When I first started teaching I used a commercial planbook, but it never really met my needs as a self-contained classroom teacher. In more recent years I have created a template in Microsoft Word or Open Office, printed it out weekly and penciled in my lessons, enclosing the pages in a three ring binder, which I use as a plan book.
This week I will be trialing Planbook Edu, a free, online planbook. The free Planbook Edu includes the ability to plan for one class (which is all most of us severe special needs teachers have), access from any internet connected computer, nothing to install, and WYSIWYG editing.
It is the "premium" features that I really like and I have a feeling that after the seven day free trial of using the "premium" Planbook Edu I will pay the $20.00 to upgrade. These features include printing from your browser, attaching up to a 2MB file to each block of the plan book, sharing your plans, exporting to MS Word or PDF and built in spell check.
The 2MB file attachment isn't big enough for most Unique Learning or News-2-You files, but is just fine for craft instructions and recipes. I am already finding it helpful to download these types of things on my laptop at home and attach to the Planbook Edu so I can print on my work computer.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI run PlanbookEdu. Thank you for the kind post. The file attachment feature is new this year, so we are still tweaking it fit the needs of our users. How big are files for Unique Learning and News-2-You?
Please don't hesitate to email us if you have any other questions or feedback.
Thanks,
Matt
support@planbookedu.com
Thanks for the comment. Most of the files for the Unique Learning System for the level my class uses are just under 3MB, however there is one that are a few that are larger (up to 7.5MB).
ReplyDeleteFor those of us teaching this population of severe, profound or multiple special needs our files tend to be very, very heavy on images. Images which are rich in color. This is because few of our students are true "readers".
That being said, I already went ahead and paid my $20.00 for the year, I am really loving the idea of a web 2.0 program that does what PlanbookEdu does.
I found it quite difficult to use. Would you say the learning curve eventually levels off? It didn't seem intuitive to me.
ReplyDeleteWas the file for unique fixed?
ReplyDelete