How I Use It
Countdown is a calendar based organization tool that allows you to plan units of study and align them to the Common Core. You're also able to share your calendars with other people such as teachers and administrators. Countdown is a drag and drop system. You can choose between the ELA and math standards and drop them into a unit that you created. The next step is drop the standard into the calendar on the day that you would teach it. As a teacher just dropping a standard in on the day I'm going to teach it doesn't do it for lesson planning. The site needs to go to the next step and add a place where teachers can write notes and upload documents.
Countdown has taken an idea with potential, but has failed to deliver a product that is fully useful to a teacher. I do like that the standards for ELA and Math have been changed to student friendly learning targets. Next Generation of Science Standards (NGSS) should also be added to the choices so that science teachers could use it as well. As I stated before, Countdown needs to add areas where teachers can write down their lesson and also upload documents. Teachers want a tool where they can add all the information they need to a unit or lesson plan. Unfortunately, Countdown doesn't provide all the bells and whistles to make it a meaningful tool that teachers would use.