Originally published:
We are celebrating 25 years of the Illinois Early Learning (IEL) Project. This timeline recognizes IEL’s long-standing history and major accomplishments achieved over the decades.
In the Beginning
2001
- IEL was first funded by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE).
- IEL’s first Project Investigator (PI) was Dr. Lilian Katz and the first Project Coordinator was Diane Rothenberg.
- IEL’s initial purpose: to assure the continuing availability of current readily accessible, useful, understandable information to parents, caregivers, and those individuals and organizations involved in providing services to children eligible for early educational and related programs.
2002
- The first set of IEL Tip Sheets was created and posted online.
- Translation of tip sheets began, first into Polish to serve Polish-speaking families in the Chicago-land area.
- There were 78,644 visitor sessions to the website.
2003
- Translation of materials into Spanish began.
- There were 268,644 visitor sessions to the website.
2004
- Short video and audio clips were added to the site to demonstrate the Illinois Early Learning and Development Standards (IELDS) and the Illinois Early Learning Guidelines (IELGs) in action.
2006
- More than 115 unique IEL tip sheets were available to readers online.
- Our second Principal Investigator, Dr. Susan Fowler, began work on IEL.
2012
- The website reached nearly 681,591 teachers, parents, and caregivers throughout the State of Illinois and the world that year.
2013
- Dr. Bernadette Laumann became the Project Coordinator and remained in this position through 2019.
2017
- The IEL podcast was launched, providing an additional way to provide evidence-based information to parents and educators.
2019
- Our third Principal Investigator, Dr. Micki Ostrosky, began her leadership of IEL.
2020
- Dr. Ostrosky was then joined by Dr. Emily Dorsey, and they both lead IEL as Principal Investigators.
Today
- IEL’s current mission: The Illinois Early Learning Project is a source of evidence-based, reliable information on early care and education for families, caregivers, and teachers of young children in Illinois.
- All 250+ tip sheets are available in English, Spanish, and Polish.
- Many of our tip sheets are available in seven languages: English, Spanish, Polish, French, Arabic, Korean, and Simplified Chinese, which are common languages spoken in Illinois by families of young children.
- IEL staff present and exhibit at many state-wide early childhood conferences each year.
- IEL continues to generate new content, including tipsheets, podcast episodes, blogs, Q&As, resource lists, tool kits, faculty resources, and Project Approach resources.
The Future
- The Illinois Early Learning Project team will continue providing Illinois teachers, parents, and caregivers evidence-based information on early childhood education and parenting.
- The format of our content may evolve based on the needs of our community, but our passion for creating and sharing high-quality early childhood content will never change.
Thank You
Thank you to IEL staff, including those listed below, who have contributed to the growth of IEL over the years.
Bernard Cesarone, Natalie Danner, Kevin Dolan, Deborah Fuoss, Berkeley Hinrichs, Bernie Laumann, Nancy McEntire, Jean Mendoza, Peggy Patten, Laurel Preece, Diane Rothenberg, Karen Smith, Rebecca Swartz, Jill Tompkins, and the numerous graduate students in the Department of Special Education who have been involved in the project.
Natalie Danner
Dr. Natalie Danner is a Content Specialist for the Illinois Early Learning Project. She has worked in university-based early childhood teacher preparation programs in Nebraska, Oregon, and Connecticut and as an early childhood teacher and school leader in New York City and Arizona. She earned her Ph.D. in early childhood special education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Biography current as of 2021