with updated existing pages. Further updates of those exisitng pages continued. New pages and updates to current pages are added as needed.